Trouble with fully flat ground blades

Hello Everyone!

I am new to the sharpening world and recently bought a WEPS. I love it so far and have spent hours of my life now watching videos and attempting to learn as much as I can about the art of sharpening.

I continue having trouble getting fully flat ground blades to sit correctly in the device. I took advice from other and I used foam double sided sticky tape to get the clamps tight and every time that I tighten the knife down there is about a 3 degree difference in the angle of the blade. I.E. 18 degrees on the left side and 21 on the right. I use an angle cube to check the angle. It seems as though the right foot on the system kicks out right and pushes the blade to the left throwing it out of balance. Does anyone have a professional tip for how to eliminate this from happening?

Thanks guys!

You might try two layers of foam tape, one right on top of the other to take up any extra space.

I tried doing so. . .I put two pieces on the right and one on the left, two on the left and none on the right, and even up to three and what ends up happening is the blade slips off from the pressure on the foam tape. It only changed the angle by a third of a degree.

Something is a little off here. Can you post a picture or two of the knife in the clamp? Also, how wide are your tape strips? How thick is the spine? Which holes are you using for the depth key?

It helps to make sure the jaws are set parallel to start with. You can insert the knife between the jaws at the bottom of the clamp and adjust the lower screw until it meets the free jaw but doesn’t push it out any. Then you can mount the blade, make sure the foam is taking up the space on both sides of the blade so that it’s sitting vertical in the clamp. Snug the top screw well and then tighten the bottom screw. Your tape strips should not be so wide that they reach to where the jaws meet the spine of the knife. They should be positioned higher so that they take up the empty space. Please let me know if that helps.

I just ran through my setup again and attempted to upload the pictures to show you my set up, I did everything as you said and still ran into the same problems. As I was waiting I read a bit about the clamps bending in a different link and sure enough I think I found the problem.

Thanks so much for your quick response and your willingness to help!

You’ve got a winner!! There is no doubt about what is causing the problem. Please get us your address and we’ll get a new set of properly hardened vise jaws in the mail to you tomorrow!