W.E. Educational Video Series on YouTube: 1) Finding the Sweet Spot

A second video in this series has been released to W.E. email subscribers, “Finding the Angle”:

I want to add this to the information shared in the videos.  There are subtle differences between “finding the sweet spot” and “determining the bevel angle(s)”.  The processes are roughly one-in-the-same.

First it’s best to use the marker test to position the knife for effective clamping in it’s “sweet spot” position.  That is the clamping position that allows the most complete and efficient physical contact between the sharpening stone’s surfaces and the full/complete knife bevels, shoulder to apex, across the entire edge lengths.  This sometimes really can’t been sseenand determined well until after the bevel angle(s) have also been determined and the guide rod angle settings are matched with the actual bevel angles.  Sometimes additional fine tuning to the clamping position is helpful to both processes.

Once the process is used with a high or finer grit stone at a wide angle setting to find the “sweet spot” clamping position, the process is continued a step further to adjust the guide rod angles till the marker is then being removed in entirety from the full bevel height, shoulder to apex, and evenly across the entire length of the knife edge, heel to tip.  Even marker removal, in the same position across the full knife lengthis a characteristic of clamping position.  Complete marker removal across the entire height of the bevel is a characteristic of matching the bevel angle(s) correctly.

Besides sliding the knife’s clamping position forward or aft in the vise jaws to find the best “sweet spot”, it may also be necessary, in addition, to rotate the knife’s position in the jaws, tip up or possibly tip down, as it’s clamped to achieve the “sweet spot” clamping position.

To most efficiently match the bevel angle(s) and sharpen the knife edge with the least amount of excess or wasted steel removed the knife should be first positioned in the “sweet spot” clamping position before actual profiling/sharpening begins.

Tip: I’ve found I prefer to use a blue or red marker for these processes.  The black marker I’ve found may cover the steel better but it can be harder to discern where it’s been removed.  I’ve found he blue or red color marker stands out better although they’re less opaque and cover the steel less well.  This has become more an issue with cerakote and stone-wash blades.

Last remark I’ll make is, depending on how the knife and the edge is forged and ground, in particular the thickness,  uniformity and steel shape down the entire length and the bevel angle changes with a knife grind and taper along a knife may effect the height of the bevels as the knife is sharpened with fixed bevel angles sharpened across the entire knife’s length.  It can be extremely difficult to achieve aesthetically perfect size appearing bevels and heights without the extra care and effort necessary to exactly match the bevel angle to the grind and taper along the entire knife edge.

It’s wrong to simply assume a knife will taper down to it’s tip.  Some knives are ground specifically with tapered tips of thicker steel to enhance the tip steel’s strength to try to avoid them from snapping off.

3 users thanked author for this post.

David, Clay Harmony, EricB