>>2724589>>2724605If you want some more specific advice related to sharpening a knife, start aggressive, especially if you want to do shaping, finish fine. Hammer and anvil is as aggressive as it gets, followed by a bastard or flat file. For your specific project, any flat file will do. When you're done sharpening, move onto something less aggressive, or more fine. You can typically double the grit number each sharpening until you get to an 800-1200 grit range, then you'll be going after a stope which is more of a polish on a physical level than a sharpen, even though the sharping is quite real.
So you'll go
Flat file >100 grit stone or sand paper on a flat surface >200grit (220 is more common and will do just fine) >400 (360 is another common grit in this range and will also suffice) > 800 grit >1600 grit (if you feel the need to skin an animal or do some very fine detail work whittling) >stope (if you feel like having a shave)
Initially, you're rough shaping. When you have the profile you'd like, move to the 100 grit. There will be scratches from the rough shaping. The goal on each grit step is to remove the scratches from the last step, until you all the scratches you're leaving are from the current grit. So with the 100 grit take away all the marks the file left. With 200 grit, take away all the scratches the 100 grit leaves. By 400 you should have a smooth surface to the naked eye. Past 400 grit is where you start getting extremely sharp blades. You can stop anywhere you'd like.
Maintain your angles. For a general purpose knife you'll just want an even matching slope on each side of the blade. For a shaper knife you'll want a longer angle, basically more area that you're sharpening. A 15ish° angle is just fine for general use.
If you can't figure it out from here there's no hope for you.
