Sharpened my DFCG the other day. The edge was getting a little chewed up. Can't remember the last time I attended to it. :|

I started with a sanding block and 180 grit since the edge had plenty of dings. And then I figured as long as I was taking off steel I could do something more ambitious, so I smoothed out the secondary bevel a bit. And slimmed down the point since it came from the factory with a point about as sharp as your average cold chisel.

Then worked it freehand with a DMT bench-size diamond plate in 320 grit. I always start out using a circular motion to basically scour the metal down. And that on both sides until any visible scratches are gone. Then I take one-way strokes across the edge, drawing from edge to spine instead of the more traditional spine to edge. Do that for 5 strokes along the entire edge, do the other side 5 strokes, then go back to the first side, do 4 strokes, switch, 4 strokes, 3 and 3, 2 and 2, then switch back and forth a few times doing 1 stroke each side. And then go to the 800 grit and do the same thing, using less effort on each one.

A bit unorthodox I guess. The whole notion of building up a burr and then taking it off is foreign to me. But my way gets an edge plenty sharp for my purposes. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />