Smith's Knife Sharpener Lineup and the Hawkbill Knife

What Smith's makes for hunters and campers

Smith's sorts its own site the way a hardware store would: sharpeners first, then knives, then tools. The sharpeners are the big part of the catalog. Stones, rods, pull-through sharpeners, electric ones, and sharpeners for axes and machetes.

The knives on the maker's site fall into a few groups: fillet knives, bait knives, work blades like hawkbills and wharncliffes, a fixed-blade skinner with a gut hook, and folders.

On this site, Smith's covers two product types. Knife sharpeners make up nearly the whole grid. The Smith's Hawkbill Fixed Blade is the one knife. The grid changes as listings come and go, so I'll write about styles, abrasives and angle guides, not about how many sharpeners sit in it this week.

The Smith's knife sharpener comes first

Hunting Life's 2023 report on the company says Smith's began in 1886 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, making sharpening tools from novaculite. Novaculite is a natural stone from the Ouachita Mountains. It's the "Arkansas stone" you'll hear old-timers ask for by name. Smith's own About page tells the same story in fewer words: it began as a small Arkansas stone company and grew into a full line of sharpening products.

So the knives came later, built on the sharpening business. The grid follows the same order. If you came here typing "Smith's knife sharpener", the lineup notes below sort the models by how you'd use them. The knife sharpener page puts them next to other brands.

Lineup notes: Smith's knife sharpeners

Pocket field sharpeners

This is the biggest group, and the one that lives in a pack. The listings call them compact field sharpeners. Most pair a carbide slot with a ceramic one. Smith's pocket-knife guide calls ceramic "best for fine-tuning", so the carbide slot is the one that sets the edge.

• Pocket Pal PP1: carbide, ceramic and a diamond rod, with serrated and gut-hook support
• Pocket Pal X2: diamond, serrated and gut-hook support, plus a fire starter in the body
• Pocket Pal Mini Tactical and the Pocket Pal 2-Pack: carbide and ceramic, the Mini Tactical adding diamond
• CCD4 3-in-1: carbide, ceramic and diamond in one tool, with serrated and gut-hook support
• CCKS 2-Step, JIFF-S 10-Sec, Jiffy-Pro and Jiffy V-Sharp: carbide and ceramic, angle guide built in
• Deluxe Fillet Knife & Hook: carbide and ceramic, plus a gut-hook rod

The Pocket Pal X2 is the oddball. A sharpener with a fire starter is the kind of thing Danny would buy twice. The pocket knife sharpener page and the portable knife sharpener page cover this style across brands.

Pull-through sharpeners for the kitchen table

A pull-through sits on a table and you draw the blade through a slot. Smith's guide says these suit fast touch-ups and come with preset angles. The grid has several:

• Pull-Thru Knife Sharpener and the 2-Stage Knife Sharpener: carbide and ceramic slots with an angle guide
• Pull-Thru Knife & Scissor: a scissor slot added, serrated support listed
• Diamond Edge Grip MAX and Deluxe Diamond Edge Grip: diamond and ceramic stages
• Adjustable Angle: the one pull-through with an angle you set, from narrow to wide, plus serrated and gut-hook support

Smith's own guide says adjustable angle guides help keep sharpening consistent. That makes the Adjustable Angle the pull-through for a camp with mixed knives. The pull-through knife sharpener page explains the style.

Diamond plates and rods

These are the closest thing in the grid to the old Arkansas stone. The DCS4 Diamond Combination and the Combination Sharpener are short diamond plates; the DCS4 also lists gut-hook support. The Oval Diamond Rod is a long diamond rod. The Carbide/Ceramic Sharpener is a longer tool with both abrasives.

Smith's work page says its diamond stones use micron-sized monocrystalline diamonds bonded in nickel. Its pocket-knife guide adds that diamond sharpens quickly. The diamond sharpening stone page and the sharpening rod page cover the two shapes.

Electric and belt sharpeners

Three models plug in or charge. The Edge Pro Compact Electric lists a synthetic stone and a ceramic stage. The Electric Belt Sharpener and the Cordless Electric Sharpener both use abrasive belts; the first lists a fixed angle guide, the second a cordless body and a coarse-to-fine belt range. Smith's guide says electric sharpeners give quick, consistent results with preset angles, and that they travel less well. Rule of thumb: electric stays at the cabin.

The guided kit

The Precision Sharpening Kit is the one guided system in the grid. Its listing gives the widest grit range in the lineup, from coarse to fine, an angle guide, and serrated and gut-hook support. A guided kit holds the angle for you, which is the hard part. The knife sharpening kit page compares guided systems.

How to choose a Smith's sharpener from this grid

Start with where you'll sharpen

A pocket sharpener lives in the pack. A pull-through lives on the table. Plates, rods and the guided kit live on the bench. Electric needs an outlet or a charge. Name the place first, and half the grid drops out.

Then the abrasive

Carbide sets an edge fast. Ceramic refines it. Diamond, per Smith's guide, sharpens quickly and resists wear. Several models stack two or three of these, so you get the coarse and fine passes in one tool.

Then the angle guide

Most models in the grid list an angle guide; a few are open rods and plates where you hold the angle yourself. The Adjustable Angle pull-through and the guided kit let you set it. If your knives came from different makers, an adjustable angle earns its keep.

Then serrations and gut hooks

If your hunting knife has a gut hook, look for gut-hook support in the listing. Pocket Pal models, the CCD4, the DCS4, the Fillet Knife & Hook, the Adjustable Angle and the guided kit all list it. Serrated support shows up on most of the same models.

Lineup notes: the Smith's Hawkbill Fixed Blade

The Hawkbill's listing gives a 4-inch blade in stainless steel. It doesn't give a steel grade, a handle material or a sheath, so the grid leaves those blank. The variant in the listing is yellow, which is easy to find in a toolbox or in the leaves where you set it down.

Smith's work-blades page says its hawkbill knives are specially shaped for pull cuts in materials like carpet or linoleum. It also says its knife blades are made from 400 Series stainless steel. That's a statement about Smith's blades in general, so read the exact listing if the grade matters to you.

A hawkbill curves down at the tip like a bird's beak. The edge sits on the inside of the curve. You hook the material and pull. Around a camp that means cord, tarp lines, plastic wrap and feed sacks. (Danny asked if a hawkbill is for hawks. It is not. I handed him the feed sack. That's a Saturday-afternoon answer.)

It isn't built for game. For field dressing, the drop point and skinner shapes are the usual choices; the hunting knife page and the skinning knife page cover them. A hawkbill's inside curve also wants a rod, not a flat plate, which is one more reason the rods in this grid matter.

Keeping an edge, the way Smith's explains it

This is the sharpener company's home turf, so I'll let its own guide do the talking. Smith's hunting-knife guide boils it down to four steps:

• Clean the knife so grit doesn't ride on the stone
• Sharpen on a stone: an Arkansas stone or a fine diamond stone
• Finish with a ceramic rod or a leather strop
• Store it so nothing dulls the edge early

The guide suggests honing oil on the stone to cut friction. It says an Arkansas stone leaves a smoother finish and suits softer or medium-hard steel, and a diamond stone suits harder steel or fast metal removal. It says to hold a consistent angle, usually 20 degrees, with controlled, even strokes. And it tests the edge on paper or a tomato: a sharp edge cuts clean without tearing.

My one opinion on this page: the steady angle matters more than which sharpener you own. The reason is in Smith's own guide, which puts the consistent angle at the center of the job. A wobbling angle rounds the edge it's trying to make. A shop teacher learns this in his first week with a chisel and spends thirty years repeating it. That's also why so much of this grid has an angle guide built in.

For serrations, Smith's serrated-knife article says a flat stone won't reach the scallops. You need a tapered rod, fitted into each serration at the bevel's angle, one at a time. The longer walk-through is on the how to sharpen a hunting knife guide.

AKTI's maintenance guide adds the safety side. Cut away from your body, and sharpen away from yourself too. A dull blade takes more force, and more force is what makes a knife slip.

Cleaning, drying and storage

Smith's knife-care guide is written for the kitchen, but it fits a camp knife fine:

• Scrape off debris with a paper towel or cloth, not steel wool
• Wash blade and handle in warm water with mild dish soap
• Don't soak it; the maker warns soaking can warp a handle
• Dry it right away; air-drying can rust high-carbon stainless
• Store it protected, not loose in a drawer

The bushcraft guide adds a light coat of mineral oil or blade oil after drying. Stainless isn't rust-proof. It's rust-resistant, which in a damp November cabin is a different word. Wipe the sharpener too; metal dust left in a carbide slot ends up on the next blade.

Smith's facts

Here's what I could verify outside a store shelf:

• Start: 1886, Hot Springs, Arkansas, making sharpening tools from novaculite, per Hunting Life
• Company: Smith's Consumer Products; Hunting Life reported in June 2023 that the newly launched Smith's Sporting Group became its home
• Origin story: a small Arkansas stone company, per Smith's About page

This page doesn't cover where these sharpeners are made or what warranty covers them. Read the listing and the maker's terms before you count on either.

Cut away from yourself, keep the edge up, and carry the knife where your state's rules allow.

Wipe the blade, put a drop of oil on it, and put it back on the same hook. A sharpener company would tell you to sharpen it first. This time, the grid agrees with them.