A drop of oil on the bottom clamp screw…

[Phil Pasteur]

I just wanted to throw something out here.
Back in the day I used a bunch of fasteners in my business. I made friends with one of the sales pukes for on of the big vendors. One day, over beers, he told me a story.

He would go to to sell his fasteners and one of the tests he pushed was torqueing a fastener to failure.
He told me how he would stroke his nose to get oil off of his face and put it on the competitors fastener before testing. The lubricant would reduce the torque required before the bolt failed. He could run his “clean” bolts and the torque would be higher before failure…

OK, the point is that, easier to turn, does not equate to lower pressures, between the thread, nor at the end of the screw bearing on a surface.

Back to where we came from here. Oiling the threads, or the contact patch with the movable jaw, will likely make it seem as if it is easier to turn the crew… Or yes it will be, lessening the torque required. If anything, making the screw easier to turn, will increase the likelihood of marring the moveable jaw..

With, or without, an insert!

Concept: Feels “better” might not always be “better” !
Easier is not always better either
👿

[R. Jeffrey Coates]

So, may be dumb as a tree-stump, but I just thought I’d put it on my drill press and drill a hole. Then how tough is it to drop some Stainless in the hold to act as a pad for the screw?

I for one, do not think it is on Clay to cover us all every time he improves the tool.

If you took your 1983 Chevy into the dealer would you expect a 2014 because there were improvements?

My attitude:
Clay- Thanks for sharing the upgrade. If I can do it I will. If I cant- it worked as it was. If it wears out I’ll buy a replacement.

To all who offered soap/wax etc ideas THANKS – you embody the spirit of this board!!!!!!!

[cbwx34]

Concept: Feels “better” might not always be “better” !
Easier is not always better either
👿

Don’t knock it until you try it. 😉

Oh yeah….

👿

[Phil Pasteur]

Gotchya…
Knowing the engineering..
Not sure I care… or knowing the consequences..
Want to add to the complexity of my sharpening regime.

BUT (also)

I need the exercise of twisting that horribly tough to turn screw

👿
BUT
Gotchya!!!
Can’t knock it until you try it..
I guess I will never really know..

:woohoo:

[cbwx34]

Gotchya…
Knowing the engineering..
Not sure I care… or knowing the consequences..
Want to add to the complexity of my sharpening regime.

BUT (also)

I need the exercise of twisting that horribly tough to turn screw

👿
BUT
Gotchya!!!
Can’t knock it until you try it..
I guess I will never really know..

:woohoo:

Was this a [strike]D[/strike] PWI post? 😆

Just to clarify, this wasn’t just to make tightening the screw “easier”, like I said in my original post, mine was resistant… to the point where I could apply a lot of force to the screw, and the knife would still slip. Adding the drop of oil solved this. There have been no bad “consequences”… just a return to being able to quickly and effectively secure the knife.

Perhaps the reason why needed clarification.

[John Genovese]

JohnnyG – good point 🙂

On another note, I like your Zee Maps link. Are the users shown the ones that are currently logged on?

Hi Clay!

The map site is not connected to the forum so it does not know who is online. You have to go to the site (click on the link in my signature) yourself if you want others to know (roughly) where you are. To add yourself, once you get to the map site, click Additions then Add Marker Simple. Then enter your forum user name and your zip code.

The map is a fun way to see what other users are on the site. I found out that Marcsimon is pretty close to me.

[Phil Pasteur]

PWI ..
Lost me there…
What is that?

In any case, we all do what we like..
If it works…
I can’t argue with success!

I just wonder why the screw is hard to turn…
Likely something that oil is simply a patch for.

I will take some pics tomorrow. +150 knives and hardly any scarring of the moveable jaw.
I must be doing something correctly.. without using oil…
???

BTW, always good to converse with you Curtis… nothing meant to be confrontational!

[John Genovese]

PWI ..
I just wonder why the screw is hard to turn…

Mine was a bit hard to turn when I first got the system. I noticed that the ends of the locking screws were cupped and uneven. I took the screw to a bench grinder and domed smoothed the end of it. It works good now.

[DARRELL ALLEN]

I for one, do not think it is on Clay to cover us all every time he improves the tool.

If you took your 1983 Chevy into the dealer would you expect a 2014 because there were improvements?

My attitude:
Clay- Thanks for sharing the upgrade. If I can do it I will. If I cant- it worked as it was. If it wears out I’ll buy a replacement.

To all who offered soap/wax etc ideas THANKS – you embody the spirit of this board!!!!!!!

[/b]

Not sure who this was directed at because I didn’t see anyone ask for a free upgrade ? I for one agree with you on this and I by no means wanted mine fixed or replaced for free, and would gladly PAY for the upgrade…….because the screw on mine is digging into the vise jaw , even though I am only tightening it enough to hold the knife securely……maybe some of the screws are rougher on the ends than others ? ( Now I’m being contrary here but with light hearted humor intended……..c’mon Phil….steel screw against an aluminum jaw and you don’t see how it can be scarred or dig in ? LOL………Just picking on you brother )
I was wondering if as mentioned in a post here, if you could drill out a hole…..and then maybe fill it with some JB Weld compound ? That would be harder than the aluminum jaw, and you wouldn’t have to be exact in your drilling since the JB Weld is very flexible till it drys. :cheer:

[Phil Pasteur]

I guess different folks are concerned about different things. Until this thread, I never even looked at the moveable jaw in my setup. It works fine and I can’t even see any marring unless I take the vise apart.
I said I would take some pictures, so I did. This first one is from the newest jaw set that I have. I have been using it for maybe 8 months, at least a couple of hundred knives. I didn’t measure, but I am guessing that the depth is under a tenth of an inch. The biggest cause of the marring is the fact that the screw is cupped with a pretty sharp ridge around the circumference of the tip. You can see the results in the photo below. More on that in a bit

With the total thickness of the jaw at that point and the amount of wear distributed of the number of knives sharpened, I am sure that for most people this would not end up being an issue for a very long time.

I took some pictures of my old moveable jaw as well. This one was in use for over two years and probably was used in sharpening at least to 500 knives… or more. As it looks to have about three times the depth to the wear and was used for around three times the number of knives, it does look like the wear is pretty consistent over each knife… at least on average. Note that the reason I changed the jaws out was because I got some that did not have the proper heat treat. Meaning that they were softer than they should have been. No doubt this could have contributed to the larger amount of marring in this set.

BTW, as soon as I told Clay about the problems, he replaced them…no questions asked.. :cheer:

About that screw, if some are concerned about the marring of the moveable jaw, the best thing they can do is to take that ridge around the tip of the screw off, making it as flat as possible. I took about 5 minutes with a medium file and this is the results:

BTW, Curtis, I put some candle wax on the tip of the screw when I reassembled it… 😛

BUT, just the tip, not on the threads…
👿

Darrell, I guess that it really is inevitable that there will be some marring when tightening a steel screw against an aluminum surface. I guess that my point should have been that with judicious application of torque, it is not significant… from my perspective anyway. It in no way impairs the function of the system, you can’t see it unless you expend some effort, and at the rate of wear should last for more knives than the average person will ever sharpen with it.

Of course, the steel insert is just evidence of the continuing product improvement that we see from the WEPS team on a regular basis. If I ever get to the point that I think my ability to sharpen with the system is being impaired… I will just have to buy a moveable jaw with the insert.

BTW, I can see drilling out the vise and either press fitting or gluing a piece of stainless ROD in there where the screw contacts it. It should not be too difficult with a drill press, hacksaw and a decent file. All you need to do is get it reasonably flush. Not too sure about JB Weld… as I have no clue about the actual hardness when cured. I would rather have a piece of steel in there.

[cbwx34]

BTW, Curtis, I put some candle wax on the tip of the screw when I reassembled it… 😛

BUT, just the tip, not on the threads…
👿

Uh…. the tip’s all I did…. 🙂

Phil’s top pic shows a point I was going to mention earlier… once the center of the screw makes contact, it doesn’t go beyond that.

[DARRELL ALLEN]

About that screw, if some are concerned about the marring of the moveable jaw, the best thing they can do is to take that ridge around the tip of the screw off, making it as flat as possible. I took about 5 minutes with a medium file and this is the results:

BTW, I can see drilling out the vise and either press fitting or gluing a piece of stainless ROD in there where the screw contacts it. It should not be too difficult with a drill press, hacksaw and a decent file. All you need to do is get it reasonably flush. Not too sure about JB Weld… as I have no clue about the actual hardness when cured. I would rather have a piece of steel in there.

Yeah Phil, I guess the Stainless Rod insert is a more viable method, and I am going to take the advice of smoothing the tip of that screw with my diamond needle files because I can only see that helping the situation, not hurting it. 🙂

[Phil Pasteur]

I just used a 12″ flat second-cut, double-cut file. The idea I came up with is to get the tip as flat and as broad as possible without messing up the lead in of the threads. The flatter and more square the tip is, the more surface area presented to the moveable vise jaw. I think that this is what we are looking for. A larger flat file may make this easier to do.

I did not do the best job possible, but I just wanted to see how it would work. I have a few other screws of the same type that I can do a more precise job with if this seems to work out.

[DARRELL ALLEN]

They’re coming installed on all the new vise jaws that are (hopefully) arriving very soon. I hadn’t thought about adding them to existing jaws. I’ll check w/ the machine shop and see what’s involved.

Clay, I actually got lucky and we had to use a machinist service here at work for something, and I was talking to him about this problem on mine, and he allowed me to come visit / tour his shop, and he took about an hour of his time and put me a stainless disc in for free……doesn’t get much better than that. One thing he did though that I thought I would mention to you…..he drilled a small starter hole all the way through the jaw first before milling the hole for the stainless disc ( which he installed as a slight press fit, but just barely so it could be removed / replaced if need be ) and to remove it , you just use a small punch inserted in that hole drilled all the way through and just tap it out and replace as needed…..he also made the Stainless disc stand just slightly proud so I’d have just a tad more clamping pressure if needed.

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[Phil Pasteur]

Now that is a nice job !!

If it would be a custom job at a machine shop for an hour of time… the cost might be more than buying a new set of jaws with the insert.

I know this was something done for a friend, but do you think you could get a quote from him on doing this on a one off basis? (if he would even consider doing it)Just in case some other folks might want to get the same thing done.

[Author]

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