Went with a stone set, despite your advice. Just wanted to use it to develop a new skill. Plus I'm a cheapskate. This: Stone kitThat will work, but if you are not good a free hand sharpening, you may become frustrated with it. i would recommend one of the guided systems. Something like a work sharp precision guided would work pretty well and is not as expensive as some of the more Gucci systems. I have a work sharp precision, among many others, and it does a really nice job of getting a very sharp knife pretty quickly.
Good! Free hand just takes practice, lots of it. If you get a knife that cuts, even if it isn’t “YouTube scary sharp “, that is all that matters. I recommend a leather stro, actually really about any piece of leather will do. A quick strop after using will normally keep it sharp for a long time, and stropping after sharpening will take it up a notch for sure. Happy sharpening!Went with a stone set, despite your advice. Just wanted to use it to develop a new skill. Plus I'm a cheapskate. This: Stone kit
30 minutes after getting it, my $10 knife that I've been carrying for a couple years actually cuts stuff again, instead if ripping stuff
It was on sale for $20, looks like $23 now.
Strop came with the kit. I didn't try it yet. Actually didn't even try the finest grit stone either.Good! Free hand just takes practice, lots of it. If you get a knife that cuts, even if it isn’t “YouTube scary sharp “, that is all that matters. I recommend a leather stro, actually really about any piece of leather will do. A quick strop after using will normally keep it sharp for a long time, and stropping after sharpening will take it up a notch for sure. Happy sharpening!
This guy has some nice close-ups using a microscope of a knife edge before and after sharpening, and the burr resulting from sharpening:
A more recent vid from him on stropping, and it has some good pics of the edge and burrs: