Knife sharping tips - how not to scratch the blade?

[dextersp1]

I'm new to sharpening knives with bench stones. I recently scratched the blade on my Kershaw Junkyard Dog.

I'm thinking that I should have covered the blade with some tape to avoid scratching it.

Does anyone do this? Or are the professionals out there so good that they don't scratch the blade.

I probably should have gone slower also but I was getting into it.

 

[dalefuller]

I cover mine with blue painter's tape if I'm using the Edge Pro. If I'm just using the 204 or the 701s, I'm careful enough so that I don't scratch the blade with them.

 

[Jeff Clark]

I don't use tape very often anymore. Back when I sharpened knives door-to-door I would often work on people's chrome-plated wedding gift knives. The chrome made sharpening very difficult and any scratches were impossible to hide. I would use tape on those. These days a knife would need to have a serious collector value before I would bother with tape. I have enough practice that I usually don't scratch blades, but I do enough that it happens several times a year.

 

[LedSled]

I used plastic packaging tape when I sharpened my new Shun Elite Santoku. I even duplicated the knife's belly curve. The stuff had a tendency to crumble and peel on the belts and stones, however, and the repeated cleanings made the sharpening job very tedious.

Still, I got a good result ... probably worth the fuss on an expensive knife.

Edit: I should also mention that I was doing a full convex blend to the main body of the blade at extremely shallow angles.