Sharping stone???

[Weekend Warrior]

Gota KME sharpner whats a good stone for magnus heads?
Thanks
Merry Christmas

[Bill Carlsen]

The India Oil Stone that KME sells is pretty good...and cheap.

[Lin Rhea]

Bill's right, the india stone is a good one. You can refine the edge more with an medium Arkansas stone if you like. Ron is the man to ask though. I bet he will be here soon.
                              Lin

[Sharpster]

I think for the average, reasonably sharp out of the pack broadhead like Magnus, it would be hard to beat the Norton combination India stone (model IB-6). It's only $17, coarse on one side and med-fine on the other side. Great starter stone, and if you can put a belly in it, I'll give you another one free. I have one that's about 25 years old and it's still flat on both sides.

I like to follow this with a Hard Arkansas and then strop on leather or cardboard for that polished sugical edge.

Some people prefer Diamond stones but they're expensive and overkill for the Magnus IMO.

-Ron

[Sharpster]

I think I should expand a bit on stone choices.

Aside from which broadheads are going to be sharpened there are a couple more considerations that should be taken into acount befor deciding on a particular a stone or stones.

Diamond stones:
While quite expensive compared to Arkansas and ceramic man-made stones, diamonds in x-coarse, coarse and fine are great time savers. This is especially true for broadheads like the Grizzlys and Zwicky Deltas which require a lot of stock removal on that first, "out of the pack" sharpening but, also applies to all broadheads. Diamonds are fast and aggressive.
I recently purchased a 8" x 3" XX-coarse DMT diamond ($85, ouch!)to try on the Grizzlys and Deltas. $85 is a lot of money for a single grit stone but, I think it's worth it's weight in gold. It took a 190 El Grande down to a smooth bevel in about 4 minutes. No Arkansas or ceramic stone in the world could do that.

Now for polishing and fine tuning a surgical edge, even the very best quality x-fine diamonds can't begin to compete with either the ceramics or the Arkansas stones.

Arkansas stones:
Arkansas' are still the ultimate polishing stones. They are inexpensive in the small and mid-sized versions but a very large one will cost even more than a diamond. Fortunately, a 2 x6 or 2 x 8 inch stone is plenty big for broadheads and most free hand knife sharpening. Arkansas stones come in a variety of grits from the coarse "Wa****a" (a soft stone) to super xtra fine black or translucent "hard" Arkansas. Arkansas are not "grinding" stones though. They are for refining and polishing a blade that is somewhere near sharp to begin with.

The ceramics:
Ceramics come in many forms. The grinding wheels on a bench grinder are Silicon Carbide ceramic. Silicon carbide is designed to break down. Each time a particle breaks, a new sharp edge is exposed. This is why you see those grey/black bench stones with the center section worn away.

India is the trade name for Aluminum Oxide ceramic Stones, (no I don't know why they call them that) Aluminum Oxide is a much more durable ceramic and with normal use these stones will stay flat forever. Combination India stones like the Norton are my personal favorite "go to" stone for just about every sharpening job.

The Indias are the middle ground between the highly aggressive diamonds and the smooth polishing Arkansas. This is why I recomend them as starter stones. They are fairly aggressive and can also polish to a point. Most importantly they don't cost a fortune.

Hope this helps,

-Ron