Help: I suck at sharpening

[tambrico]

So I just got my DMT Aligner with diamond stones for Christmas, and I've been trying it out on my SOG Trident, which was already pretty dull, so I used the coarse stone. I wached the youtube video by DMT, and I did exactly what the guy in the video did. My edge is getting duller. I have been pushing very lightly, and I have even put sharpie on the edge to see what I'm taking off. It looks like I'm barely taking off anything. What am I doing wrong?

 

[cgmblade]

I sounds like the angle is too shallow to reach the edge. You may just be hitting the shoulder. I recently had a similar problem with a Delica. It was sharpened at about 22 degrees from the factory. I ended up taking it down to 15 degrees per side and it performs much better.

If you just want to touch up the factory edge then increase the angle you are sharpening at and that should solve the problem, but if the factory edge angle is greater than 20 degrees per side the knife would likely perform better if you re-profiled it.

 

[tambrico]

I sounds like the angle is too shallow to reach the edge. You may just be hitting the shoulder. I recently had a similar problem with a Delica. It was sharpened at about 22 degrees from the factory. I ended up taking it down to 15 degrees per side and it performs much better.

If you just want to touch up the factory edge then increase the angle you are sharpening at and that should solve the problem, but if the factory edge angle is greater than 20 degrees per side the knife would likely perform better if you re-profiled it.

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right. I actually thought of this and tried it before I read your response, and I was able to get it sharp enough to push cut paper. But I'm still not able to get it scary sharp like I want, or even hair shaving sharp for that matter. I know the DMT diamond stones are some of the best out there, so I must still be doing something wrong.

 

[approach]

This is probably, uh, orthogonal to your sharpening problem, but try keeping the DMT stones wet. They cut faster.