Reddit mentions of Wedgek Angle Guides 10 to 20 degrees for Sharpening Knives on Stone, Blue

I'm definitely not trying to overstate my experience in the matter! I am also quite new to this but I have devoted at least a hundred hours of watching videos, reading, etc at this point. I ultimately decided on the Shapton 1000 and Shapton 5000 stones to start with, and an Atoma 400 diamond plate. The Shapton Kuromaku are the same as the Shapton Pro and typically run 20-30$ less per stone on Amazon etc. Japanese export vs. American import is the only difference in the stones.

I am new to this as well. I sharpened a very cheap Farberware chef knife also to extremely sharp. I feel like my hardest challenge right now is the angle - so I bought those cheap blue plastic angle guides that sit on top of the stone. I used them for the first time last night (literally, just bought them on Friday, they arrived Sunday), and I am already noticing a huge difference. I don't rubber band it down, I just use it as a point of reference for each pass. Slower going but it's helping muscle memory with the angles.

Watch videos...watch more videos...practice what feels comfortable...watch more videos...this is the approach I'm taking.

I don't like the back and forth motion is what I've discovered. I prefer to just make edge leading strokes (for now?)...this is what's working for me.

He is doing both sides...the videos is just edited. You should raise a burr on one side before going to the other side, or you have not finished with that particular side. I find doing the final 'stropping' also makes a huge difference. Don't just raise the burr on each side and be done...start doing the single stropping passes. 10 on one side, 10 on the other, then 9, 8, etc. This really seems to even out the edge, at least in my (limited) experience. Once you get down to 2-1 you want really light pressure. Speaking of pressure, I'm still figuring that out too - practice makes perfect I suppose.

There is r/sharpening that is basically dead, but I'd be happy to start trading experiences and etc while we learn :)

To further answer your question - some knives are only single bevel (flat on one side, edge on the other) - but I do not believe in this case that it was.

Angle Guides - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N4QMO7U

$12 on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4QMO7U/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_ts6XCbQW9Z5K3

Learning sucks. At first I wasn't getting sharper knives either. Just keep practicing. It will come with time. You can try the penny trick or buy an actual guide. I have found that some parts on some knives take forever to get a burr. Just keep going over that section until you get the burr. You want one all the way down before you switch sides. As for long knives I just did a quick search and found this video. He even uses one of those guides in this video.

Sure but I hope you are not spending 6 bills on that unless you have a gift card. This is really helpful for hitting angles.

When I started using stones I couldn't trust myself to have repeatable angles in my grind. I splurged for a set of guides from Amazon. They are there purely for reference and to help develop that muscle memory.

https://www.amazon.com/Wedgek-Angle-Guides-Sharpening-Knife/dp/B01N4QMO7U

I grabbed these. They are super helpful. I don't always need them. But, I think it's the best way to do it. I get a lot less errant scratches and I don't spend as many passes as when I freehand.

Sometimes I run into a knife that just doesn't like whatever angle I'm forcing onto it and need the guides to stay consistent. Or with D2 and s30v, I just struggle against the wear resistance of the blade. These help immensely to get a nice clean bevel in fewer passes (yes, the passes go slowly because of making sure I get the angle set each time).