If you can’t seem to find the perfect angle, you can always cheat. Hunt down the knife’s specs and you’ll know how many degrees away from the edge to aim for. A bowie knife for instance, usually has an angle of about 14 degrees away from the sharpened edge on both sides of the blade. If you know your specs, you can measure your angle with a protractor (if you don’t have one, you can always print out a protractor here: Protracter). Then again, it’s OK if you change the blade’s angle — so long as the change isn’t all that drastic. A blade with a wider angle away from its edge is better suited for chopping. A blade with a tighter angle will be sharper. The key here is to start small using gentle strokes. If you find that you’ve altered the blade’s angle, don’t worry, you can always get it back to the shape you desire.
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Practice on a knife blade you’re not particularly fond of before moving onto your prized possession. It may sound silly, but you’ll be happy if you notice that you’ve scratched your crappy blade and not your best one while you were learning the ends and outs of sharpening. Beginners have a tendency to press too hard or use too severe of an angle when learning to sharpen a knife. They also tend to use less water or oil than an experienced knife sharpener. Throughout the entire process, you should be able to see a small pool of sharpening lubricant on the stone. If the honing oil or water changes color or gets streaky, that means there’s debris trapped in it. Stop sharpening and rinse the stone off. Then, reapply your lubricant and get back to work.
