- Use a marker to color in the bevel of your knife.
- Set one of your finer grit, diamond abrasives on the guide rod and lay the stone up against the knife, adjusting the L-bracket until the stone appears to lay flat on the bevel of the knife.
- Make a pass or two with the stone and observe where the marker is removed along the bevel as shown in fig 2 above.
- If the marker is removed only from the bottom of the bevel on the shoulder, as in fig. 3 below, then the angle is set too narrowly. Move the L-bracket out a degree and try again.
- If the marker is removed only from the top of the bevel along the edge as shown in fig. 4 below, the angle is set too widely. Move the L-bracket in one degree and try again.
- If the marker is removed only from the bottom of the bevel on the shoulder, as in fig. 3 below, then the angle is set too narrowly. Move the L-bracket out a degree and try again.
- When the stone removes all the marker in one pass, observe the angle indicated on the degree bar or angle plate, at the inside edge of the L-bracket. This is your angle per side. Your included angle will be the angle of each side added together.
There are two other ways to find out the angle at which a knife has been sharpened.
- Consult the manufacturer’s documentation
- Use a laser goniometer available from CATRA at www.catra.org