First sharpening attempt: utter failure

[Sinjai]

I have a pocket knife that hasn't been sharpened in a long time. I've attempted it a couple times on one of those pocket sharpeners with the Vs of ceramic, carbon, etc., but I stopped even attempting that. No idea what I was doing and probably just made it worse. I'm not happy with the edge on that, but it's usable for forcing boxes open. (More like forcing than cutting.) About as sharp as a typical pair of scissors.

I got a new knife recently that came with an even worse edge. I got a 600/1000 grit stone and attempted to sharpen it. I followed the tutorials I found. It took me a while to get a good angle but eventually I think I made some progress after marking the edge with a marker. I maybe made a burr? I dunno to be honest. I had one hell of a time trying to get an even edge all the way to the tip. Looking at it, it looks pretty well aligned, but it also has a much greater bevel than my old knife (30 degrees), could this be contributing to the feeling of dullness?

 

[Polynikes01]

I have a pocket knife that hasn't been sharpened in a long time. I've attempted it a couple times on one of those pocket sharpeners with the Vs of ceramic, carbon, etc., but I stopped even attempting that. No idea what I was doing and probably just made it worse. I'm not happy with the edge on that, but it's usable for forcing boxes open. (More like forcing than cutting.) About as sharp as a typical pair of scissors.

I got a new knife recently that came with an even worse edge. I got a 600/1000 grit stone and attempted to sharpen it. I followed the tutorials I found. It took me a while to get a good angle but eventually I think I made some progress after marking the edge with a marker. I maybe made a burr? I dunno to be honest. I had one hell of a time trying to get an even edge all the way to the tip. Looking at it, it looks pretty well aligned, but it also has a much greater bevel than my old knife (30 degrees), could this be contributing to the feeling of dullness?

When you cover the edge in sharpie do you take it all back off with one pass on the stone?
How are you determining it's sharpness?
Is the 30° per side... or 30° inclusive?
I'm not a very technically knowledgeable sharpener myself but I can get a fairly sharp free hand and as I like to call it, "Light Saber" sharp on my edge pro.
My dad taught me to sharpen when I was a pup, always said to "try and shave a layer off the stone".

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

[Dangerously]

All first attempts are terrible. You're not alone. Just keep trying, reading, and you'll get there.

 

[Pondoro2310]

All first attempts are terrible. You're not alone. Just keep trying, reading, and you'll get there.

Agree! I might add that I bought a guided system (Lansky but there are others) after my first, miserable attempts freehand. Using the guided system taught me what a good edge is like, and I eventually became able to do freehand. Far from delaying my learning I consider it to have accelerated my freehand ability.

 

[bucketstove]

I have a pocket knife that hasn't been sharpened in a long time. I've attempted it a couple times on one of those pocket sharpeners with the Vs of ceramic, carbon, etc., but I stopped even attempting that. No idea what I was doing and probably just made it worse. I'm not happy with the edge on that, but it's usable for forcing boxes open. (More like forcing than cutting.) About as sharp as a typical pair of scissors.

I got a new knife recently that came with an even worse edge. I got a 600/1000 grit stone and attempted to sharpen it. I followed the tutorials I found. It took me a while to get a good angle but eventually I think I made some progress after marking the edge with a marker. I maybe made a burr? I dunno to be honest. I had one hell of a time trying to get an even edge all the way to the tip. Looking at it, it looks pretty well aligned, but it also has a much greater bevel than my old knife (30 degrees), could this be contributing to the feeling of dullness?

Hi,
Congratulations! you've bought stones and tried sharpening, now its just a matter of making small adjustments until it clicks

So if you can be more detailed, as detailed as possible, and answer some questions, and ask more questions of your own you can get sharper today

What 600/1000 stone did you get ?
What size knife were you sharpening, what steel (or what knife)?
How hard are you pressing on the stone? Harder than brushing your teeth? If you put stone on a scale and then put knife to stone ... how many grams or pounds?
How many passes per side or how many minutes per side? per stone?
Any idea or guesses on the angle, how many degrees per side?
How dull is it? Can you slice printer paper at all? Slice newspaper? Easily slice newspaper? Push cut newspaper? Is it very noisy when you easily slice newspaper?

There is one surefire way to learn about burrs, make GIANT BURR YOU CAN SEE AND FEEL FROM SPACE, just grind one side
for 1 minute scrubbing passes, that's anywhere from 60-240 passes (1-4 per second)
If no giant burr you can see and feel, do it for another 1 minute
You should have a big one folded over on the other side of the blade, big enough to see with your eyes and feel with your fingertips and fingernail, snag on a towel...
If you dont have this giant burr, then most likely is angle is too low,
so increase angle and give it another minute ... good way to find an angle that'll work quickly is increase angle while moving blade accross stone edge leading until the blade BITES into the stone and snags, then lower slightly and thats the angle that'll work in under a minute (or two if youre very wobbly like me )

If 1-2min doesn't get you a burr, it could be you're not using enough force so the grinding is going extra slow, so press a little harder

or it could be you're using low force and you have mud/slurry on the stone (like waterstone) which is grinding off the burr so you should use newspaper slicing test instead of burr checking
... when you can slice newspaper well,
all that is left is to deburr / remove burr
and then microbevel

 

[RLDubbya]

When I first learned how to sharpen, back in 1975, there weren't any guided systems - at least none of which I was aware. I learned how to sharpen on Arkansas stones (I still have and use those stones, fwiw) and it took me what seemed like forever. My godfather would sharpen a knife in about 3 minutes, show me it was sharp by shaving the hair on his arm, and then pass the knife to me and light up his Marlboro and sip bourbon while I proceeded to make the sharp knife dull through my complete inability to sharpen. He wouldn't say a word; he'd watch unti I was done, I'd hand the knife back, he'd show me it was dull, and he would make one comment on what I had done, for example "Kid, do you know what 'consistent' means?"

We were on a fishing trip in Canada when this was taking place. He sat with me every evening for 2 weeks. Finally, towards the end of the trip, it all clicked. I too was able to produce a hair-popping edge. I was probably the happiest kid in that camp.

Sharpening freehand is a set of skills you have to learn; if you haven't learned and practice those skills, you're going to have a lot of failures under your belt. These failures are your opportunities to learn. Take advantage of them. Learn everything you can. Practice so that your muscles remember what your mind forgets.

 

[Gradyw]

Most important thing when learning how to sharpen is knowledge. There is a lot of tips and tricks and just basic information out there that will help you out more then experience will for awhile at least. But also don't think to much about it. You are simply shaving two sides down to form an angle.. start on one side, form a burr and go to the other side. Get yourself anything u can to lay the edge of the spine on to keep your angle consistent and just keep working on it...you'll figure it out it's not rocket science. It's a skill anyone can learn just takes some practice.