I'm really disappointed with myself. I thought I would enjoy, and be good at, sharpening knives. I don't and I'm not! I have two Shapton water stones and I can get a nice edge on my chisels with a jig that maintains the angle for me, but I just can't get a good edge on a knife. I don't know if I'm not patient enough, if I just can't hold the angle well enough or what, but I give up.
My wife is, understandably, frustrated with a kitchen full of dull knives and bought one of those drag through carbide/ceramic sharpeners and I can't even make that work - I drag a blade through a few times, there is a pile of swarf in the sharpener, the blade looks sharp - but it's dull as dull, maybe even worse than before "sharpening".
We have a range of knives from grocery store mild steel, through decent consumer Mundial and Victorinox to one low end nice Global.
Appreciate any suggestions!
The problem with a lot of the sharpeners that are intended to be "idiot proof" is that they understandably have a fixed angle. If that fixed angle is off compared to how your knife has already been sharpened, it's possible that you are basically just regrinding the edge to a new angle. That involves removing more material than you would otherwise want/need to for "maintenance" sharpening. One way to check this is by using a marker to draw on the edge so you can see where material is removed.
Another tip is to pay attention to pressure. You can use a scale to help get a feel for the right amount of pressure.