Warning! Warning! Knife-sharpening neep follows!
(ecurbh, you might want to consider this for another chapter in the Hobbit Hole knife story, along with the upcoming Hobbit Hole combat knife.)
Please forgive me, Jen, if I seem to go into mind-numbind detail.
The Hobit Hole CKRT isn't sharpened, since it starts out quite sharp. Instead, it's stropped. Stropping is "micro-sharpening" to get those last few particles of steel where you want them. This is done by using the mildest abrasive possible.
A strop is basically a piece of thick leather. Dirt has silica (an abrasive) in it. Therefore plants have silica in them. Therefore, cows, which eat plants, have silica in their hides. This is the strop I use, which is actually sold by a kitchen cutlery company, PCD (Professional Cutlery Direct).
The leather strop provides the final polish to the edge. A sharp edge should shine like a mirror. The CRKT folder, the Extrema Ratio, and the Camillus just need a bit of stropping so I know they are as sharp as I can make them.
For a bit more aggressive sharpening, the strop opens onto a piece of thick rough-out leather. A bit of 8000-grit (yes, that fine) aluminum oxide is rubbed in, and then the knife edge is again gently pulled along the leather. The dark color is the steel from other knives that needed a bit more aggressive sharpening than just the leather strop.
This is how a factory-sharp knife is made sharper. The next installation deals with what to do a duller blade, and no comfy workbench.