Mounting a knife
- This topic has 46 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 03/26/2018 at 1:09 pm by
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I did see from a previous post from MarcH “For me the micro-adjustment screws rarely are in the same position when set to an equal angle, and verified with an angle cube”
As far as hitting the jaws, I’ll check how far back I have the blade. It seems like with small knives, there is very little wiggle room. I think I was concentrating way too much on making sure these small knives touch the depth key. Looking at the vise again, the knife was too low and too far back, so very little blade towards the front where the stones were hitting the front jaw. I think this would work better:
This one looks pretty good. You could raise the knife up higher still and further forward in the clamp so it touches the bolster
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)Almost as far as I can go. I do see the four teeth go the length of the jaw, gives me a little better idea of how to place the knife. No offense, but placing the knife on the guide pins is a bad recommendation. I think that would only fit certain knives. It’s almost an art on it’s own how to place the blade properly. I can see if this works where the AAG would help for future placement.
OK now we’re cooking with gas! Some knives, like Benchmades, have unusual grinds that can make them difficult to clamp straight and some of them just won’t. You have to use chamois or moleskin or something like that so you can grip the blade with a very small area. If you simply can’t get the knife to set perfectly vertical then you have to adjust for the cant. Sitting behind the knife clamped, if the blade leans to the right move the right adjustment in a deg. or 2 and the left adjustment out the same. Then pay close attention as you scrub in or start sharpening and move the adjusters to where you need them to even the bevel. Also you can clamp some of these knives so the blade will move side to side, caused by the contact area hitting a high spot on the blade with nothing below or above the contact point. Clamping the knife securely is paramount for results and chamois or moleskin will help with that.
There are so many knives out there with uneven or unusual grinds that it makes clamping some of them a challenge but I haven’t run into one that I couldn’t yet. I am a little surprised that you would tackle those knives first without having attempted a few easy cheap knives first. Check your machine by putting in a knife with a even grind and make sure that your machine doesn’t have any issues.
If you are doubting the machine then get some knives in there that are easy to clamp, IE… most kitchen knives are fairly straight forward to clamp. Then you would at least know whether it’s the machine or not.
I have run into some knives that require the tormek small knife adapter. That little rig takes the clamp out of play, repeatability is a issue but it works.
Let us know if any of this helps! You posted while I was responding last time so thanks for the additional info.
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Coming from the KME, where there are no gaps in the clamp jaws and it’s a full rubber insert, I guess it’s hard for me to go from, no offense, an easier clamping system to a finicky clamping system that might need add on’s. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have dropped over a grand to make this work but I expected a lot. Here’s what I’m used to working with, same knife and actually the one I couldn’t get to work on the WE this morning, now a work in progress on the KME.
I did use my kitchen knife to start which I could take that for another round. Funny thing is, all my knives are difficult except for the kitchen knife. I have the benchmade 808 and 818, mini grip and full size grip sheepsfoot, then the leek which is worse. There is no easy, it goes from training wheels to ferrari.
Which thinking about that big 3.7 inch thick knife, that could be a good training knife.
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