Defective Upgrade Kit?

[Adam Walker]

Hey all

I’m having issues with my new upgrade to the Wicked Edge ProPack II upgrade kit:

I was impressed to start with the much tighter design and use of the new kit over the original. I sharpened a few knives with great success and no worries. When I took it home to spruce up my moms kitchen knives, I tried to use the micro-adjustment. It was immovable. I fully removed the side tension screw, and tried to adjust it again. It still wouldn’t move (to the point I torqued the allen wrench out of the plastic W/E key). I shot some Kroil and used a real allen wrench and finally got it turned, but it was still very difficult. Once it was finally out, I re-oiled, brushed the metal out of the thread, and tried reinserting it, thinking the threads might have been realigned or reset (saving me the need to find a tap/die). No luck, slightly better, but nowhere near as easily moved as the other arm.

My question: Did I do something wrong? Since after removing and re-inserting the screw a couple times it’s still not what I would consider to be right, is this arm just shot? Is the tap/die my only option? I tried emailing the customer support email on the webpage two weeks ago but haven’t gotten a response yet, and, of course, my 15-day return policy is now up. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Mark76]

Give Wicked Edge a phone call. Their phone support is usually much faster than by email.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[tcmeyer]

Howdy:

I don’t know if you got help yet on this topic, but I recently added a comment to “Better Clamping Repeatability” which might explain your problem. It goes as follows and may help you out in avoiding the problems with threaded alloys:

I’ve watched a few videos of WEPS users at work on this site and believe that most don’t really understand the principles of the vise mechanism.

The designer intended that the top screw (the clamp screw)is used to set the clamp distance (the opening between the jaws), and the lower screw (the jack screw) is used to create the very high clamp force required.

To avoid excessive wear and galling of the threads, the clamp screw should be used only to apply enough force to position the blade. The jack screw is used to create very high clamping force by means of the lever principle. Think of this as a common pliers. The clamp screw is the pin (fulcrum). You apply an amplified force to the workpiece by applying force at the far end of the handles.

Keeping this in mind, there is no need to apply more force than necessary to the clamp screw. Except for very large blades, it needn’t be tightened more than snug – just so the blade stays put.

The jack screw is capable of producing oodles of clamp force with only a modest amount of torque. For most small-to-medium blades only about a quarter of a turn past the point of contact is required. I believe this is also what is recommended by WE. If you apply too much torque, you are applying excess bending stress to the opposite jaw. Remember that every extra 1/4- turn bends the clamping jaw that much farther.

The threads in the aluminum alloy clamp aren’t intended to endure the very high frictional (galling) forces created when high amounts of torque are applied to the screws. Moving a hard metal across the surface of a softer metal at high pressure results in galling, where bits of the softer metal are torn from their natural positions. This is often what happens when you “strip” the threads of an aluminum block. Extend the life of your vise by using only the required amount of screw torque.

I suggest also that you lubricate the screw threads with some anti-seize grease. I use RCBS re-sizing lube.

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