Affording good sharpening stones

[hbmcc]

Haw, hahhh! I thought Carter wore a bath/bed robe to keep his t-shirts clean. 

During the intermission I checked his web page. His sharpening systems were pricey, funky looking; and his reasonably priced knives were scratching $1k. The business aspect of fever pitch human machine takes away from creative quality. Sort of a bean counter mentality.

I do like his method for sharpening kitchen knives, however. I am pushing spousal tolerance by general sharpening there without the dented stainless sink, plugged pea-trap and sewer lines, and gritty counter top. Planes and chisels on the kitchen table are problematic at dinner time.

But then, as a child, I watched my dad build life size dinosaur legs in the kitchen-living room. A woodworking apprenticeship of sorts. After all farm animals kept their people warm at night a thousand years ago.

[maswindell]

Good suggestions from everyone. Thanks! to be clear, again, I bought some shaptons and a diamond plate a while back. I just happened to see the pricing bug shown in the screenshot in the first post and thought it was worth a laugh.

I actually did buy the cheap Norton combo stone with my very first block plane. I think it was 7" rather than 8, and possibly black and grey? Less than $10. Opened the package and it looked bad. I probably could have just rubbed it on a cinderblock or something, maybe sandpaper on tile, but I just returned it. Along with the plane that had a massively twisted lever cap. Do I have bad juju, or am I just picky and cheap or is quality control and packing ethic things that don't exist?

The spyderco looks neat. I like the dry aspect of it. No oil no water. I read the first part of a sharpening book that advocated for that. The 8x3 is getting up there in price, though.

I was lucky years ago-20 maybe when dmt diamond were reasonble. I orderd a diamond combo from amazon for$27 400/1000 grit. While looking at youtube afew guys were using diamond plate from harbor freight, its 4 sided and comes in a stand for cheap. I am trying to the diamond plate to flatten chisel backs. As an aside I must have not locked the garage door and my collection of Witherby's was stolen !! I am beyond pissed because I was ready to sell them along with alot more chisels, but interesting that the thief only took the witherbys but I also have over 30 of name brand vintage that I will be selling. I hope they show up on Craigslist but I doubt it.