How to sharpen a knife with a stone in 10 steps

For a more detailed guide just go to Learn how to sharpen knives with a stone.
http://knifemanual.com/images/1520angle.png
1. Place the sharpening stone on a damp tea towel on your bench or counter top with the coarser side facing up. We are going to grind off the shoulder of the knife that was cut incorrectly from the factory then we will be cutting the 20 degree edge.


2. Grab your knife and either place it in a sharpening guide or use a freehand 15 degree angle while holding either end with the other hand to keep it stable.

3. A With slight pressure slide the blade forward from tip to heel across the stone trying to use the whole length of the knife edge and keeping it at a constant angle.

4. Keep doing this until the knife forms a burr. We want both sides of the knife to match and not have one side being mismatched. To keep them similar you should grind one side for about two minutes and then swap over to the over side of the knife.

http://knifemanual.com/images/theburr.png

5. Keep grinding until the burr runs across the whole length of the knife and then turn the knife over and repeat. Once repeated you should use a finer grit to polish the knife edge up a little.

6. Once you have a burr along the whole length of the knife you need to grind it off so that a clean edge remains. Grinding between 5-15 times on each side depending on the grit should remove the burr completely.

7. Now for the 20 degree angle. Hold the knife at a 20 degree angle and start grinding the primary edge. Create a burr at the primary edge by using the previous method. But this time we are trying to create a 20 degree edge (about 1 mm or so wide) on the 15 degree back bevel that we have created.

8. Once a burr has been created start grinding it off but with more care this time as this is what will determine how sharp it will become. The technique you need to use is to run it from the tip of the knife to the heel changing the sides of the knife with each movement. Try not to form another burr and use a lighter touch as well as a smaller grit to finish off the knife.

9. At this point there should be no burr on the edge of the knife and it should be super sharp.

10. To maintain this sharpness you should use a fine steel to regularly keep the knife at its maximum sharpness. When the steel fails to make a difference any more it is time to use a sharpening stone again. Only this time you dont have to sharpen the back bevel as this is set at the correct angle now.