<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ofalkaed</author><text>Practice. It is one of those things like riding a bike that you have to put in the time and mess up at if you want to master. It might take an hour or two to get that first blade sharp but once you develop the skill it will become easy. The biggest thing is to pay attention to what you are doing, how you hold the blade and the movements you are making and how that affects the edge. Check the edge often and examine the marks left by the stone, nice straight parallel even grooving tells you things are as they should be; they will appear slightly curved and&amp;#x2F;or look as if they fade away if you are changing angle during the stroke. The marks will actually tell you everything you are doing wrong or right once you learn to read them and some purposeful and exaggerated &amp;#x27;mistakes&amp;#x27; can be helpful in learning to read them.</text><parent_chain><item><author>noman-land</author><text>Any tips to hold the angle steady?</text></item><item><author>btbuildem</author><text>Years ago, when I lived in Seattle, I remember meeting an old Japanese blacksmith. I found him when I was looking to buy some of the pull-style hand saws, but when I met him to pick up the wares, it turned into a bit of a social call.&lt;p&gt;He must&amp;#x27;ve been around 80 or so, lived by himself in a house that was half home half workshop. Got into talking about saws and chisels and blades and sharpening, complete with a Mr.Miyagi-esque riddle of &amp;quot;what does it mean to cut something?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I walked out of there having learned how to quickly and effectively sharpen a blade -- hold a steady angle consistent with the rough grind of the edge, push into the grain of the stone, and remove the burr. Seeing that in this book brought this memory back :)</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening (1985) [pdf]</title><url>https://www.sharpeninghandbook.info/Images/Knife_Sharpening_text.pdf</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>btbuildem</author><text>He had different wedges of wood with angles matched to different plane irons -- the wood would slide on the table&amp;#x2F;bench while the edge of the blade would go over the stone. Holding the iron against the angled block seemed to keep the angle consistent.</text><parent_chain><item><author>noman-land</author><text>Any tips to hold the angle steady?</text></item><item><author>btbuildem</author><text>Years ago, when I lived in Seattle, I remember meeting an old Japanese blacksmith. I found him when I was looking to buy some of the pull-style hand saws, but when I met him to pick up the wares, it turned into a bit of a social call.&lt;p&gt;He must&amp;#x27;ve been around 80 or so, lived by himself in a house that was half home half workshop. Got into talking about saws and chisels and blades and sharpening, complete with a Mr.Miyagi-esque riddle of &amp;quot;what does it mean to cut something?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I walked out of there having learned how to quickly and effectively sharpen a blade -- hold a steady angle consistent with the rough grind of the edge, push into the grain of the stone, and remove the burr. Seeing that in this book brought this memory back :)</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening (1985) [pdf]</title><url>https://www.sharpeninghandbook.info/Images/Knife_Sharpening_text.pdf</url></story>