[JoeyJackhammer]

did you stone and steel the knife? I've worked in a slaughter house for 4 years now and grind 4-12 knives a day and can give guidelines to sharpening, but there's no compromise for practice and your own technique. I skin the back legs of the cows, which are usually covered with dirt/doodie. The following are guidelines for a Stone wheel, wet stone and coarse, medium or smooth steel.

P.S - Not saying your knife isn't sharp, Fox, just posting help for anyone else that needs to sharpen a knife, or would like to know how.

1. Observe the curves of the blade. This is very important when grinding, as you want to keep the entire edge as smooth as possible. Place all 4 fingers across the blade to distribute pressure evenly. Starting from the base of the blade at a 30 deg. angle, use slight pressure and make your first grind. Do not try and make it perfect, just try and make a nice, smooth motion. Do this to each side 2-3 times. Next, increase your angle to 45 deg. and do the same thing but with hardly any pressure at all. This layers the blade, plus smoooths out the surface from your earlier grinds, which were to create a decent sized bevel and always remember, what you do to one side, you must do to the other.

2. Wet stoning. there are many different ways to do this, but I will give you a description of the 2 most common. This should always be done at the same angle you steel your knife. Consistant angles are more important then the actual angle used. Starting at roughly a 45 deg and starting at the base of the blade begin to massage the blade against the stone in a circular motion with slight pressure. this will remove the grind grooves and help make a smooth blade. Personally, I go back and forth on each side 3 times, so base to tip, tip to base, base to tip, tip to base base to tip, tip to base and then switch to the opposite side. after you've done both sides, start again, but go extrememly light and massage slowly. You should be able to feel the knife getting smoother as you go along. Keep doing this as you see fit, but remember, what you do to one side, you must do to the other.

3. Steeling can not be taught. Sorry, but you will have to learn your own technique here as everyone works differently. in a perfect world, you'd want a 45deg. angle. You also want hardly any pressure at all. I like to do a couple strokes on each side, just to see where there may be flaws in the grind/stoning. I personally use a smooth steel only, but some people prefer a coarse or medium steel. Be sure to use smooth, full legth strokes and amke sure to get all the blade. Practice practice practice

For those that don't know, I will explain the difference in steels. This may help to determine what kind of steel you have, and what precautions come with it.

1. Smooth steel - This steel is completely smooth. Makes feeling the ege harder, and requires more steeling, but makes for a much smoother edge. This is good for cutting meat, fat, and hide. This one is for practiced knife sharpeners only as new people to steeling find it very hard to find an edge on a smooth.

2. Medium steel - This steel has a dull finish to it and the surface feels kind of gritty. It has tiny, shallow vertical grooves running vertically. This steel reduces steeling time over a smooth, allows to to feel imperfections in the blade better and gives the blade a kind of rough edge. This is an excellent steel for beginners and would be the one I recomend for anyone wanting to begin knife collecting. DO NOT STEEL HARD WITH THIS STEEL. It WILL wreck the edge entirely.

3. Coarse This steel is ROUGH, I use it primarily for fixing an edge in a small amount of time (30 seconds) NOT FOR BEGINNERS. NO pressure at all on this steel, it'll round your edge right off. This steel is good for bigger knives, however, and would recommend picking one up, ecspecially if you don't have a stone.

HTH, and if it's off topic our not required, delete as necessary

Tyler