Kristopher, the very first thing you have to do is relax, and put everything you've heard about knife sharpening out of your mind. You are most likely over thinking it. I've taught a boat load of people how to sharpen, and in almost every case, they were over thinking it, and trying too hard. Forget about angles, moicro bevels and gadgets. Have a drink and relax.
When I was in the army, I was stationed for a while in Italy, where we army engineers were working on an air base doing some concrete work on some runways. Ihad a little off base apartment I had rented from an Italian lady, and when we got off at 1600 hours, I went home to shower and get ready for the evening. I saw that every day about 1700 hours, (that's 5pm for civilians) that all the older Italian lades would get rady t start dinner. Processed food and instant meals didn't get done over there. They made dinner from scratch.
They would come out and take that old dark gray bladed butcher knife out to the well worn stone steps on the front of their place, and sharpen up the knife for use. I asked to see one of them one day, the old signora handed me the knife and I felt waht was a very sharp edge. More than good enough to slice up veil, sausage, ham, or whatever. If an old Italian lady can do this, you can do.
Take a stone. Any decent stone will do. Diamond, silica oxide, Arkansas washita, a Norton India, whatever. Take your knife, and lay on the stone just like you're gonna saw the thing in half. Now lay the blade over to about halfway to flat on the stone. That's about 45 degrees, give or take a bit. We don't care about exact angle because it won't make a difference. Now that you are about half way. lay the blade over some more until you cut that distance in half. This should put you about the right angle. Mid 20 something degrees. Good enough. Don't worry about a little difference.
Now, without taking the blade off the stone, start honing in small circles starting at the kick, (base of the blade by the little nick) and very slowly moving up toward the tip of the blade. Don't try too hard! This is a relaxed thing to do, so don't tense up. After about a minute to minute and a half, you should be at the blade tip. Look at the blade edge, and you should see a nice fresh line of new edge. If you have trouble with this, darken up the edge with a dry erase marker, and try again. After you get one side done, just turn the knife over and do it again on the other side. Repeat as needed. Don't tense up, stay relaxed and loose. Listen to the sound of the knife on the stone, and it should be like a steady shhh, shhh, swishing sound. The feel of the blade on the stone, the sound of the blade on the stone, all should become an instinctive thing. People get way too wrapped up in too much technical information that they don't need to worry about. Think of free hand sharpening a knife as just like shooting a recurve or long bow instinctively. You don't look at the arrow, you don't look at anything exempt what you want to hit. When shooting a traditional bow, you clear your head of everything. The more you think about it, the worse it gets.
Just take a knife in your right hand, if your right handed, and a stone in your left, and play with it, and get to know the feel of it. Once it comes to you, it will be sooooo simple, you'll wonder why you didn't see it before. And you will have it always, anywhere, at any time. No gadgets needed. Just a smooth piece of stone or brick, or coffee mug, and you will have a sharp knife.
I hope the video's help you, please feel free to email me if you have questions. Who knows, Boston is not that far up the coast from Washington D.C.
Carl.
