Am I smart eough to sharpen a knife?

Sharpening on the WEPS is simplicity itself, if you follow even the directions in the handbook that comes with the rig. Where it gets complicated is not the how, but the why. Like Zen meditation it is easy, all you have to do is breathe in and breathe out and count your breaths up to ten and begin again. Like many simple things the devil is in the details. If you don’t care whether you have a mirror finish, if you don’t care if the bevels are precisely equal. if you don’t care about acquiring the very sharpest edge, only sharp enough,if you don’t wonder if there are other ways to improve on your knife edges like using kangaroo or balsa strops with what variety of diamond spray, then it is simple…raise a burr, sweep gently with the various stones and in a trice you have a sharp edge. Probably sharper than when it came from the factory…in fact no doubt! :ohmy:
That is the genius of Clay’s rig…anyone can do it, even an old klutz like me!

Leo

I think there can be a tendency to make things too technical I for instance do not use the rule or the height key I think the positioning of the knife is best coming from experience and added to that I simple do not have the patience for that level of precision .
In general a working knife has a temporary bevel I am more interested in tuning it to its use than reaching perfection which I will pursue on knives that I do not use .
Trial & error seems the way to go and it is simple more fun and a quicker learning curve.
I think sharpening at its best is great fun and rewarding and that is the most important thing.
I am with you Eamon I am guilty of trying to find out what is relevant to been able to give a would be customer the best for his money where an element of science helps to understand the structure of steel having said that it has very little with the first steps in discovering the WE for that I think a good eye and a delicate hand is virtually all that is required to start with .
Like you say the chances are even on a first knife sharpened on the WE it is going to be better than most knives are out of the store .
Perhaps we should do a Health and Safety course before going anywhere near it plus the flame resistant suit and perhaps a man waving a red flag(just to keep all souls happy)!!!!

Eamon, I think you have a good point. Because the WEPS is so precise it attracts different target groups.

It attracts people because it is so simple to use. It is simple to reprofile an edge and once you have created the initial bevel resharpening is a breeze.

And it attracts lunatics and perfectionists 😉 who want to get the sharpest and most polished edges. Most of the frequent forum posters fall into this category, I think.

I myself went from the first target group to the second.

Maybe we could cater better for the first target group by introducing a subforum “Starting with the WEPS” (or find a better title), which should be the first one in the index list?

I know I was neurotic about wanting to use the WEPS properly and not make any mistakes right from the start. Watched a lot of videos on youtube, read lots in the forum. I think you need to have some knives to learn on to even understand what problems and questions you have about using the WEPS.

That said, I also think a bit of a revamp of where info is located would be helpful, like the demonstration videos being under resources tab in addition to the home page.

Great topic guys, so much good insight. So maybe a new section for “Getting Started”? We could try to add in a post there occasionally to keep it high up on the list of new topics and just offer quick tips and encouragement, keep it short and sweet.

Good idea! That’ll give me some incentive to move topics again :ohmy: 😆