Really depends on the quality of knife you have, and level of "dullness". Can't take a cheap thin blade knife to a coarse stone, ( or a thin stone for that matter). First you must decipher the quality of the blade and the steel and find if it will stand up to a quality sharpening, If so, if you have deep nicks, you could certainly hone them out with a coarse stone, followed by progressively finer grits to a fine hone. If you just need to bring back the edge, a quality sharpener should do the trick. A simple inexpensive knife sharpening tool " old timers hand down trick" is simply a pice of true ceramic tile, broken, knife edge run across at proper angle. Better than most manufactured sharpeners, if you know what you're doing.