Hi Tommy,
Im guessing the problem with only part of the blade being shaving sharp is a problem with maintaining the factory ground angle on the small edge bevel with freehand sharpening.
A few weeks ago I dug out a Victorinox with a single blade, that I bought to take with me to India about fifteen years ago (it drilled holes in coconut shells without leaving a mark on the blade). It had been languishing in a tool box since then.
As I convex all pocket knives (because of the problem of maintaining the angle of during freehand sharpening I only do freehand sharpening), I decided to convex this old Victorinox (cant find this one on the Web anywhere. It just has a plain aluminium Swiss cross on it, without the shield around it, on red aluminium scales) using the mouse mat method.
Mouse mat (foam side up) with a sheet of P240 grit paper on top, and draw the blade (edge trailing) along the paper until the sharp edge where the primary bevel meets the secondary bevel has been rounded off (Im not talking about the cutting edge!). Then do the same on the opposite side of the blade.
The convexing only goes up from the cutting edge about 1.5mm (don't know how high the flat grind is/was on yours, the flat grind on mine couldn't have been more than I millimetre or so). I didnt do a full height convex all the way up to the spine to avoid over-thinning the blade, and thus making the edge a little thin and weak.
Then I swapped to a paper with a P220 grit to remove some of the scratches on the convexed section. And then again to a P400 grit. Then I stropped it on a piece of leather with blue polishing compound. Now I just maintain the edge from time to time with a leather stop with no compound on it, as Adam has described.
Alternatively, if you dont want to do the whole stropping with compound and leather, thing, you could just polish the edge (after convexing with the papers note: you only need to use the papers once, unless you have chipped the edge and need to remove a lot of metal) with the ceramic side of the DC4. And you only need to polish less than a millimetre up from the cutting edge with the DC4 (but stopping will give a higher polish, and therefore a sharper edge).
The grits on the papers arent the ultimate ones to use, they are just what I had kicking around.
And by the way, once you have convexed the edge, if you keep the blade angled so that it
is raised by the thickness of the blade (as per the instructions on the DC4 box), it should be the correct angle to polish the edge on the ceramic side, but you may need to experiment with this, as it will depend on exactly to what degree you will have convexed it, and so forth (each blade is unique, each grind is unique, and how you develop your honing skills will be unique...it's more of an art than a science).
I never quite understood why people raved so much about Victorinox knives, but
now I do. Its an awesome little knife, made from superb steel. Its now my (UK legal) EDC as they say, in knife carrying circles.
Dont know what Mora you have, but I levelled the bevel with diamond side of a DC4 and then polished the bevel with the ceramic side, on a Frosts Viking Tradesman 680 last week, and the Triflex steel blade is now so sharp, its evil (I suspect that stopping would make it positively demonic
). By the way, if you extend the index finger of the hand holding the knife, onto the blade (just beyond the handle), youll find this helps to avoid the blade twisting as you slide the knife over the Whetstone. Itll help to keep the bevel flat on the whetstone throughout the stroke, as the blade tends to twist slightly as you get toward the tip of the blade on each stroke.
As an alternative to Longstriders excellent suggestion of the anti-slip rubber matting, if you need to use the DC4 hand-held, and you cant hold it without your thumb and index finger being above the surface of the Whetstone, try resting it on the flat of the palm of your hand (like feeding a carrot to a horse). This way, you cant slice into any digits.
Come to think of it, a small piece of rubber matting between the palm of the hand and the DC4, might be the perfect non-slip/no-injury solution when away from a convenient flat surface!
Hope this helps, and happy honing.
Best regards,
Paul.
