Short answer: hold the blade at a consistent angle, work one side until you raise a burr along the whole edge, do the other side, then strop the burr off. Angle consistency matters more than the stone, the grit, or how long you spend.
What you actually need
A double-sided whetstone in something like 400 and 1000 grit covers ninety per cent of home sharpening. Add a 3000 or higher only if you enjoy the process. You also want a flat surface, a damp cloth under the stone so it does not slide, and water.
Soak a water stone for ten minutes before you start, until the bubbles stop. Oil stones take a few drops of light oil instead. Never use water on a stone made for oil, or you will glaze it.
Finding the angle, and holding it
Most working knives live between 17 and 22 degrees per side. Kitchen knives sit at the shallow end, camp and hunting knives at the steeper end because a thicker edge survives bone and wood.
Twenty degrees is roughly the angle of two stacked quarters under the spine. Set that once, then let your shoulder do the movement rather than your wrist. Wrists rotate, and a rotating wrist rounds the bevel into a curve that will never get sharp.
The burr is the whole game
Work one side of the edge, heel to tip, with light pressure. After a couple of minutes run a thumb across the edge on the opposite side, never along it. When you feel a tiny wire catching your skin along the entire length, that is the burr, and it means you have finally reached the very edge.
Until the burr appears you are only sharpening the shoulder of the bevel. Most people stop before this point and wonder why the knife is not sharp.
Now flip and do the same on the other side until the burr moves across. Then lighten the pressure right down and take alternating passes to shrink it.
Stropping
Ten or twelve passes on a leather strop, or on the back of an old belt, spine-first with almost no pressure. This removes what is left of the burr and aligns the edge. Skip it and the knife will feel sharp for one day and dull the next, because that leftover wire simply folds over.
How to know when it is sharp
Hold a sheet of paper by one corner and slice down through it. A sharp edge cuts silently and leaves a clean line. A dull one tears and catches. Do not test on your thumb.
Questions people ask
How often should I sharpen?
Far less often than you hone. A knife in daily kitchen use needs a stone every one to two months, and a honing rod every few uses. See the difference between the two in our honing guide.
Are pull-through sharpeners bad?
They work, and they remove far more steel than a stone does because they scrape rather than grind. On a cheap knife that is a fair trade. On a hand-forged blade you paid real money for, it is not.
Does Damascus sharpen differently?
No. Our billets are 1095 and 15N20 at 58 to 60 HRC, and they take an edge quickly and hold it well. The etched pattern is unaffected by sharpening the edge. See care and sharpening for keeping the rest of the blade healthy.
My knife will not take an edge at all
Either you are not reaching the very edge, which the burr test will tell you, or the edge is chipped and needs a coarser stone first to reset the bevel.
More from the workshop
Honing vs Sharpening: What the Rod Actually Does
Why your knife feels dull long before it actually is.
Full Tang vs Partial Tang
Knives break where the blade meets the handle. Tang is what carries that load.
How to Clean a Pocket Knife
Ten minutes twice a year keeps a folder working for a lifetime.