All it took was a little oil! I was working down at the sporting goods store I work/play at on weekends, and I had brought the WEPS down to show it off a bit. I decided to just hit it with a little Kroil on the pivots to see what would happen, and low and behold the sticking feeling is COMPLETELY gone. Apparently, it was just the aluminium surfaces rubbing against each other, and a bit of oil smoothed things up nicely. I’ll probably use a grease or a more surface-clinging oil in place of a penetrating oil the next time it starts to need it, but it’s what I had handy and it solved the problem!
The Shaptons are performing very well, now that I have the final set of diamond plates to set up the scratch pattern for them properly, they’re making one heck of an edge. In retrospect I might have made a better choice on this paddle set with a 2K/5K set, instead of a 1K/2K. The 1K sure smooths out the diamond scratches quickly, though. My next move will probably be to get some better magnification so I can actually inspect what it’s doing in real time to make sure I’m cleaning up all the coarser grit marks before I move on. The edge is not a polished one off of the 2K, there’s no mirror yet, but it’s certainly sharp!
