I was watching a video by John Brodai last week and he was taking about micro bevels. This guy has studied with some of the great masters of Japan. The knife sharpeners of Japan have a very simple approach to micro bevels. They put a few strokes on one side only and a great angle I.e. 40-45 degrees about the width of half a human hair.

I tend to approach micro-bevel angle selection as an iterative process. I generally will take a given knife to an angle a few degrees lower than what I expect the metal to support for the way I plan on using it e.g. I think my CPM154 blade will hold at twenty degrees per side for work around the office, so I take it down to 16 degrees as a starting point. I use it that way until it gets dull. I then add a micro-bevel 2-3 degrees wider and use it again until it gets dull. If it got dull too quickly, I'll got out another degree or two and re-make the micro-bevel. If I was satisfied with the durability then I just touch it back up and keep using it. I generally maintain the knife by stropping it at the original primary bevel for as long as that continues to restore the edge, which will turn it fairly quickly into a convex edge. Periodically I'll go back and refresh the micro-bevel with a few strokes of a stone, especially if I want to have some micro-teeth of some particular size.