Why Wicked Edge?

Welcome to the forum William.  As you said the WE allows you the ability to sharpen both side bevels at the same time, alternatingly, because the centered vertical clamping without the need to flip or rotate the knife.  I have no personal experience with the KME.  I can attest to the accurate repeatability of the clamping position with the WE and the speedy results for a touch up, (i.e., minutes, depending on the wear or damage the blade has acquired through use).  As you stated recording or logging the clamping position setting is a necessity for this repeatability.

The sturdiness and strong, rigid secure mounting of the WE is one thing that I liked.  WE Systems are made with solid machined parts, to last a lifetime.  I liked the accuracy, and precision, and absence of play in the angle settings and guide rod pivot points on the WE.

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wickededge, William

Welcome William!

I also did a lot of research and almost purchased a KME setup as well. It is a great sharpener and there are lots of very satisfied KME users. Like you said, the KME is a good value and that would be my system of choice if the WE did not exist. The things that eventually convinced me to purchase the WE product were numerous.

1. Ease of repeat sharpening. The KME doesn’t have a good way to document clamping position. This is key if you want to be able to simply clamp and sharpen without having to mark, check the alignment, and make adjustments before giving a blade some touch up work. With the advanced alignment guide and my wicked edge, I can clamp every knife I have previously sharpened in a repeatable way. If you are creative I imagine you can rig up something similar for the KME, but it is not designed into the system.

2. The ability to sharpen both sides without needing to flip the knife. This may seem only like a time saving gimmick at first, but after using the system you realize that being able to view the edge from top down and to side to side throughout the sharpening process makes it a lot easier to get symmetrical bevels. This also makes it easy to work with alternating strokes so as to minimize the formation of a burr when you get into the polishing stage of the knife sharpening. Taking the time to flip the blade after every stroke really kills the sharpening rhythm.

3. The WE doesn’t have the play that the KME has. This allows for truly precise sharpening. You’ll notice that the KME can wiggle slightly while sharpening long knives.

4. WE has a very good customer service reputation. If you have a problem, Clay and his team will make it right. I hear that Ron also offers great customer service as well, so this may not be a point of differentiation, but when I was in the market a few years ago KME was very new to the game and there wasn’t much information to go off of.

With regard to that trick you mentioned: The process of deciding where to clamp a knife in any clamp based sharpener like the Wicked Edge, KME, Viper Sharp, Lansky, or Tormek is one of the most important steps of the process. The shortcut you described does work on some knives, but it is not universal and there is a better way to do this. Check out the thread titled How I Find the Sweet Spot. This is the most comprehensive description that I know of to describe the process of finding the optimal clamping position.

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wickededge, DaveG, William, Marc H

Hi Josh…  Must be a really good friend.  I don’t know anybody I like that well, but then, I’m a cheapskate.

William:  Just to share a bit about angles relative to mounting location.  Since you posed the question with regard to the KME, I felt it necessary to clear up the point.

If you mount a straight edged-blade at an angle and view the stone/blade angle in a plane parallel to the vise, it will appear as if the stone is changing angles as you move it along the edge, but it actually doesn’t.  If you sight down the edge of the blade, you’ll see that the angle does, in fact, stay constant.  This is not true for curved edges and particularly not for tip section which are closer or further to the vertical line of the vise.

As an example, I have a Wuesthof Santoku which has an edge which is very close to being a straight line.  No belly, no tip transition.  I could mount that blade at a 45 degree angle sloping up or down in the vise and the bevel angles will be very nearly constant throughout the length of the edge.  If I mount a Buck 110 ( they’re like assholes, everybody has one) [please excuse the language.  I was in the Navy and the character flaw never cleared up], the tip will curve downward.  If mounted with the tip nearly vertical and close to the far face of the vise, the angle at that point will be closer to perpendicular, while the straight section will be beveled at the angle you targeted and constant throughout the straight section, from belly to heel.

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wickededge, William

Don’t do that Karl!  For as common as they are, they’re an outstanding working knife, and that’s why there’s so many of them.  When I went hunting for muleys, whitetails or antelope, I always took my Buck 110 along, knowing that it’d do the job, including batoning the spine to split a pelvic bone, if necessary.  I’ve sharpened a half-dozen clones over the last 7 years, and they’re all POS’s compared to the Buck.  Last year I did a Buck 110 for a hunting buddy and the blade was missing about 3/4 of an inch and someone had ground the tip down, making it into a drop point.  For all the abuse it had gone through, it still was a very functional tool.

If I could find out exactly how to disassemble one, I think I would change the blade steel, but it’d look the same.

And yeah, I’m gonna put a convex on mine, too.

Here’s the only image I have of mine, which shows how it bit me once after reaching past it and pulling my hand back.  If you look closely, you can see where the tip actually started to exit at the tip of my pinkie.

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wickededge

Damn!?  (pardon the Navy french)  Big OUCH!