Vise and Low angle adapter issues
- This topic has 42 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 01/04/2021 at 4:25 pm by
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Hello,
I’ve purchased pro pack 3 and faced few surprises that is close to being a show stoppers.
1. Design defect of the main vise. The lips of the main vise are closing at an angle, never flat and clamping properly only thick blades – closer to 3/16”. Anything thinner are touched only by the very top part of vise lips – as this vise is designed to have lips closed at an angle. This causes knives with thin blades to be prone to wiggling with rather small effort. This in turns causes more convex results vs. flat sharpen results. This also causes some knives not to clamp consistently vertically but rather at some small skew angle.
2. Low angle adapter. It doesn’t clamp perfectly upright but rather at an angle. This is likely (but i still not 100% sure) due to the vise design issue described above. I missed that and ended up almost defacing expensive knife. Basically setting equal angle on both sides resulted in one side sharpened almost 2 degrees different than other. So besides low angle adapter clamping at an angle it becomes really easy to wiggle because it also essentially being clamped only by the top part of main vise lips.
3. Low angle adapter design issue #2 – the lips are designed to artifically limit the clamping space no more than 1/4″ depth. Which means that unless you have prefectly straight and flat blade – it will be uphill battle to try to fix it in a proper position within low angle adapter.
So to summarize – it became some sort of secondary problem solving task for me – I had to put some sort of padding on the sides of the knife blade to make vise to clamp it in more or less flat + fixed + stable manner.
Second – i have to measure vertical misalignment against the blade itself (or reset angle measument tool against the blade) and then set angles on each side considering this to ensure the proper result.
Third – wiggliness of low angle adapter as well as it’s limits (see #3) is kind of making it not usable for high quality sharpening work.I attaching pictures. Maybe I missed something .
The forum was just off-line for a scheduled/announced server maintenance. I was expecting we would get interrupted.
I’m asking for photos that allow me to see the jaw tips and inside faces. Top straight down with vise jaws open and an angled down view like at 45º . Similar photos from the different perspectives would be helpful, like from the rear and from the side, also
Question: when you turn the tensioner lever from the lightest (-) setting, full clockwise to the tightest (+) tension position, while the jaws are open, does the space narrow down with the increase tension setting?
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)Precept, Read my last post, I edited it. We are both also posting quickly so our response are getting missed.
The vise should clamp tight and require some applied force to lock it over. Even with the minimum tensioner setting and empty jaws.
My LAA clamps solid and holds tight on the miminum tension setting. My LAA does not wobble and locks stationary without any movement.
You may have an issue internal to your WE130 Gen 3 vise. It’s possible you don’t have the full compliment of Belleville washers (6 pairs) in your washer stack. Or possibly there is an internal part missing, miss-positioned, broken or defective. You’ll need to disassemble the vise to determine this.
This post will help…read the last post on the page
The Gen 3 vise clamps just by the very tips of the jaws on the pads at the four corners. The jaws flex as pressure is applied with the locking lever allowing the jaws to tightly and securely clamp, if everything is functioning properly.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)1 user thanked author for this post.
Precept, Read my last post, I edited it. We are both also posting quickly so our response are getting missed. The vise should clamp tight and require some applied force to lock it over. Even with the minimum tensioner setting and empty jaws. My LAA clamps solid and holds tight on the miminum tension setting. My LAA does not wobble and locks stationary without any movement. You may have an issue internal to your WE130 Gen 3 vise. It’s possible you don’t have the full compliment of Belleville washers (6 pairs) in your washer stack. Or possibly there is an internal part missing, miss-positioned, broken or defective. You’ll need to disassemble the vise to determine this. This post will help…read the last post on the page The Gen 3 vise clamps just by the very tips of the jaws on the pads at the four corners. The jaws flex as pressure is applied with the locking lever allowing the jaws to tightly and securely clamp, if everything is functioning properly.
That is what I was going to say. It seems like he is missing some Belleville washers. My WE130 locks up tight on my LAA and 1/4″ adapter and they are solid and don’t wiggle, even with the tension adjust all the way to “-“.
1 user thanked author for this post.
Just thought I would suggest my personal guess as to why the vice only has contact at the tip. Most knives are tapered triangles not flat squares. If the WE Clamp closed like a standard wood or metal vise (2 blocks coming together) it would only contact at the fattest part of the knife down at the heal of the blade leaving a large gap at the top and the vise would be in the way of the sharpening stones.
I own an old version of the Gen 3 Vise (coil spring not washers and no adjustment) it does not always hold a knife as tight as I would prefer but the LAA does not move when clamped. I had to add a post after this to add more photos..
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