My good pocket knives are good to go but I cannot get the kitchen or steak knives up to my preferred level of sharpness. Either the knife, the equipment or the person doing the sharpening
The biggest trick I have found in my 50+ years is not to let a knife get too dull in the first place.
-Jeff
Are the kitchen and steak knives stainless? If so, that's likely your problem when it comes to that hair-shaving razor edge you're talking about.
Stainless in general, most especially the lower quality stainless typically used in most knives/cutlery, is not hard enough to take an edge like you're used to. When you stroke the blades on your stone, likely you'll find the very edge of the blade develops a "curl" to it, which you can actually feel with your thumbnail. This requires a different technique to eliminate, likely a stropping.
There are three definitions which many people mess up...I know I used to mess up how they're used.
Sharpening. This is a process used to make a dull knife sharp and involves "significant" actual metal removal from the edge of the blade. (Significant, in comparison to honing or stropping.)
Honing. Follows sharpening and polishes the edge of the blade, removing irregularites.
Stropping. This follows honing and further polishes the edge.
Kitchen knives don't really require an actual razor edge. They need to be sharp, sure...but those tiny irregularities in the edge of the blades actually make them excellent for cutting/carving much of the fruits, veggies, and meats in the kitchen. An easy demonstration of this on a gross scale is trying to slice a ripe tomato into thin slices. Everybody knows you need a sharp knife for this...but what you really need is an edge on that knife that will make the first smooth cut, or puncture, through the skin. After that, a reasonably sharp knife will make short work of that tomato. The easy demonstration of this is to whip out that serrated bread knife and watch how easily it slices those tomatoes as thin as you could ever wish for. The serrations are what makes that possible.
So if your kitchen knives are sharp, but not razor sharp, you're probably in good standing at the kitchen counter.
I finished up and it didn’t take long to raise a burr and then work through my extra fine stone and strop. This steel does continue to vex me though. I just don’t have the skill/technique/experience to get it to the level of keenness I can with other steels. This goes for both guided systems and freehand.
