Author: jhoyla
Date: 2013-05-07 05:55
All the books are good, all the articles are good, and they all say more or less the same thing.
As long as you haven't damaged your diamond stones and they are big enough, you should be able to use them as lapping plates to keep your other stones flat. You cannot get a sharp edge on a stone that is not flat.
Do yourself a favor and buy one Shapton ceramic stone, say the 8000 grit. Use your diamond stones to reset the edge of your existing blade - constant angle, time and time again, rinse and repeat, don't give up ... until you get a burr on the full length of the top edge. On diamond stones there is no need for any significant downward pressure.
Turn over to the leading edge, almost flat on the stone*, again and again, constant angle, don't give up, keep going, until you have created a burr on the full length of the back of the blade.
Back to the back side, one or two light strokes, remove the burr.
Now go to your new Shapton stone. Squirt water on the top and with exactly the same angles as before, give it 10 light strokes on the back, 10 light strokes on the leading edge, 1-2 feather strokes on the back.
As Woody said you can use a smooth sharpening steel to reset the burr without cutting metal. This maintains a great scraping edge and extends the life of your knife.
There is no rocket science to sharpening, just a steady hand, good tools and lots of patience.
J.
* If it is a new knife you can go completely flat. Assuming (however) that you are using your old, badly sharpened knife you would need to remove far too much metal before this would work. So use the shallowest angle you are comfortable with, that will reach the edge of the blade.
J
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