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Knife honing free hand. Why bother?

I have some DMT small diamond sharpeners. And a cheap strop with yellow compound. Why, because good sharpening machines are expensive. And it's a good skill to have. I sharpen kitchen knives, a couple of scandi grind bushcraft knives, and just the strop for my wood carving knives....which I don't use much, just gave it a try. One advantage of sharpening by hand is you can slightly convex a scandi grind and make it a much tougher edge.
I have a 325 dmt card in the truck. And a small venev diamond bonded stone. For an edc it's perfect
 
I have a 325 dmt card in the truck. And a small venev diamond bonded stone. For an edc it's perfect
I have this mini set of 3, I forget the grits. 325 is pretty low, but it will fix up a bad blade quick. I used an old 600 grit stone for a long time, served me good. I bring the stone to the knife...I can't do it flat. Takes time to get decent at sharpening.
 
325 grit diamond, especially a new one, is pretty coarse for cooking knives. You will be shredding the surface of what you cut, the edge will be jagged and I suspect the tips of the "points" will get bent on contact with a cutting board. Prone to microchips too from the very deep, sharp bottomed scratches.

I got a cheap knife once that had a "permanent" edge on it -- 45 degree bevel on each side and at least as rough as a jeweler's saw blade. It cut, but it was hard to use and left rough surfaces on everything. Very messy in meat. The steel was good enough that I ground a decent bevel on it with a bench grinder (yes, a bench grinder with a fine wheel, it was HARD stainless) and got a decent enough edge on it. Still don't like the knife, but it was fun getting it into decent shape. That is the sort of edge a very coarse stone will give you.

It will shave hair, but then at skin level just about any blade with an actual apex will shave hair. Popping hair a quarter inch above the skin, now that's getting sharp
 
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