Curry Inspired Low Angle Attachment

[Bill Kirkley]

CliffCurry posted a way to achieve ultra low angles. The rail system on the WE Mod I designed lends itself to Cliff’s idea nicely as seen in the photos. It is easy to make. Just a couple of frame holders and a 5/16 square rod with a couple of holes for a 10-32 screw.

Attachments:

• LRLowAngleAttachment01.jpg
• LRLowAngleAttachment02.jpg
• LRLowAngleAttachment03.jpg

[Montana Edge]

hahaha that’s awesome!

[CliffCurry]

Great looking setup Bill!

I appreciate the inspirational shoutout but this is definitley the “Kirkley Low Angle”. This is all you man! 😛

When I first saw you build the frame I was wondering if you were going to do something like this for it….Question answered! lol

Seriously tho how does it perform? Can you lock down the sliding arm bar good enough and keep it square to the frame and all that.

Aloha,
Cliff

[wickededge]

This is similar in part to something we’re working on and hoping to release this summer! 🙂

-Clay

[Bill Kirkley]

Thanks Cliff but it was your idea that got the ball rolling, like Greggs Rail idea. The way I square it up is to place each side a set distance from the proximal end of the rail. The plastic parts seem to hold well but if they don’t I will make some metal ones.

Clay, from the short time I have used this set up, it is really great, especially for longer blades. I think your set up will be a big hit. I imagine a 2 vise system is all that would be needed for most people. I only used 3 vises because I decided if I was putting this much time into making the sharpener I might as well go all in.

Do you plan on continuing with aluminum or will you make steel vises, or is that currently under wraps! 🙂 ?

[wickededge]

I’m undecided about steel vs. aluminum. I’ll have to do a lot more testing. What are your impressions so far?

-Clay

[Bill Kirkley]

If you look at some of the posts there is talk of bent vises, and the inability to get angles lower than 15 degrees. With steel you can make a vise with a lower angle to begin with. Mine are about 10 degrees.

BUT, as seen in the attached photo, I cut the vise down 3/8 inch to give me a 1/16 inch thickness at the tip. I felt that thickness was needed to tightly grip a blade without bending the tip. That means the blade needs to be a minimum of 3/8 inches wide to get down to 10 degrees.

A hardened vise and maybe a mild steel vise may be able to be thinner than 1/16 inch and hold up. If so you could get a low angle on thinner blades.

I think if you go with steel you should strongly consider stainless. I am sure many of your users use water on their stones, and you would have a lot of complaints about rust if you used steel.

I think for the reasons discussed above steel is probably an option you should offer.

Attachments:

• Triangle.JPG

[Gregg776]

Bill,
I think you are on to the ultimate solution. Just clamp the handle in the Tormek jig and make a tip vise to hold the far end. What you have done is better than I was envisioning with the bar running across under knife and between the supports.
Part of the beauty of clamping at the handle is the ability to rotate the knife until the apex is straight up as well as freeing up the majority of the blade from the paddles hitting the supporting vise(s).
I’m not trying to think I’m even in your league of tinkering, but here is another picture of the tip vise I made for your reference. The Ram Mount system allows almost infinite adjustment and the narrow width of the clamp is perfect for near the tip.
The Ram mounts are 1/4-20 thread and could easily be mounted to your wonderful prototype.

As far as steel jaws are concerned, I would think that zinc plating or Parkerizing would be sufficient to keep corrosion away; that was the purpose of the original bluing on firearms. The cost of using tool steel v.s. stainless is significant. And most of the users on this forum would be willing to wipe off the jaws for the difference in price.
Just my 2 cents–Gregg

Attachments:

• LongSlicer_3.JPG
• LongSlicer_4.JPG

[Bill Kirkley]

Gregg, you have a great setup. I don’t know much about corrosion resistance. I guess there are good ways to prevent rust, that hold up to wear and don’t add much to the thickness like paint. The biggest concern is the threads rusting. I need to look into putting something on my vises. Since I don’t use water I may not have too much problem as the devise in in an air conditioned room.

I realized I made a mistake in my last post. I said for my setup the blade would have to be 3/8 inches wide to achieve the 10 degree angle. What I should have said is it has to be a minimum of 3/8 inches above the tip of the vise. So, if you clamp the blade at a depth of 1/8 inches, you would need a 1/2 (3/8 + 1/8inch) inch wide blade to achieve a 10 degree angle.

[CliffCurry]

This thread is moving way faster then UPS getting the final ball joint for my support arm attempt(directly thanks to you Greg)! LOL

Bill, I still say this is miles beyond anything I would have or could have come up with. This is all you man. Name it & claim it bud, You deserve it! B)

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