My WE experience

This is just smashing: I’m finally in the WE party, special thanks to Chris! I grew up in restaurants, so I understand the value of a sharp knife. I love to cook, and a fine edged knife multiplies that pleasure. I made a crude jig with which I sharpened my chef’s knives for decades until I ran into WE. The jig worked better than freehand, but left much to be desired.

Sharpening a knife is an exercise in micro machining, and it is very sensitive to error. I found a few  sources of error in my WE:

#1: I noticed the stones, when slid onto the guide rods, had play/wiggle. This will cause variability in stone/edge angle. I saw where someone used drinking straws to shim out that play. I couldn’t find a straw of proper size, so I wrapped the rods’ entire length in scotch tape. I rolled the rod into the tape like rolling a cigar, ensuring the tape did not overlap itself. I slid a stone onto the shimmed rod, and the fit was perfect, until I got half way down the stone. The stone jammed, telling me the stone’s bore is not uniform along its length. I have a set of machinist’s drill bits, whose sizes progress by a few thousandths inch from bit to bit. It was a matter of gently reaming the stones’ bores bit by bit, test fitting after  each ream, until the stone smoothly  slid completely onto the rod. It took some patience, but now my stone’s sliding  action is very silky and consistent. When the tape wears out, I just clean the rods and reapply tape.

#2: I noticed the the knife clamp can pivot in its saddle. This means the knife can shift during sharpening, corrupting the stone/edge angle. I removed the clamp and applied  scotch tape between it and its saddle. I trimmed off the visible tape for a clean installation. No more play.

#3: Folks are familiar with this one. The jamnut on my angle micro adjusting screws kept working loose during sharpening, changing the stone/edge angle. I removed the jamnuts. I placed a tiny drop of thread locker on the screw threads. The thread locker permits me to adjust the screw, and the screw stays put.

#4: This is a matter of convenience rather than error. I didn’t like the detentes on the horizontal rod bar. I wanted continuous sliding action when I changed my angles. The detentes were always too much or too little for me, requiring alot of cranking on the micro adjusters. I flipped the bar out 180degrees, permitting me to  put those guide rods  exactly where I want, minimizing the need of  micro adjustment.

#5: I use peel and stick abrasives on my glass platens. I’m careful to clean the glass with acetone before applying new abrasives. I don’t want the glass to build up goo, preventing the abrasive from laying flat against the glass.

My first  sharpening attempt on my WE was somewhat disappointing. The results were better than my homemade jig, but somehow didn’t justify the cost of the WE. My heart sank. I devoured everything in this forum and came up with the above fine tuning. The next attempt startled me. I couldn’t believe the improvement.  I promptly laid the knife on the cutting board and gazed  at it in terror. I can drop an overripe tomato 6 inches onto the knife edge, and it effortlessly slices in two, just like the TV commercials.

There’s lots of discussion about whether this stone or that strop or this ceramic will improve an edge. Maybe your biggest gain in edge quality lies in shimming  out any  play in your WE.  See what a piece of tape and a drop of thread locker can do. If your stone/edge angle is shifting on you during sharpening, heavy  investment in stones may not  pay off.

Another disappointment I had was failing to work out all the scratches made by the coarse grit stones despite considerable effort. I discovered this was no problem at all. Regular maintenance of the edge naturally worked out all those residual scratches. Put another way, my edge gets better and better. Every second week I go back to 1000grit to restore my  edge then  progress through the polishing. About every six weeks I need to go back to 800 grit, but never any coarser than that. A session of edge maintenance never lasts more than 20 minutes, and I was surprised how quickly the scratches polished out. Of course, show knives follow a different standard. Once I tuned my process, I was then able to intelligently select my inventory of stones. I built a kit  that is essentially the Propack 2 with glass platens.

I tried to keep this short. Hopefully, it might help someone who is looking for a way to bring their sharpening process under control.

Thanks, Keith.

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