I finally needed to get down to sharpening. This is one of those things where one either clueless or a master of the subject. I needed to become the latter, so this wasn't going to be easy. Learning it requires extremely tedious sessions of trial and error and a steady hand. I began by submerging this Japanese water-stone in a jug of water and started scraping away at it whilst holding the knife blade at an incredibly steady angle of about 20 degrees. The leather strap has polishing compound in it and was used to straighten the edge and help it hone after I used the stone.

I am very good at grinding a piece steadily mainly from my practice during this project. This step requires that I do this for a very long time until I get a feel for what works. To test what works, I was constantly slicing up pages in a book to see how the paper resisted the slicing. Eventually, I got a feel for how to do it right. I got it to the point at which I could shave with it.