There are two important things when sharpening a knife.
1. Remove material up to the end of the edge.
You must remove enough material from the edge so that you can feel a curl has formed on the other side. You can use your nail to feel for the curl. When one side is done, do the other.
If you have trouble here, mark the whole length of the edge with a black marker pen so you can use a magnifying glass to see if you have reach the tip of edge.
I have found a coarse diamond stone to be the best tool here. This can be done totally freehand, there is no magic. Use force to remove material faster.
2. Remove the curl you formed in the previous step.
This is the most delicate part. You have to carefully remove the curl and not spoil the edge in the process.
I use a fine diamond stone for this, with a light touch, alternating from side to side. Then I give the final finish to the edge on a ceramic kitchen sharpener where I draw the edge between two rollers. I have not learned to consistently final finish an edge freehand, yet, that is why I resort to the kitchen sharpener.
This is what my sharpening tools look like.
The Swedish diamond sharpener has two sides, coarse and fine.
These tools are all I need to keep our kitchen knives, my hunting, pocket and utility knives sharp. Oh, sometimes when a knife's edge is totally ruined, sometimes even on a new knife from a factory, I use an even coarser sharpener to straighten the edge angle, but this is fortunately rare.
