At the moment, my ability to hone a razor far exceeds my ability to hone a knife. (Perhaps because razors have built-in angle guides while knives do not.) Murray Carter or Carter Cutlery has little bits & pieces of his $30 honing videos up on YouTube. It looks like he uses a 1000/8000 grit waterstone & hones with straight back & forth motions, then backhones a few strokes to deburr, and finally slices very gently into soft wood to take off the remains of the burr.

What I've learned about razors seems to suggest that you want the scratch pattern to angle back if you do pull-slices, and forward if you do push-slices. Won't Murray's technique result in scratches that are perpendicular to the cutting edge, like a microscopic crosscut saw? Or is that what he wants?

1. I prefer a slicing-a-sticker-off-the-stone motion. Do you have a favorite method? Why?

2. Is there any point in putting an 8K polish (or even a 1K polish) on a kitchen or work knife?

3. What about all those angle jigs? I can do a pretty good job freehand, tho not perfect. But I like the idea of being able to sharpen my knife anytime, anywhere, with nothing but a little pocket slipstone.

4. What do you think about the merits of a polished scalpel edge vs. a rougher, toothier edge for a knife?