Noob to sharpening

[TCBA_Joe]

I'm relatively new to knives, and as new as you get to sharpening. I have a BM 551 grip thats almost as dull as a butter knife and I want to get it to a usable level of sharpness again. I bought one of those sharpening sticks from Wal-Mart (I know, get a sharpmaker, but I'm broke I'll get one eventually) and it seems to get one side somewhat sharp but once I do the other side it gets dull again. What am I doing wrong?

I'm tempted to send it into lifesharp but I don't want to be dependent upon someone else to sharpen my knives.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

We have a forum for maintenance and modifications, including sharpening, so I'll move this there.

Get the Sharpmaker. It may seem like money you can't afford right now, but nothing cheaper is going to get you sharpening so well.

What you are having trouble with now is a wire edge: your blade is so sharp that the the very edge is thin enough to flop over when you sharpen the other siide. You need to break off the wire edge and leave the sharpest edge you can achieve without it.

I'm not sure what you're using now, since I can't remember the last time I looked in the direction of a Wal-mart's. But whatever you use, the proper way to sharpen is to maintain identical angles on both sides of the blade, and when you get a wire edge, strop it on your sharpener at a slightly higher angle than you used to sharpen, first one side, then the other. (Strop, meaning to run the edge against the sharpener leading with the back,)