Alex Garland is widely considered the authority on freehand sharpening. He was the lead voice on the design of the OD55. See what he loves from the final product, what's missing, and his honest (albeit biased) review.
A Biased Review, on Purpose
"This review is going to be biased, just like all my other reviews, because just like you, I prefer certain things over other things. But also because I helped design and inspect this."
Alex Garland, @Outdoors55
Those opinions come from years of testing edges under magnification for his channel. The Dual-Grit Diamond Sharpening Stone - OD55 Series was built from them, and here Alex holds his own work to the standard he holds everyone else's.
Why 320 and 1200, and Nothing Between
The stone carries two grits, 320 and 1200, and no intermediate. That was not a shortcut. It was the answer to a test.
"We literally sat down in the shop for hours sharpening on all kinds of different grits and abrasives trying to figure out one thing: what was the fastest path to taking a knife from essentially brick dull to hair whittling sharp?"
The only cost of skipping a 600 is a few extra strokes between sides if you want the scratch pattern fully refined.
"It turns out 320 is about the sweet spot for reprofiling, but not too coarse that you need an intermediate grit between a finer 1200. And 1200 was fine enough to go to a two to three strop progression and still get hair whittling results."
The grit has to be honest for that to hold. Contamination, a wide spread of particle sizes, makes a 1200 cut like a 600. Alex checked.
"Under the microscope, the grits and plating look very good, meaning no meaningful grit contamination to be found."
A Non-Proprietary Base (Finally)
Most bases fit one stone. Alex's drawer, like most, holds many.
"I really didn't want something that was proprietary. I, just like a lot of you, have multiple stones, and I wanted to be able to use them without having to resort to double stick tape to hold them in place on a plastic base that slides around everywhere."
Stones labeled 3" x 8" vary more than the label suggests, so the clamp adjusts to hold any of them. Turn the clamp around and the angle guides become spacers for 1" x 6" stones.
The stone sits on full, solid support across its entire length, which matters as stones wear thin and grow prone to cracking. A textured silicone mat holds most stones in place without clamping at all.
Mass Is the Feature
A stone that shifts mid-pass ruins the angle at best and finds your fingers at worst.
"You want mass or weight to hold things in place. Nothing is more frustrating and dangerous than having a stone move around on you as you're trying to sharpen."
So the base is cast aluminum and the system weighs 4.3 pounds. On most benches it stays put on its own, high enough to clear your knuckles on every pass. If yours is slick, mounting holes take screws or thumbtacks, and the flat ears double as a clamping surface.
"Movement is bad for freehand. So we did everything possible to help eliminate the movement."
The whole base disassembles for cleaning, and messy water stones are welcome on it.
Built Simple on Purpose
Alex measured hundreds of stones while designing this base and found that no two makers agree on length, width, or height. Height is where the angle guides feel it. On a very thin stone they sit too low to line up.
Two workarounds are built in: lift the guides off their posts and set them directly on the stone, or reverse the clamp and secure the stone from inside. A base could adjust for every stone perfectly, with leveling screws and moving parts. Alex is clear about what that would cost on a tool that lives in abrasive slurry.
"No matter how dirty this thing gets with grit and who knows what else, it's still going to work."
The guides sit at 15, 17, and 20 degrees, come off when you no longer need them, and serve as a reference rather than a promise of precision. Every freehand bevel is slightly convex, because no hand is perfect through a full pass.
"Sometimes the simplest solution is what works."
The Angle Guides, Briefly
"Humans are pretty bad at just guessing angles with their hands."
The removable guides sit at 15, 17, and 20 degrees and stay off the stone surface entirely. They are a reference, not a promise of precision: every freehand bevel is slightly convex, because no hand holds a perfect angle through a full pass.
The guides get you to the right neighborhood and stay out of the way while you build the feel.
The OD55 Sharpening System
Designed with Alex. Built for Better Edges.
The Dual-Grit Diamond Sharpening Stone - OD55 Series pairs a 320/1200 dual-grit diamond stone with a cast aluminum base that holds the stones you already own. Designed with Alex Garland, inspected by him, and backed by a 3-year warranty.
