Uneven bevel
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I’m new to Wicked Edge on my v3 system. I’ve really only worked on one knife so far and I’ve noticed that the bevel on this knife is slightly different on the right side vs the left.
Any other ways to clean up a mismatched edge and prevent that from happening again?
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Welcome Jason. Which system are you using? Which vice does it have? The WE120 and some others have the screw type clamp which inherently offsets the knife while clamping and will leave an uneven bevel if uncorrected for. I see you wrote “v3” does that mean Gen 3?
To answer in general, an uneven bevel is usually due to one side having been worked on more than the other. With time, effort, and attention the bevels will even out. It doesn’t usually affect the sharpness or performance of the knife as long as your sharpening of either side bevel has been drawn all the way to the edge and both sides do come together at the apex, the tip of the edge. Uneven bevel knives are common and ground intentionally in Japanese Chef’s knives and can enhance the knife’s performance.
Marc
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Welcome to the forum Jason!
Everything Marc has said is correct. To even out the bevels you can spend extra time working only on the smaller side with your lowest grit until the bevels look symmetrical. Once this is done, the bevels should continue to be symmetrical through the rest of your sharpening process if you are working both sides of the blade equally. Alternating the strokes will ensure this is the case, but it’s not completely necessary.
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Welcome to the forum Jason! Indeed Marc is correct in saying that ” general, an uneven bevel is usually due to one side having been worked on more than the other”. When I just had my WEPS, I used to create a bevel on side of the knife (side 1) by scrubbing on the other side (side 2). Then I scrubbed the side with the bevel (side 1), which created a bevel at side 2 very quickly. The result was an uneven bevel. The reason for your uneven bevel may be different, but if you make sure you do as much work on one side as on the other side, the bevels should come out even.
Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge
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Jason, I just want to add this… I try to examine all my knife purchases under the USB Microscope prior to using them. I have to say that many of these knives irrespective of the price come to me from the knife makers with uneven bevels. Even the knives specified to be 50/50 even bevel profiles. It is common in hand made, hand sharpened knives and machine made or machine sharpened knives, alike.
This means that you and your sharpening technique may not be the cause of your uneven bevel. You do have the power, the ability and the equipment to fix it. Sometimes if an uneven bevel is so far off, I will correct it in stages. That is, a little evening out each time I sharpen the knife. There is no reason to waste all that good steel just to even out the uneven bevel if the knife is very sharp and cuts well. You are probably the only who knows it’s uneven, Often even under bright like it hard to pick up an uneven bevel visually, with out some sort of magnification.
Marc
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