? counterfeit 12 inch guide rods . . . .
- This topic has 25 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 07/03/2019 at 6:01 am by
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If you want slightly larger than .25″ and don’t mind a steel that might rust you can order drill rod in metric or letter sizes.
But why would I use steel that rusts when I could use stainless steel rods?
Expedia, I haven’t looked but I don’t know if you can find stainless with a diameter of .257″, although I think tcmeyer may have, judging from an earlier post.
As for rusting, if you are not lubricating your stones with water the tool steel probably wouldn’t rust. A coating of paste wax from time to time may help as well.
Depending on how sharp the texture is it might cause wear. The diamond stones are textured.
Maybe someone can post a magnified photo to see how “smooth” the textured finish is.
I am/was getting that musical sound too but I used a light swipe of Dry Bike Lubricant on the rods and the music has toned down. I believe either MarcH or tcmeyer (thank you gents) suggested it in a different thread dealing with cleaning the WE vise.
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Mine sing like a “Canary in heat”….I’ll try lube (but I shouldn’t have to).
check the pics I took of the polished and the new textured 12 inch ones with my digital microscope.
I drive by a custom designs machine shop on my way to my office. I need to note again what TC mentioned about creating a shoulder before they turn the threads. This shop can make me another set in polished. He can also give me an idea why in the world WE would make this change in their stock. When I use the coarse stones its understandable they are noisy until I get to the 800/1000. But these rods “sing” the entire sharpening session with EVERY paddle.
Really, do I need to wear my shooting ear muffs for each sharpening session?
Notice the circles cut into the rods along the entire length of each 12 inch rod under the scope
Under the magnified scope it almost looks like a “threaded” rod! this is why they are singing.
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Unfortunately the current rods are larger that .250″
The current rods measure (in mm) 6.43mm
The old .250 in rods measure (in mm)6.33mm
It is not a huge difference but it makes for a more accurate fit with the handles.
This is not new news, it has been documented more than a few times in other thread.
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I’m the guy who uses 0.257″ rods. They are slightly bigger than the new WE rods and may not fit over every handle without some “tuning.” I simply spun a 0.243 (6mm) bronze rifle bore brush in the tight spots until they worked. You can buy 0.257″ rods from McMaster, but probably not in stainless. It’s a drill rod size for size “F” drills.
Running a 0.250 diameter die over 0.257″ rod is a real PIA. Even 0.250″ rod is really tight, and the .257″ rod stock is a tough tool steel (HSS) On the larger rod, the die wants to drift out of alignment, which will result in a rod that will not maintain the angle unless you lock it down with a jam nut. One solution is to make several attempts until you get one that goes on straight before you cut the rod to length.
When Clay came out with the new Gen3 Pro in 2017, he increased the diameter of the rods slightly. I don’t know for sure, but he may also have decreased the bore size of the new handles slightly. The result would be a significant improvement for the new rods/handles fit and still work with the older handles. I don’t think this was some scheme to make the WE more “proprietary” – just an incremental improvement.
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You can’t tell the difference when the paddles are on the rods! Their paddles are already proprietary. Why not just make the new paddles to fit point 0.25? Because using 0.257 keeps that size proprietary to WE.
The size of the rods is due to the more complicated evolution of the paddles. As we began experiencing problems with the older design of paddles, which specified a 0.250″ but were consistently larger and creating too much slop, we increased the rod size. When we switched to the new paddle design, we had to make the bore match the majority of rods already on the market. It would be much cheaper for us to use stock 0.250″ rod but instead we have to start with larger diameter material and turn it down on the Swiss machines.
The singing noise is common now with the new paddle design, but what you’re experiencing sounds excessive. We can take a look at them if you’d like to see if there was a bad batch from a worn cutter or some other cause that left an overly rough finish.
-Clay
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