Step #1, loosen screws on clamp, place clamp on blade as close to the middle between blade point and guard (masking tape is applied between clamp and blade make sure there are no wrinkles), about a 1/2" of clamp onto flats of blade surface, I do not use the little cut outs on the end of the clamps, I put the flats of the clamps onto the flats of the blade. Pinch with your fingers the clamp flat on the blade and loosely tighten the screw closest to the blade, then the outer screw and back and forth maintaining your pinch to be sure the flats of the clamps are true flat on the blade, when it's snug, tighten the outer screw as tight as you can finger tight.
Now turn the whole assembly blade edge up and eyeball it looking at the point of the blade toward you to see if the clamp is not cocked to one side or the other, if it is , take the clamp off and turn it over and re install.
Step #2 Determining the proper angle to sharpen your knife. Take your sharpie marker and color in the original sharpened edge, let dry a few seconds can blow on it to help. Take your fine or med stone with no oil, put it in the 25 degree slot and lightly stroke up and down, moving along the blade overlapping each area you have stroked up and down , kind of like strumming a guitar as you move from point to choil/guard. there is more up and down movement than travel down the blade it appears. Now look at the edge in a good light, you should see the ink rubbed off of the edge, if it has removed most of the ink, you are right on at 25 degrees and that will be your sharpening angle, repeat on other side/edge.
If you have rubbed off ink high on the edge (toward the clamp), reapply ink and try the 30degree slot on the clamp and repeat. if you have only removed ink on the very out most of the cutting edge (away from the clamp), go to the 20degree slot and try again.
This is a compromise judgement from what you have seen in your passes removing the ink, just go with the angle that has removed the most ink from the original edge.
Now you may notice that you may have not removed much ink close to the tip, not to worry, this is the way a lot of Randalls and hand forged/hand ground knives are , and when we get to sharpening this area will take more work
Step #3. Now take your coarse stone with one drop of oil rubbed on it and make five passes down the blade and back, stroking up and down as you go blending the up and down strokes with your travel down the blade, Repeat on other side . Clean stone and blade, and repeat 5 passes on each side and clean again. Soon you can see the wear pattern you are creating with the coarse stone. What you want is to take that wear pattern all the way to the edge. The tip may take some extra work in that area, just be sure to make a stroke the full length of the blade to every 5 or 10 strokes at the tip to blend in the grinding you have been doing on the tip with the rest of the edge. When it appears that you have finished taking the wear pattern all the way to edge on both sides so they meet the full length of the blade, look at the edge up in the light, you should not be able to see a line/reflection or transition from one side of the edge to the other as you rock it back and forth under the light. If you can see a line or small reflective edge, a little more work in that area is needed (be sure to blend in your work with the rest of the edge occasionally. Test on a downward drawing stroke starting on a hanging sheet of newspaper/good indicator.
Once you think you have it move to the med stone, alternate sides until it has become all the wear pattern of the med stone. Do one pass down the blade and alternate sides one pass at a time, then move to fine stone and establish its wear pattern on the entire edge alternating sides one pass each side at a time. Keep checking in the light for that invisible transition from one edge bevel to the other, when it cant be seen , you're done. Go to strop 5 to 10 passes each side with the blade flat on the strop, then 1 or 2 passes with it raised slightly off the strop. all stropping done the opposite of cutting motion. I use a stretched piece of elk hide about 1 ½ wide by 24 long tied to a shop chair and I stretch it tight with my free hand. Flitz polish has given me great results as a stopping compound, wet or dry.
