Help me sharpen my Umfaan

[bimberiman]

A few months ago I was very generously given an Umfaan, a large Sebenza and an Edge Pro Apex sharpening system for my birthday! The Umfaan lives in my front pocket and gets used every day (it was a little fiddly at first in my big hands, I'm 6'3", but now it works like a charm) so it's coming time to break out the Apex, which I haven't used yet, and give it a touch up.

After a few weeks of using the Umfaan I noticed that the edge bevel is uneven. One side of the knife has more edge than the other, particularly on the belly of the blade where one side has roughly 0.5mm of edge and the other side 1.0mm. Now I know that I could send the knife back to Chris Reeve and he would fix it no problems but a) I live in Spain so it's a bit of a pain and b) seeing as both the Umfaan and the Sebenza have convex edges, at some stage I'm going to have to put a straight edge on them if I use the Edge Pro. Correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm new to this sharpening game.

I wanted to ask for any advice y'all might have re. 1. evening up the edge on the Umfaan and 2. converting the edges from convex to straight.

Also, for you Adge Pro users, any tips on sharpening a very small blade like the Umfaan? The instructions recommend starting out on bigger blades and working down to smaller ones as you get better so I assume smaller blades are harder for some reason.

I've never sharpened a knife in my life so any advice on how to care for my lovely new knives would be appreciated. Oh, and don't worry, I'll be doing a fair amount of practice on some kitchen knifes before I touch my Reeve blades with the Edge Pro.

Thanks

 

[Smooth Bone]

Originally posted by bimberiman
I wanted to ask for any advice y'all might have . . .

You obviously have spent alot of time in southern Spain

I've got an Edge Pro and found the advice to go slowly at first until you get the hang of it very important. Deliberate and slow. Don't try to increase your speed. Just slowly proceed with your technique. When the speed comes you'll hardly be aware of it.

 

[bimberiman]

Well I've sharpened all my kitchen knives with the Edge Pro (VERY easy to use!) and I feel ready to have a go at my Umfaan.

If I don't hear anything to the contrary I'll assume that evening up the edge is a simple matter of just taking off a bit more metal from the side that has less edge.

Bimberiman