Design Question
- This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 12/30/2019 at 11:51 am by
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Sometimes you want to angle a knife up or down in order to hit the sweet spot. See this thread How I find the Sweet Spot.
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SVan there are many angles and motions involved sharpening with the Wicked Edge. You need to think conceptually and separate the individual motions the sharpening stones travel through. The guide rod arms guide the sharpening stones motions up and down across the knife steel. The rods also allow the stone to rotate across the knife steel in an arc of rotation since it is locked at a center position relative to the vise. The knife steel is not flat or perpendicular and vertical, as clamped, but in actuality the knife steel is triangular and wider towards the knife edge’s shoulder and thinner at the knife edge’s apex.
In order for the flat surfaced sharpening stone to maintain flat constant contact against the long slanted knife bevel at any position while it rotates through this arc of rotation it’s necessary that the stone be able to rotate around the round guide rod.
The stone moves not only 1) up and down across the knife edge in line with the guide rods. As it moves from 2) left to right through the arc of rotation from knife heel to knife tip. While 3) it moves or crosses the knife bevel also in a slanted motion out when down low on the guide rods at the wider bevel shoulder and in when it’s higher up the guide rods, at the thinner or narower knife tip. Lastly, the stones move 4) at an angle to the knife edge, depending on the position along the knife edge where the stone crosses the knife edge since the rod is locked at the center creating this fixed arc of rotation.
In order for the stone to stay flat against the bevel no matter where it contacts the knife steel, any place along the knife’s edge, the stone must be able to freely rotate while it slides up and down, thus the guide rods are round and not square. It’s the combination of all these motions, required to sharpen a knife done simultaneously, that requires the guide rods be round and not square.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)Wow, I totally missed his point. I thought he was talking about the pins on the depth key. Just now did I realize that he was asking about the guide rods.
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Wow, I totally missed his point. I thought he was talking about the pins on the depth key. Just now did I realize that he was asking about the guide rods.
LOL Maybe a bit too much eggnog? Just kidding, I had to read the original post twice and then Marc’s post lit the bulb for me.
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Why are the metal rods and the inner track of the stones round rather than square? I would think if the both were square and angled properly the stones could not rotate to any angle but the ideal angle in relationship to them knife blade.
We’ve tried this and found that it didn’t work because the stones won’t reach the edge along the belly to the tip. The stones need to rotate a little to reach the tip.
-Clay
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