Filleting / Fishing Knives
- This topic has 15 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 08/23/2022 at 12:21 am by
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Welcome to the Wicked Edge Forum, burettou. Some thin bladed knives may need to be positioned and clamped higher up in the jaws. In a position where the knife doesn’t rest or even contact the depth key. As long as the knife is held securely is all that matters. For flexible knives I try to clamp the knives in a manner that stabilizes some of the flexing by sliding the knife handle closer to me. As I sharpen the knife, one side at a time, I hold my free hand against the blade to support the steel against the pressure of the stone working on the opposite side. Then I reverse this hand support while working the other knife side. When sharpening the handle portion behind the vice I sometimes lean into the handle to hold it in place resting the handle against my chest. It is a slow and methodical process. In my experience most of these flexible knives are softer steels so they sharpen easily and quickly. Sometimes I clamp the knife in a manner that with only a small short portion of the steel available to sharpen. This portion short portion is very stiff so I can use both stones with out support. Then I reclamp the knife to work on the next short stiff portion doing the knife section by section. It can be a slow tedious process as you keep moving, reclamping and rechecking you guide rod angles during the sharpening process. But you will be able to get it done with decent results.
Some fellows have added adapters and modifications to their bases and vices that hold the knife with an additional clamping device to stabilize. “Ram Mounts” make products that can be utilized for this purpose.
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Check out these photo links.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)I have a very flexible shun knife which I sharpen using the homemade jig below. It cost me $9 bucks.
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My jig is made from 2 heavy duty tee plates with 2 screws/nuts to clamp on the knife. All from H Depot for $9. You have to slim up the screws/nuts to clear the diamond stones. A longer rod length helps but it worked with the standard ones. It also works as a low angle adapter but the alignment guide for repeatability won’t reach. You can jug that up also. If you zoom into the pic you can see the brand and type #.
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Thank you everyone for your replies. I love the sharing of knowledge. I have come up with a temporary fix. I took a plastic knife edge guard (4.5″), cut it in two along the fold where the knife edge (if you put a knife in it), ground it down so the two sides sat flat against each other (and fitted better into the jaws), taped them together and used the jaws as a template to drill two holes in it for the depth key (upper holes) then taped it up along the ‘fold’ and up the sides to provide a hinge for it and keep everything lined up. It worked pretty well on my late Father’s fishing knife. While it still flexed a little bit, it took out the majority of the flex.
I would like to see WE produce a set of jaws that can replace the std jaws (using the pins makes it easy!) in the “T” or whale tail shape. Also the same with the low angle adapter – making a set of jaws that are like this and replaceable using the pins of the Gen 3 Pro rather than being an add on that requires Allen keys.
Hopefully too the low angle adaptor helps me with these narrow fishing knives and stops me grinding the jaws!
Thank you again!
Brett
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You are where I was with the knife guards. I only do kitchen knives and many are quite flexible. I found the guards were too bulky, not stiff and too low. Those stiff heavy tees fit nicely in the clamp. I wanted wider ones for full coverage but that’s all I could find. I found someone who would machine 6″ wide jaws for a clean look but I didn’t want to spend $500. Good luck and keep the ideas flowing. Unfortunately, this forum has turned into just a welcome mat. Maybe Web 3.0 will help. Anyway, here is a pic of my case circa. 1989 with a second post showing the inside. If only we could brainstorm serrated knives but I hate typing on my phone. I do have ideas though. Let’s go NY Jets…LOL
The forum is not dead, it’s just something you find inconvenient to use on your small format devices. That doesn’t reflect on our forum, it’s function, quality or contributions by members. I agree that this older forum format lends itself to devices that are more typing friendly. More so, a forum is for those who don’t mind writing a full sentence with a complete thought. Not just a shout out. I’m afraid the forum format may become a thing of the past. It’s from the not too distance past era when individuals used a forum to find solutions to their issues.
We’ll hang in here as long as we can. Every once in a while a member of the W.E. Facebook Group posts a link there to one of this forum’s threads. So I know there are people reading this forum. Even if they prefer the more social medium style interchange of Facebook.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)1 user thanked author for this post.
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