Japanese Knives and Wicked Edge – advice sought

[Paul Tuck]

Hi,

I love the look of the Wicked Edge and particularly the easy learning curve. I’m a home chef with a busy work life so spending a dozen hours a month learning/practicing with freehand to get good enough to sharpen my Gyuto and Sujihike doesn’t fill me with enthusiasm, so I’m considering the Wicked Edge system. There’s a lot of advice and videos out there of people using it with folding/hunting knives but not a lot with cooking knives.

What I’m hoping for is to get feedback from those who are using the Wicked Edge system with their Japanese cooking knives.

How are you finding the system with thinner blades/more acute angles?

Are you still using whetsones and if so why?

Any tips/advice/things you wish you’d known before starting (e.g. is the pro pack essential, or the narrower angle upgrade).

Before dropping £300+ on a sharpening system, which would let me get a whole set of better waterstones, I’d love to hear back from those actively using it on a regular basis.

[Daniel maloon]

Hi PST,
I’ve sharpened many different Japanese style knives on the Wicked Edge. I know I haven’t seen it all when it comes to Japanese knives, but I haven’t had a problem yet with the ones that customers send to me for knife sharpening . The W.E. does have waterstones available in various grits, so you get waterstones and precision sharpening in one package. The low angle adapter is useful in certain circumstances but I don’t use it often. I still have and use full sized stones occasionally.

[Johpe]

I was more or less in the same situation as you a few years ago; home chef needing to get my knives sharp again. I started my research for a sharpening setup and ended up buying the Pro-Pack 2. It’s great! Then after a while a little bit of OCD kicked so I ended up getting the Chosera wet stones for the wicked edge as well. Now everything around the house that can hold an edge is super sharp.

The only issue with chefs knives (at least for me) is that as soon as they’re over 20cm long I need to sharpen them in sections since I can’t complete a full forward/upward motion along the whole edge. The only downside is that it will take a little longer to complete a knife this way.

//Johannes

[Mark76]

Hi PST, welcome to the forum! Are you the same person whose question I recently answered on KKF or the CKTG forum? In a nutshell: the WEPS works great with Japanese kitchen knife, I do all of my kitchen knives, from Carter to Suisin Inox Honyaki on my WEPS. It’s just not ideal for thinning out knives, which is done at zero degrees.

OOTB the WEPS goes down to about 13 degrees (depending on how high your knife is), with the low angle adapter I get to 7 degrees or so.

If you look at Clay’s Facebook page, you’ll find a pic there of a Takeda knife he recently sharpened at 7 degrees as I recall it.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Lukas Pop]

Hi PST, WE is great for japanese kitchen knives. I sharpen 24 cm gyuto with no problem, 27 cm sujihiki I sharpen in sections due to blade flexibility. The low angle adapter is great for thinning the back bevels. I think pro pack II with low angle adapter will be perfect, but it is way more than £300.

[Author]

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