Benchstone Fine 2" x 8" W/Box

I’ve been using the Spyderco Benchstone Fine 2" x 8" for freehand sharpening and finishing my blades, and it has quickly become one of my favorite stones. It allows me to achieve razor-sharp edges, capable of clean push cuts through phone book paper, especially when paired with a leather strop afterward. The stone is well-constructed, consistent, and easy to control during freehand use. It feels smooth, precise, and predictable, making it ideal for honing fine edges and finishing work. Overall, this benchstone is highly effective, give amazign feedback while sharpening, durable, and a must-have for serious knife enthusiasts or anyone who enjoys freehand sharpening.

Review is for the entire Spyderco set: Spent a long time researching and pricing different sharpening stones, steels, ceramics, etc., the Spyderco set is the best value, and is very high quality. They won't cut as fast as the waterstones, but are a huge improvement over Arkansas stones. Unlike waterstones they won't consume you in maintenance in lapping. Many folks have reviews out there where they lapped these stones, but I disagree. They are flat enough for everything I've tried including straight razors, and lapping according to some is not beneficial for the stone. If you are pressed for the absolute flattest surface available, buy a Shapton and spend 3x as much. I am a knifemaker and I do the bulk of my sharpening with my belt grinder, however I still like to sharpen by hand, and it's nice not to have to run out to the shop to touch up my kitchen knives, pocket knife, etc. Only complaint isn't much of a complaint but the limits of the medium stone. The medium is the coarsest but is still fairly fine and is too slow at repairing a truly blunt edge. This is where I turn to the belt grinder to re-establish the bevel, however when I'm traveling or don't feel like going to the shop, a coarse DMT is a must. Use the coarse diamond to regrind the flats on the bevel, then jump to the blue medium stone to smooth out your work and progress through the UF. I finish my edges on a homemade leather bench strop with a light touch of chromium oxide. This might be overkill for most considering you will get hair shaving (arm hair w/ pressure) with the fine stone. Bottom line is you won't find a comparable range of sharpening grits in any other form for less $$$. That excludes the sandpaper system which is the cheapest but I'd rather sharpen on a stone than paper on glass, even if my stone is synthetic.

These Spyderco stones are great. I have all three, medium, fine, and ultra fine. I would say they are best for experienced sharpeners though. None of them are particularly aggressive so you can get frustrated trying to bring back a very dull knife. You will want to add something more aggressive to your kit. Do your homework, don't just randomly buy these because you want a 'good' sharpener and don't know where to start. Depending on the steel and the degree of LIGHT pressure that you use, they could load up quickly and stop cutting efficiently. I clean mine with a scouring powder before each use. You can read for weeks on sharpening and get hundreds of opinions on what is 'best'. My main kit includes four dmt diamond stones, x course, course, fine, and x fine. Between those and the Spydercos, I am covered for everything I might need. The Spyderco medium is said to be similar to the dmt x fine. I find it slightly more fine. Maybe they cut similarly, but the Spyderco leaves me with a smoother edge. Some feel the dmt xfine and Spyderco brown are redundant, I don't. Some find the fine and medium too similar, I don't, but I understand their thoughts and experiences. Some prefer the ultra fine over the fine. I only use the ultra for special jobs, others use it routinely. Do your homework, these are good stones, but you need to understand where they fit in a more complete sharpening routine and there are different paths to a great edge.

--Edited in 2017-02-28 This review is for the Spyderco Fine Benchstone with box, 2x8 inches. I have mine for six years now, and it works as well as the day I bought it. I can discern no wear or change in shape because of use. Some reviews complain that the stones are not flat. I only use mine on slightly curved blades, my Victorinox Fibrox 7-Inch Granton Edge Santoku being the straightest, and I have no complaints. Mine is frequently used for kitchenware and rarely for maintaining my small collection of knives - mostly bushcraft and diving. My kitchen knives are the main application, it makes cooking safer and a lot more enjoyable. My knives are used daily and fortunately I had no accidents in the last 6 years. The three small cuts people got in the first year were probably poor judgment in how knives in general should be handled, and they were used to getting away with it because they used such dull knives. -- Original Review follows with very minor edits -- I have one of these for about one year and just bought another to give as a gift. -Comes in a blue plastic case, with rubber feet. -Feels like it will break if you drop it. Treat it like you would your glassware. -Cleaning with a paper napkin provides quick good results (removes metal dust, makes sharpening faster and cleaner) -Brushing with an eraser restores it to near new appearance. -Does not show any wear after a year of continuous use -Requires some skill to use. It's very easy and fast to maintain an edge once you get the hang of it. -Not suitable for using on a dull knife, sharpen it on coarser stones before trying this one. -Sharpening with water makes a mess. I only did it once. -Slower than the diamond stones. I estimate I need about 20 passes on each side (alternating sides, beginning with more pressure and finishing barely touching the stone) to bring a sharp knife to very sharp condition. -From my experience, does not need flattening or "breaking in" of any kind. A brand new stone produced a hair shaving edge the first time I used it - granted I already knew how to use it because of my old stone. Safety issues: -Knives properly sharpened with this will be sharper than a regular box cutter. They will shave hair. -DO NOT LEAVE AN OPEN BLADE IN THE DRAWER, put it in a knife block or use something like BladeSafe. -Warn people not used to such sharp blades before they use them. I use the box cutter analogy. Two people cut themselves more than once even after I warned them about my knives and even after they had already hurt themselves once. One of them still loves my knives, though. -Be careful not to hurt yourself while sharpening. Read or watch a good tutorial on the internet.

These stones (I bought the set, Medium, Fine and Ultra Fine) are fantastic! If I could, I'd give them 4.5 stars, the half-point loss is because of flatness. I called Spyderco regarding the stone's flatness and they reported that the flatness tolerances were "not known" and that they had received reports from some users that this was a problem, particularly straight razor users. I don't use those, but I do sometimes need to true-up parts (gun parts, etc.) and this stone isn't quite fit for that. For use on knives for sharpening - absolutely fantastic! Spyderco says to use them dry, but I've found that I can use them with water and get excellent results; it helps keep the dross (steel cut from the blade) from clogging the pores of the stone and that keeps the stone cutting longer without needing cleaning. I've had them for probably 9 months now and have cleaned one of them once and they still cut wonderfully.

I own the Spyderco Medium Bench Stone, the Spyderco Fine Bench Stone, & the Spyderco Ultra-Fine Bench Stone. This will be my fourth or fifth edit, and hopefully, last edit...after owning all three several years. Pros: 1) Each Will last forever (I've never wavered on this.) 2) Not as messy as water or oil stones 3) Nice results once I broke them in and started using the edges of the Medium to speed things up. In this way, the Medium is like two stones in one. Using the edges allows a much higher force per area [I got the idea from a Spyderco video on the use of the Spyderco sharpmaker.] It sets the bevel quickly...then I can use the flat sides, finer stones...and a strop. Probably I was never patient enough using only the flat sides. Speaking of "flat" I should say that I was FAR TOO concerned with making the stones perfectly flat. I attacked them with diamond stones and then rubbed the ceramic stones against one another for hours--I did make them flat but I also made the Medium and Fine smoother and SLOWER. If I had it to do over I would break them in with an AXE or a super dull knife. A piece of good news here is that on the edges I achieve such a force per area during knife sharpening that I do expose new material and those surfaces are nice and rough (remember I only use edges on the "Medium" stone. Cons: If you want perfectly flat you will be disappointed: My Medium was bowed quite a bit. The Fine, Was clearly not flat (bowed), and the edges of mine were higher than the center. I see no reason to own the Fine AND UF--because they are (grit wise) too close--I'd say Choose One. Some people complain about the tool marks on the UF. My stone did display such marks when used--like when one takes a notepad and goes over the entirety of the top sheet w/ a pencil and indentations become apparent from writing that was done on previous top sheets. Those marks didn't bother me; It also came w/ something like a boulder on a runway--but I've now been over all my ceramic stones w/ a diamond stone so these features no longer exist...and in the case of the UF I will never complain that I made it too smooth--that's a complaint I only have with regard to the Medium Stone.

While kind of pricey for something to sharpen knives, this is a nice, hefty very fine ceramic sharpening stone. You can us it in the case, which has non-slip silicone feet. I have the impression this will be essentially impossible to wear out and should get handed down to my son. I also have the brown medium stone and expect to do virtually all my sharpening with these two stones and a strop. No water required, except afterwards to clean the stones. I believe these will last a lifetime.

These Sypderco ceramic stones are fantastic. You can use them wet or dry. These stones stay dead flat. I've used mine for about 3 years now and loved them. NOTE: These stones are extremely fine. These stones are going to be best at polishing your edge. If you need to repair a damaged edge or remove a lot of material from your blade, These are not the stones you want. These stones remove material extremely slowly because they're so fine. But they will put a mirror polish on your blade.

The stone itself is good, but was thrown in a small bag without any padding or protection and shipped internationally, arrived looking like it had been picked out of a bin. Miraculously didnt arrive broken but i would have no confidence recommending buying this unless it was shown even the smallest amout of care.

Although I am still convinced the best types of sharpening stones are Japanese waterstones and diamond electroplated products like DMT and Atoma, the Spyderco ceramic do fill an important enough niche to warrant purchase. I do not like the Medium stone as its microstructure is far too open and therefore loads up very readily. This combined with it's intended use as moderate to minor stock removal produces a poor result: the stone loads quickly therefore ceases to cut well, thus I find I am constantly cleaning the thing. Neither water nor oil provided a worthwhile result when used to help float away the swarf; the stone still loaded rapidly. The fine and ultrafine, however, perform their functions with aplomb. The fine is an excellent maintenance stone if used for daily touch-ups and its microstructure is closed, allowing for the use of water or oil (I much prefer water) to lubricate the stone and combat surface loading. The ultrafine converts the fine scratch pattern to a clean mirror if you performly your strokes properly. The resulting edge is incredibly crisp, impressively sharp. I usually sharpen my edges on waterstones but I almost ALWAYS finish the edge on the ultrafine. It is a non-friable, extremely hard, and mirror-fine stone that performs the duty of finishing stone/microbeveller with near no equal

Quick delivery. Stable base. Nice job sharpening.

Excellent product. Use it for sharpening speed skating blades.

Expensive but quality product