Waterstone Tips and Advice

[HeavyHanded]

It helps a great deal to feel where you are on the edge. I will deliberately lower the spine so the shoulder bumps and then elevate the spine till that drag tapers off. This allows me to just keep grinding and recalibrate on the fly. The edge will get trapped between the shoulder and the apex and you'll find the bevel stays very flat.

This also will radically decrease the amount of time needed to work at any given grit as there is very little wasted movement and very little tendency for the edge to open up as you get to finer abrasives.

It really isn't possible to visually correct on the fly, but it does help to study your mechanics and look out for slop as you move. Correlate the feel with your mechanics and your technique will improve immediately.

The bottom half of the page:

 

[ncrockclimb]

It helps a great deal to feel where you are on the edge. I will deliberately lower the spine so the shoulder bumps and then elevate the spine till that drag tapers off. This allows me to just keep grinding and recalibrate on the fly. The edge will get trapped between the shoulder and the apex and you'll find the bevel stays very flat.

This also will radically decrease the amount of time needed to work at any given grit as there is very little wasted movement and very little tendency for the edge to open up as you get to finer abrasives.

It really isn't possible to visually correct on the fly, but it does help to study your mechanics and look out for slop as you move. Correlate the feel with your mechanics and your technique will improve immediately.

The bottom half of the page: ...

Thanks for the info, both in your post here and is SO MANY other threads. You are one of the three or four posters that have basically taught me how to sharpen, and I cannot say thank you enough how freely you have shared your experience and knowledge.

 

[HeavyHanded]

Thanks for the info, both in your post here and is SO MANY other threads. You are one of the three or four posters that have basically taught me how to sharpen, and I cannot say thank you enough how freely you have shared your experience and knowledge.

I'm just glad to be helpful and share some of the tricks I've learned, many of them the hard way.

Back when I was learning I trashed a bunch of knives, some of which I had no business even touching. It would be great if I could spare some folks the sinking feeling that comes from ruining perfectly good materials and being no further along. In contrast, its a great feeling when you can reliably turn out quality edges freehand.