Right, so get your kitchen knives out to do this learning process.
dont even get me started on my target brand kitchen knives!!! i had the cutco person over, my wife freaked out on the price of those, but those cutco's are sure nice. So, im stuck with these POS kitchen knifes that wont cut the plastic open on hamburger meat it tears it!!
Ill leave the microtech to a pro...
Ill leave the microtech to a pro...
Perry Stanford at Stanford Outdoors in BA can sharpen it for you. He is at 405 N. Walnut Ave #8. That is the old Tromix location. That's just east of the Super Walmart there at 71st/Aspen.
Man - a blade that small is going to be difficult, dagger-grind complicates things a bit and serrations make it a little trickier even (unless you only need the non-serrated portion sharpened). Good luck! 
Well, "shaving sharp" is different to different people. And even a knife that can truly be used to shave your face isn't considered extremely sharp in the world of knife-sharpening. If you can whittle a hair by only pulling the hair against the edge, that's pretty darn sharp. That being said, if you can push-cut printer paper, you're doing something right. If you have to slice-cut that same paper, it's slightly less sharp (or it has rough spots on the apex of the edge)
There are several issues with the majority of pull-through sharpeners out there (including Smiths).
1. the angle of the sharpening-steels in the pull-through are usually well more obtuse than you would ever want your edge to be (they do this because the sharpeners are idiot-proof and this obtuse angle ensures that the sharpener only touches the apex, which would be great if you were just polishing a micro-bevel - but when removing a ton of steel, this isn't a good thing).
2. They also remove a ton of steel (the steel/carbide versions, not the ceramics). They do this by "cutting" away the edge of your knife. Thousands of years of sharpening have taught us that by stepping through abrasives from course to fine, you can achieve the perfect edge on any piece of steel if held to an appropriate angle. Cutting (or really, scraping) away the metal from your edge is trying to skip all of that time/effort by doing it the easy way. The affects of this are that any decent blade-steel doesn't like to be scraped or cut away (most have been hardened), so you get dips and peaks along the edge along with chips and torn spots in the steel.
3. They don't sharpen toward or away from the apex of the edge (since you're pulling them through parallel to the Apex and bevel). By sharpening this way, you're not ensuring that the apex is free from chips/wire-edges/blunted-spots/etc. They also cause parallel damage to the incline of the edge (see pic):
I'd get anything from a Lansky or Sharp-maker to a set of bench stones (there are tons of Youtube videos on sharpening on a stone). You'll find that the edges are way more consistent via stones than they ever could be on a pull-through - but key to sharpening is patience, and I can't stress this enough Don't use too much force - ever. A good way to frustrate yourself is to get in a hurry and start applying force to the blade or stone when sharpening. This will not speed the process up at all - it will slow it down.
Personally, I like DMT's uninterrupted Course/Med Diamond stones, a Natural fine stone, and a Ceramic super-fine (typically in the 1200-1400 grit range). Then just get a board and attach an old leather belt to it and get some Strop Rouge (or Paste) and you can make razor-blades out of all your knives with ease.
Practice on Kitchen knives and before you know it, you'll have some pretty good sharpening skills.
Well, "shaving sharp" is different to different people. And even a knife that can truly be used to shave your face isn't considered extremely sharp in the world of knife-sharpening. If you can whittle a hair by only pulling the hair against the edge, that's pretty darn sharp. That being said, if you can push-cut printer paper, you're doing something right. If you have to slice-cut that same paper, it's slightly less sharp (or it has rough spots on the apex of the edge)
There are several issues with the majority of pull-through sharpeners out there (including Smiths).
1. the angle of the sharpening-steels in the pull-through are usually well more obtuse than you would ever want your edge to be (they do this because the sharpeners are idiot-proof and this obtuse angle ensures that the sharpener only touches the apex, which would be great if you were just polishing a micro-bevel - but when removing a ton of steel, this isn't a good thing).
2. They also remove a ton of steel (the steel/carbide versions, not the ceramics). They do this by "cutting" away the edge of your knife. Thousands of years of sharpening have taught us that by stepping through abrasives from course to fine, you can achieve the perfect edge on any piece of steel if held to an appropriate angle. Cutting (or really, scraping) away the metal from your edge is trying to skip all of that time/effort by doing it the easy way. The affects of this are that any decent blade-steel doesn't like to be scraped or cut away (most have been hardened), so you get dips and peaks along the edge along with chips and torn spots in the steel.
3. They don't sharpen toward or away from the apex of the edge (since you're pulling them through parallel to the Apex and bevel). By sharpening this way, you're not ensuring that the apex is free from chips/wire-edges/blunted-spots/etc. They also cause parallel damage to the incline of the edge (see pic):
I'd get anything from a Lansky or Sharp-maker to a set of bench stones (there are tons of Youtube videos on sharpening on a stone). You'll find that the edges are way more consistent via stones than they ever could be on a pull-through - but key to sharpening is patience, and I can't stress this enough Don't use too much force - ever. A good way to frustrate yourself is to get in a hurry and start applying force to the blade or stone when sharpening. This will not speed the process up at all - it will slow it down.
Personally, I like DMT's uninterrupted Course/Med Diamond stones, a Natural fine stone, and a Ceramic super-fine (typically in the 1200-1400 grit range). Then just get a board and attach an old leather belt to it and get some Strop Rouge (or Paste) and you can make razor-blades out of all your knives with ease.
Practice on Kitchen knives and before you know it, you'll have some pretty good sharpening skills.
A word of advice, if you're going to start practice sharpening all your kitchen knives (we have POS kitchen knives too - it's one of those things on my list to upgrade now that I know what good kitchen knives are), be sure to warn the wife and kids before you do that. Our POS kitchen knives can all push-cut paper and I forgot to tell the little dishwashers (ages 11 and 12) or the wife and we almost had an incident.
Luckily, the wife decided to cut up a tomato for tacos last night and when it just sat down and went through the tomato, she remembered my new sharpener showing up in the mail and put 2 and 2 together. Previously we only had 2 or 3 really sharp kitchen knives (from when I learned how to use bench-stones - it only took 2 or 3 and I was good to go).
mmm be sure to tell your Wifey that you sharpened Her knives.... 
Thanks for the advise. Question. Do those guides really work? Like the ones that hold the blade a certain angle?
Yep, the Lanskys work. The Spyderco Sharp-Makers are easier to use and work well too. You might want to upgrade some of your stones in the Lansky kit to Diamond (like maybe the Course if you're re-profiling, possibly and a Ceramic super-fine is never a bad thing).
You can try out free-handing and with just a little practice on some crappy kitchen knives, you'll end up pretty good in no time.
One of the best things you can get when learning to sharpen is one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/SE-MJ362520LV...toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1343752213&sr=1-21
I've got some loupes at home. I'll give it a shot on some crap knives I have.
