Thread: Complete newbie question

How do I know when I am done with sanding and need to move up the grit. Should all the black marks be gone with the lowest grit? Also if I even out the pitting on the spine will that mess up the angle when I hone or does it take a lot to get the angle off?

You only go up from the lowest grit if you are happy with the state of the blade.
If you want to remove all pitting, then you should only go up if all pitting is removed.
Because if there is still pitting and you go up, then the next grit will just take twice as long to remove those same pits.

On the spine it depends on how much you need to remove. It you take a full mm off the spine, then you are going to mess up the honing angle.

The rule of thumb is you only go up a grit level if you are happy with the pitting / damage that is left, and afterwards you only go up when you've removed all the scratch lines from the previous grit. This is why you should alternate sanding directions. You'll easily see if all the previous lines are gone or not.