Do you PUSH or PULL the blade across the stone??
About ‘sharpening”; do you PUSH OR PULL the blade across the stone
sharpening
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The user "virtuovice" has some great videos on knife sharpening. It was my introduction to whetstone sharpening and since following his videos, I have been able to sharpen my range of kitchen knives to a pretty incredible sharpness. His videos are mainly aimed at hunting knives, but the techniques can be applied to kitchen knives
Have a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc_TEWmMcD0
The main thing to try and remember is to move with your arms and not to rotate your wrists at the ends of each stroke across the stone so that the angle is kept constant. I'd practice on some cheap knives and just go slowly first. Look at how much metal is being removed from the blade - rinse the knife often and check your progress. Imagine you are trying to take a very fine slice of stone off the top surface.
In terms of technique, you can also take a look at this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm53mCOQTR8
It's easier to see because of the high grind on the blade.
I found this on chefknivestogo and I think it explains it quite well.
RAY <> A "50/50" usually references an edge. So on the cutting edge, it is an even 50/50 "V". It can be 50/50 at 12 degrees or 50/50 @20, but each sides angle is equivocal.
A double bevel is a knife design created by grinding. So from the spine to the cutting edge, there is a blade face that has been ground (most of the time). It can be a flat grind, a convex grind, a hollow grind, and any of these grinds can be symmetric (50/50) or asymmetric. So for instance, my Ginsanko Hiromoto Western Deba has an asymmetrical semi convex grind. It has a flat ground left blade face at around 30% of the total included angle and the right side blade face has a distinctly convex grind that is the other 70% of the total included angle, but the actual cutting edge has an asymmetry, as well. The actual cutting edge does not look like a "V" as it is, in fact, a 60/40 right-handed bias. It's a particularly unique blade, but exemplifies your point, quite well. :mrgreen:
In short, the numbers like 50/50 or 70/30 represent the percentage of the included angle on each side of the blade. So, for a 50/50 knife with an included angle of 50°, it would be ground to a 25° edge angle on each side of the blade. See diagram below:
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Best Answer
Depends on the stone. If it's a countertop wetstone, then you want to angle the blade slightly, while you pull and slide outwards. You never want a purely straight pull.
If it's a handheld micro-sharpener, then (while holding the blade at the sharpener designated angle) out and up, minding your fingers and wrist.
If it's a sharpening steel, there's a quite intricate motion that I can't quite describe in words, so I would suggest you visit YouTube.
For more on knife sharpening and diagrams, see: http://www.buckknives.com/about-knives/knife-sharpening/
To clarify on "pull" and "outward":
Pull means to pull the knife directly towards you, as if it were a rope in a tug-of-war game.
Outward means dragging left-to-right or right-to-left, as if drawing a line.
A pull-outward motion would be pulling the knife towards you while dragging it across the stone. This should create a diagonal motion that is heavily accentuated towards having more pulling movement than outward movement.
As noted in the comments, I am an advocate of pulling the sharp edge of the blade with the blunt edge leading, rather than the blade leading. To visualize, imagine a knife in your right hand on a stone. The sharp edge is nearest your left hand, and you move it across the stone towards your right.