Thanks very much!
I agree about cleavers - I never understood how they last even with a pretty broad angle. "BANG" - especially going through bone. It's only steel, after all. But they do work somehow.
I mainly use cleavers on fruit stand rejects going into the compost heap, or back when I had a fireplace, for tinder. I'll also use flimsy "toy cleavers" to cut cheese or apples just becuase it's fun.
My best Chinese cleaver had a thin blade and carbon steel so I gave it a fine edge. It made tinder thinner than toothpicks back then! I never needed a "chemical log" to burn creosote out of the chimney!
I have one old boning knife that has a hard edge. I'm not sure whether it's stainless layered over carbon steel, or very old expensive stainless (from back when they thought every knife needed to be hard and sharp). That one takes and holds an edge, and gets used more often than anything else for serious cutting. I sharpen that one (and one of Becky's knives) to a sharper, more acute angle than the others.
I don't know what it is in degrees, but when I sharpen, the spine is "barely" lifted off the sotne.
Years ago I tired to do something with a laser pointer projecting the edge onto a protractor, then trying to find the reflecting angle when it hit the edge ... then I found a huge discarded magnifying glass ... and finally gave up on that "science" approach when I learned how to hold a "good enough" angle by hand and by eye.
I use the plastic "angle guide" for fast rough work so I can grind away with a heavy hand while watching TV. After that creates a burr on the 180 grit stone, I use the angle guide to polish it up to 700 grit, going slower and lighter at each grit.. Then I turn off the TV, take a deep breath and polish the bevel carefully at 700 grit by removing one pad from under the bench stone. That drops it a mm or two, which increases the angle by some fraction of a degree, and I make a micro-bevel with a few very gentle passes.
After that, it's freehand for several years until I want to refresh the whole bevel.
P.S. The best thing about steeling a blade? If it's good hard steel, it will "sing" as you steel it. That adds a lot to the "Please cut up this turkey at the table, Rick" song and dance.
