DMT A4E Whetstone Knife Sharpener and Diamond Sharpening Stone for Use with Aligner, 4 Inches, Extra Fine

Works like it should. Bought it used but it looked new.

High quality, no issues, but I wish I would have ordered the large stone. The pocket size is great for the car or boat, but not for serious sharpening.

The aligner kit that this stone works with is handy and most people should be able to put a decent edge on a knife with not much practice or know-how. This stone makes an edge good enough for average kitchen work. You do need the extra-extra fine stone to get an edge that comes close to being nicely sharp. Apparently it is expected that a diamond stone leaves a slightly rough edge. It cuts so fast and leaves tiny grooves in the beveled edge.Update 11-5-10I may have found a significant flaw in using diamond stones to sharpen knives and tools. I am not an expert at this, and I have not seen this mentioned anywhere else, so take it with a grain of salt.The edge of the knives that I have been sharpening, while sharp, do not hold that sharp edge very long.First, no matter how well you sharpen an edge, it is not perfect. The edge has little microscopic teeth on it. Similar to a saw. These `teeth' on a knife are not uniform in size, shape, and spacing, as on a saw. Nor are they rigid as on a saw. On a knife, when you cut something, these weak little teeth bend this way or that way, and the knife begins to feel dull.My theory:Those little bits of diamond grit on a diamond stone are, as you know, very, very hard. They cut very fast. They also cut very deep. They make deeper little grooves, on the beveled edge, than any other type of sharpening stone. These deeper grooves make larger teeth on the edge of the knife. A larger tooth is inherently weaker, and will bend more easily. Also, without going into great detail, the deeper grooves cause each little tooth to have less physical support, making them weaker still. They will bend even more easily.No matter what you use to sharpen an edge, those little teeth are created. They are always present. It appears to me that a diamond grit stone causes weaker teeth that bend more easily. The result is that the edge does not stay sharp as long as when other sharpening materials are used.More comment:Because diamond stones sharpen so fast and so easily, I still like them, and will still use them. I may try to find some other sharpening stone to use as a final sharpening step, to put a more `finished' edge on a knife.

Great stones and easy to travel with.

This is a pretty darn aggressive stone so ONLY buy this if you will be reprofiling your primary bevels. I do that with all my knives so this was worth it to me. I COULD have done that with just the coarse but it would have taken me much much longer without this stone.Please note: let the diamonds do the work for you - use very little or no pressure! Very gentle quick strokes are what is called for here!Note: this stone is meant to be used with the DMT Aligner. I suppose that you could use it freehand but that's not a wise thing with a smaller stone like this and setting a primary bevel ...

been using one of these for years and i have a slightly courser one for more damaged edges but they both work great and are great to have in camp to put an edge back on both knives and axes.

I ordered this for my delux aligner kit. It cuts aggressively. I did notice that when I ordered mine that it was slightly bowed thorugh the middle (Probably stored incorrectly by selller). I emailed DMT customer service and told them of the problem. They had a new one to me in less than a week no questions asked. GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE, COULDN'T HAVE BEEN EASIER. I gave the product four stars on account of this issue, but it is a great product.

too small for me to effectively use for any of my kitchen knives. I was going to return it but I tried it out on my felco garden pruners and it did a fantastic job. I don't think I would've bought it just for that, but I'll hang on to it for pruners and small garden jobs.

Compact; dependable; keeps knives very sharp.

Works well and fits, only use this grit to repair knife edge from heavy damage tho

This is a replacement for a worn out a previous coarse DMT with several super-steels like 20CV, M390, Maxamet, S110v.

I like the way it sharpens and fits in my DMT case

Works great.