I made a video of my sharpening routine. This is a demonstration of starting with the tip at a zero bevel and ending with the heel third at about 22 degrees per side. This creates a continuously variable "wide bevel". I start off with the tip flat on the stone. This helps me to keep thinning the tip a little every time I sharpen. The tip will be the first part of the knife where you start to notice performance losses from thickening behind the edge due to frequent sharpenings.
Starting with the tip flat on the stone also gives me a reference for the start of my bevel. I have seen people describe sharpening the tip of a knife by maintaining the same bevel angle but lifting your elbow a little. Think of this method as doing the same thing except in reverse. I sharpen the tip flat and then as I move down the rest of the knife's edge my elbow moves gradually and continuously down toward the table. The result is the angle changes from zero to much more conservative.
You will notice that there is a lot of wobble. I think there are two different ways that you can deal with wobble. I use both methods depending on what I am doing. The first method I will call the razor method. This involves minimizing wobble as much as possible and also making sure everything is always perfectly flat. Think isolation tables and reference whetstones. This works great for me when I am honing razors. I get a nice, sharp, crisp but smooth apex. However, I found that in a high volume kitchen, trying to minimize wobble to be a tedious exercise in frustration. And then when I really did manage to eliminate almost all wobble with my continuous wide bevel style I encountered a different problem. My pseudo-wide bevel started turning into an actual wide bevel with a pronounced shinogi over time. This created it's own problems with wedging and the highly refined apex lacked bite. Additionally, the extremely fine crisp edges that I produced were so keen that they were easily prone to damage. So when I sharpen kitchen knives, instead of fighting wobble, I work with it. Most of the wobble is going to have its effect when I change directions. This means that the wobble is going to be more pronounced at the shoulder and at the edge. With a little wobble, the bevel will be a flat plane that is gradually convexed instead of having a crisp shoulder and apex. The edge will be more durable, have better teeth, feel sharper longer, and still have decent food release. In addition, the tip is sujihiki thin and the heel is much sturdier. This makes the knife very versatile. I add a micro bevel by doing some alternating sweeping strokes. These strokes start off at about a 15 degree angle. Then I will gradually increase the angle to about 25-30 degrees. Kind of creeping up on the apex to make sure that I reach it. And adding more micro-convexity at the edge. When I'm done with the micro bevel you still won't even be able to see it. These are extremely light strokes. Especially when I get to the high angle passes. I actually practice these strokes by trying to get as close as I can to the stone without actually touching it. Then I gradually let the apex start to make contact, as light as possible. Like 1/10th of the weight of the blade.
This stone is a Shapton Pro 1k. This is the bulk of a routine sharpening session for one of my work knives when there's no major damage or problems. After this I usually just do about 20 sweeping strokes on my Naniwa Super Stone 2k to further reduce/remove the burr and clean up the microbevel. And I'm done. Coming off of the 1k the knife will be at HHT 1 or 2. After the 2k it will pass HHT 3. That's plenty sharp enough for food. And it's durable and easy to maintain without having to do extra work every couple of sharpenings. And even if there are chips, this method is extremely fast at removing them. And you don't have to worry about fixing the geometry or sharpening more when the chips are gone. Once the chips are gone the knife will have the same geometry and be just as sharp as before the knife was chipped.
Starting with the tip flat on the stone also gives me a reference for the start of my bevel. I have seen people describe sharpening the tip of a knife by maintaining the same bevel angle but lifting your elbow a little. Think of this method as doing the same thing except in reverse. I sharpen the tip flat and then as I move down the rest of the knife's edge my elbow moves gradually and continuously down toward the table. The result is the angle changes from zero to much more conservative.
You will notice that there is a lot of wobble. I think there are two different ways that you can deal with wobble. I use both methods depending on what I am doing. The first method I will call the razor method. This involves minimizing wobble as much as possible and also making sure everything is always perfectly flat. Think isolation tables and reference whetstones. This works great for me when I am honing razors. I get a nice, sharp, crisp but smooth apex. However, I found that in a high volume kitchen, trying to minimize wobble to be a tedious exercise in frustration. And then when I really did manage to eliminate almost all wobble with my continuous wide bevel style I encountered a different problem. My pseudo-wide bevel started turning into an actual wide bevel with a pronounced shinogi over time. This created it's own problems with wedging and the highly refined apex lacked bite. Additionally, the extremely fine crisp edges that I produced were so keen that they were easily prone to damage. So when I sharpen kitchen knives, instead of fighting wobble, I work with it. Most of the wobble is going to have its effect when I change directions. This means that the wobble is going to be more pronounced at the shoulder and at the edge. With a little wobble, the bevel will be a flat plane that is gradually convexed instead of having a crisp shoulder and apex. The edge will be more durable, have better teeth, feel sharper longer, and still have decent food release. In addition, the tip is sujihiki thin and the heel is much sturdier. This makes the knife very versatile. I add a micro bevel by doing some alternating sweeping strokes. These strokes start off at about a 15 degree angle. Then I will gradually increase the angle to about 25-30 degrees. Kind of creeping up on the apex to make sure that I reach it. And adding more micro-convexity at the edge. When I'm done with the micro bevel you still won't even be able to see it. These are extremely light strokes. Especially when I get to the high angle passes. I actually practice these strokes by trying to get as close as I can to the stone without actually touching it. Then I gradually let the apex start to make contact, as light as possible. Like 1/10th of the weight of the blade.
This stone is a Shapton Pro 1k. This is the bulk of a routine sharpening session for one of my work knives when there's no major damage or problems. After this I usually just do about 20 sweeping strokes on my Naniwa Super Stone 2k to further reduce/remove the burr and clean up the microbevel. And I'm done. Coming off of the 1k the knife will be at HHT 1 or 2. After the 2k it will pass HHT 3. That's plenty sharp enough for food. And it's durable and easy to maintain without having to do extra work every couple of sharpenings. And even if there are chips, this method is extremely fast at removing them. And you don't have to worry about fixing the geometry or sharpening more when the chips are gone. Once the chips are gone the knife will have the same geometry and be just as sharp as before the knife was chipped.
