And some more work today, light touch-up on my own stuff.
I used a vintage coticule to sharpen a Watanabe petty and also to reset the bevel on a cracked Joseph Rogers that I use as a lamé for scoring sourdough bread. Then I used a True Hard Ark to finish the razor.
So a strange thing I realized. I am perfectly comfortable using whetstones freehand on my Japanese knives, but nowhere near as comfortable working with German steel in that manner. I think a key is that I keep my Japanese knives very sharp - generating a burr rarely takes more than a minute or two. But when I am sharpening German steel, it’s usually a relative’s knife that is way overdue for sharpening. Which means that I have to hold the bevel angle stable for a longer period of time.
I used a vintage coticule to sharpen a Watanabe petty and also to reset the bevel on a cracked Joseph Rogers that I use as a lamé for scoring sourdough bread. Then I used a True Hard Ark to finish the razor.
So a strange thing I realized. I am perfectly comfortable using whetstones freehand on my Japanese knives, but nowhere near as comfortable working with German steel in that manner. I think a key is that I keep my Japanese knives very sharp - generating a burr rarely takes more than a minute or two. But when I am sharpening German steel, it’s usually a relative’s knife that is way overdue for sharpening. Which means that I have to hold the bevel angle stable for a longer period of time.