Not sure what most might think about this, but I have a suggestion Clay may want to consider for future upgrades to the WE system.
I have notices on a number of new knives I’ve acquired that I am having a more difficult time getting an exact (or even close) matching angle measurement on each side of the blade when placed in the vise and measured with my angle cube. The most recent was with my new ZT 0560. I would have to adjust, readjust and sometimes use slightly different angles on each paddle arm to get bevels which were close to being symmetrical. There could be many reasons for this … from uneven factory grinding to the geometry of the blade spine and grind. I have read on the forum that sometimes people reverse the paddle arms to clamp them down on the opposite side of the base rod (the side without the detent dimples) and use some a light duty thread lock compound like Loctite blue to minimize the arms moving from the position to which they are set. That got me thinking (and I am no machinist … nor do I have the tools to do this myself) … what if the reverse side of the base rod in future updates was milled with a continuous channel to aid in holding the thumbscrew of the pivot arm collar securely to the base rod such as I have illustrated in this modified pic from the WE user guide:
Such a channel might hold the thumbscrews tightly enough to prevent them from wiggling out of position without having to resort to using some type of thread locking compound.
Anyway …. just a thought.