How I Sharpen My Knives

[ChapmanPreferred]

I found this website: http://korin.com/Learn/Sharpening

And this section might help:

"Western-Style Knives
1. Note the angle of knife to stone while sharpening. 2. Angle the knife to establish the cutting edge. A 10º-20º angle is suggested. A smaller angle will make a sharper, but weaker cutting edge. You can use two pennies to gauge an approximately 12º angle. Use this trick to help measure a consistent angle until you feel confident in sharpening."

This method to learn the approximate angle, will not produce the same angle on every blade. It has to do with the distance (length) from where the knife contacts the edge, to the spine of the knife. The more broad/wide the blade, the lower the angle will actually be so conversely the more narrow the blade width, the steeper the angle. Are we having fun yet? :)

There is a thread about angle control on bladeforums that is good:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... p?t=437121

[Pneumothorax]

Thanks for the input. Will look to get DMT stone - I cannot spend that much time doing that again. My arm just about fell off. does Spyderco make anything close to the DMT coarse?

[vampyrewolf]

Question is how do you maintain the angle?

If you work freehand with the stone actually in you other hand, you can feel and hear the edge biting differently/wrong. Should be able to correct in a couple strokes.