Don't try to round it, hand sharpening even with very good angle control will end up convex. If you still want to roll your wrist a bit that's OK but only vary spine height by no more than 3/16 of a inch.
You also have to account for the steel you are dealing with, the great thing about these higher end steels is that they will hold very low edge angles. If the thumb studs don't get in the way while sharpening adjust until the do. On average I set these better steels at 10-12 degrees per side.
The extra fine DMT you have should be giving you a razor sharp burr free edge, light pressure is key for diamonds to work correctly. The difference you feel between the steels might not be what you think, the "signs" diamond hones give off are very different from traditional stones. BM's S30V is a "softer" heat treat that really loves a mirror polished finish, it seems to perform best this way and get very very sharp. Kershaw's heat treat of S30V feels much harder on the stones and as expected usually takes longer to sharpen. It's a more typical performer in that S30V usually likes to have a coarser edge because of its wear characteristic's, S30V like other CPM steels tend to loose their sharp edge quickly and get very toothy. Something I like to call the chainsaw effect. S30V is a odd steel in that it will be different from almost every maker and fairly easy to notice, this does not mean its bad just different. The sharpening methods and optimal levels of finish will also change with the heat treats.
The possible reason you can only get the edge sharp while edge trailing is the amount of pressure you are putting on the blade. Unknowingly you could be driving the edge into the stone instead of sharpening the bevel, too much pressure also causes excess amount of deformations of the steel AKA burrs.
Get yourself a coarse diamond bench stone or Norton Sic bench stone and grind in a very low and very straight as you can bevel. Work on it until it feels sharp and will about shave, finish with some progressively finer stones or sandpaper on a flat backing. If your knife is not making hair run for its life after that then continue working on your technique because that's the problem.
Those are great suggestions!
It's interesting on these forums, because I sense there is something lost in communication, that simply speaking with someone is often superior. For instance, in my note above about desiring rounded bevels, it's easy to intuit that I'm trying to spin my wrist or something to get that. In an effort to explain what I try to do, something definitely gets lost when putting the words down on paper. As you said, simply hand sharpening will produce a convex edge without trying.
The angle I use, or try to use, is basically a hair above rubbing the thumb stud into the stone. Whatever that angle is is the one I usually try to obtain. If that's 10 or 12 or 15, I don't know exactly, but that's the one I shoot for.
I just checked out the Norton waterstones, and they will definitely set me back too much money right at the moment. So I'd prefer to get some wet-or-dry sandpaper and mount it on wood backed leather, at least for the time being. If I do that, and use either water or oil, I should be able to achieve something close to what the stones might produce. Please correct me if I'm wrong. My idea is to start with say 220 grit wet-or-dry with oil. Is that a good idea? Then go to 320, then 400. At that point, perhaps I should switch over to a steel. Please let me know what you think.
Thank you for filling me in on the way Kershaw and others heat treat the S30V. I thought that might have been what was going on.
In the meantime, I'm getting ready to travel, and won't have internet access for a while, and while traveling won't be able to make the provisional "stones" with wet-or-dry probably until I get back.
Thanks again.
Folderguy
) will produce a serviceable edge pretty quickly. Then if I really lighten up on the draw strokes using the carbide cutter and simply drag the blade through them with just the weight of the blade as pressure that I can get the blade reasonably sharp. And then 10 to 15 extremely light passes on a sharpening steel gets it to shave a bit. It's alright, but nothing to write home about.
) shouldn't be all that critical. By the way, I like my rounded profiles on a blade. Maybe I'm saying something verboten, not my intention, but I like 'em rounded.
