Take a look at this knife:
Notice that the edge start very far away from the edge of the blade, if that makes sense.
The question I'm asking myself is whether, when sharpening this knife, do I need to keep this super long edge:
or do I need to sharpen the edge like this:
Basically, my question is how do I sharpen this?
Also, is 800 grit enough to make a practical, sharp edge?
There are two options.
First you can sharpen it with a single bevel (per side), this requires sharpening with the wide bevel flat to the stone.
Alternatively you can sharpen with a small second 'micro bevel' at a slightly steeper angle than the primary bevel. this makes it much easier to give the blade frequent touch-ups but you will still need to regrind the main bevel periodically when the micro bevel gets too wide.
800 grit is a bit on the coarse side but should be OK for general use, for something like woodcarving you would want to go a bit finer.
That looks to be what is known as a flat "Scandi" grind on the edge. There are a lot of good resources online about how to sharpen this type of grind, but basically this is considered a relatively sturdy grind and simple to sharpen because there is no secondary bevel. The angle of that "edge" is your sharpening angle.
Regarding the grit, that will depend upon the degree to which your blade is "dull," but 800 would be appropriate for general touch-ups on a well maintained blade.
