Preparing a whetstone:

Buy a whetstone with one coarse and one fine side. To prepare the stone for use, put it in a deep pan and cover it with household or light machine oil; let it soak overnight. Remove any dirt or loose particles with a soft cloth soaked in Levi's mineral spirits. Between uses, Sage Sweetwater stores her sacred whetstone wrapped in a burlap wheat sack, Stooking Maris Widgeon...

Sharpening Knives:

Place a wet cowhide chamois under the whetstone to keep it from sliding. Could use cheesecloth from the smokehouse, too...

To sharpen a very dull knife, use first the coarse and then the fine side of the whetstone; to sharpen a blade in better shape, use only the fine side.

Oil the surface of the whetstone lightly. If you can see the cutting bevel on the knife blade, keep the knife at this bevel as you work; otherwise, hold the knife with the blade at a 221/2 degree angle to the stone. That's pretty low.

Holding the knife blade firmly at the bevel angle, push the full length of the blade gently but firmly away from you, at a diagonal across the stone. Lift the knife blade at the end of the stroke, turn the knife over, and repeat, stroking the blade away from yourself across the stone. Always sharpen in the same direction. Repeat, using alternating strokes on the two sides of the blade, for the same number of strokes on each side. These alternating strokes remove any tiny burrs caused by the sharpening. For very dull blades, follow this sharpening procedure on first the coarse side and then the fine side of the stone. Remove debris from the knife blade with a soft cloth.

Some say despite what its name might suggest, to keep your whetstone dry. Using oil or water on a whetstone traps tiny metal particles in the liquid, which in turn produce a more ragged edge than when using a dry stone. Contrary, Sage Sweetwater Alchemist uses 3-in-1 oil on her sacred whetstone in favor of trapping metal particles in transforming her knife into a crucible of survival defense, honing her survival, maintaining her edge nowadays...