Silicon carbide(a.k.a. crystolon) bench stones that are dished from use are great for applying convex edges. The worn, hollowed(dished) area's sides will essentially do the blending directly behind the edge.

ordawg, sharpening is more addictive than buying knives. Wait till I start making my own, im going to go broke!

sharpening my blades is really relaxing to me. i actually look forward to it.

I always look for an excuse to sharpen my knives, but if I give in to every urge, i'll end up with a bunch of filet knives!

Every sharpening session you improve, or learn something new, some little trick.

I am a Delta Sharpening Machine (DSM) user. See this thread for all the details...http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/821501/tp/1/

Note that into the thread there is a mention/link to a sharpening thread in scrapyardknives.com

Also, be sure and check out the Trizact belts that are mentioned. They're the greatest!

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="" />

I actually just got my first belts in from lee valley. I have a Japanese wet stone set 240,1000,4000 and 8000 and can split hairs by this method. I have just started using the 1x30 harbor freight belt sander and while i can get hair popping sharpness I can't split hairs or anything.

I guess i just have a system for the stones. Form burr, remove burr by stropping, move to the next stone and repeat until final stop on green compound. its hard to find the new burr without first removing it for me on the sander.

with the finer microns(20-15-9) how many passes do you usually do? Maybe i am overdoing it.

I go from 15 micron to a loaded belt with green compound.

Then I hand strop with pink compound and if i want to get crazy, bare leather.

I'm a worthless spammer and even my mother doesn't like me!

Not ONLY his Mother!