I followed these directions copied directly from Ban Tang's knifemaker forum on blade forum.
• How do you sharpen a Stupid Sharp knife? How do I maintain my steel or carbidized Ti BT knives?
Quote Originally Posted by Ban
Sharpening a Stupid Sharp knife (steel):
Things you will need:
Belt Grinder
120 grit belt
220 grit belt
Coarse Scotchbrite belt
Fine Scothbrite belt
Leather Belt and Green Compound.
Sharpen a V edge using the 120 grit belt, then follow it with a 220 grit belt. You want to knock off a majority of the shoulder.
Use the coarse scotchbrite to continue knocking off the shoulder and slowly form the convex secondary bevel with alternating strokes. A coarse scotchbrite is good for this because it cuts fairly decently and - because it’s fairly unstructured - it naturally convexes the edge. Try doing a true V edge with one and you will see that it has the tendency to round the shoulder edges. Keep at it with the coarse scotchbrite until you are satisfied with the convex geometry. The geometry will vary from large knives to smaller knives, dependent on application, as discussed previously.
NOTE: Be careful when doing this part of the sharpening because a decent amount of heat can be generated. Start off slow to get the hang of it and have some water handy to cool the blade. Dip the blade often to ensure you don’t overheat it. This is the slowest and also the most important step.
Follow the above process with the fine scotchbrite belt.
Finally, strop the hell out of it with the green compound saturated leather belt, and it should pop hair like nobody's business. I start off using a good amount of pressure to do the majority of the polishing. Then I slowly finesse the alternating strokes towards the end to prevent myself from increasing the angle and rolling over the edge.
On average, it takes me 20-30mins to sharpen a new knife this way. But once it’s been set... I usually just have to hit it with the leather belt for a few seconds to retouch the blade.
You can also simply strop the blade by hand if you don’t have a belt grinder. There are a ton of resources here at Bladeforums and around the web regarding sharpening of a convex blade, but feel free to contact me if you’d like some pointers. At some point, I hope to have one of the members here do a sharpening-by-hand video with one of my knives.
