New customer

[SiR]

Hi,
first off i want to wave this beautiful community, i learned a lot of useful stuff reading these forums. Secondly I want to introduce myself: i live in Italy, i am 31 yo and as everyone here i viscerally loves knives. I was looking for a sharpening system since i was 25 because of my inability to hand sharpen and produce a good edge. When i first saw the WE i thought it was the perfect solution for my needs, but i could not afford it. Time passed by, many things changed. This year my wife bought me the Pro Pack II. I was amazed! Finally i can try to get those edges i always wanted!
I had little time to experiment with my new system, anyway i sharpened a kitchen knife and some junk knives i have lying around. The results was quite good, anyway i had some trouble with the clamp: it seems that the vast majority of my knives is FFG, with variable width of the spines from one to another.
I watched the videos and read all the discussion on this forums and on other forums too, but it looks like i cannot clamp the blade vertically, no matter what i do. I tried with double sided foam tape, less than 1 mm thick on each side of the clamp, but the blade is not securely hold, it moves upward and downward a little and it spins just a bit (i dont know if i pictured it right…), as if the foam makes the clamp slippery.
Can i solve this problem just replacing the foam tape with something like leather or moleskin? Moreover, it looks like all these solutions are meant for thin knives: will i be ever able to sharpen my big choppers or customs, like the Busse Basics? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I would also ask another advice: i understand how to find the position in the clamp and how to find the angle for V shaped edges; i cannot anyway understand ho to do the same with a convex edge: how do i find the angle with a strop?? should i use a stone instead? how can i establish if i am removing the marker at the edge of the edge?
Oh, one last thing: should i buy a progression of strop and compound to mantain my convex edges, or just use the two grits in the pro-pack II (1 and .5), or use the stones everytime and then melt the steps togheter with the strops?
I’m sorry for the rain of questions, but i am quite excited about the system!
Thank you all in advance for any answer, bye

S

P.S.: sorry for any grammar mistake, as i stated before, that’s not my language 🙂

[tcmeyer]

I don’t think you can sharpen a convex edge on a WEP rig without changing it to a sharp bevel. You can use strops to polish an existing convex edge, but only if the angle at the absolute edge is within the range of the WEP’s angle bar or a tiny bit more. With my old kitchen knives which had polished convex edges, I just stoned until I had a nice even bevel on each side. Each time you convert from convex to a “V”, you’ll be removing quite a bit of stock, so I’d pick one and stay with it.

RE the clamping problem, I haven’t tried it yet, but it seems to me that you could gently snug the vise up on the spine using the top screw, then, while holding the blade as close to vertical as possible, drop a shim, such as a small flat washer, into the opening between the vise and the blade on each side. Gently push the shims down until they are snugly bottomed out. Then tighten the bottom screw as you would normally. This should keep the blade from rocking from side to side. You may want to choose a shim material that wouldn’t leave a mark on the blade.

[tcmeyer]

Hey! It works!!

I haven’t had the problem of securely clamping knives with a tapered cross-section, so I dug around and found an old, unfinished knife from at least 25 years ago. It had been abandoned after I failed to clean the flux after silver-soldering the bolster in place and the D2 blade was badly corroded.

This blade has a relatively steep taper, both vertically and lengthwise, so it does rock from side to side in the vise even when tight if you apply force from side to side at the top edge of the blade.

As an experiment, I first snugged the blade into position using the upper screw. As you can see in the top view looking down, the blade wants to lean slightly to the left.

After trying several other pieces of metal stock, I settled on a couple of shims cut from an aluminum Pepsi can. About 0.004″ thick.

I twisted the blade to what was a nearly vertical position and then, while holding it, pushed a piece of this shim material down into the gap at the top of the vise on the left side. See the left side view, below.

Then I pushed another piece of shim down into the remaining gap on the right side. As you can see in the right side view, below, this shim is canted, a result of the lengthwise taper in the blade – that’s where the shim wanted to go.

Of course, then I tightened the bottom screw, creating a clamping force at the point where the shims contact the blade. Presto! No movement – rock solid! No applause, please

[tcmeyer]

Top view: Please ignore the rust and focus on the gaps in the vise.

Attachments:

• Topview.jpg

[tcmeyer]

Left side view:

Attachments:

• Leftsideview.jpg

[tcmeyer]

Right side view:

Sorry, but I had to crop and compress the photos quite a bit to avoid crashing on submital.

Attachments:

• rightsideview.jpg

[Mark76]

I don’t think you can sharpen a convex edge on a WEP rig without changing it to a sharp bevel.

Try these links:

FAQ: http://www.wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76:can-the-wicked-edge-sharpen-and-maintain-convex-edges&catid=31&Itemid=46

My blog: http://moleculepolishing.wordpress.com/category/convex-edge/

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[SiR]

Thank you for your replies, i did not think about a tin can!! That is a really smart idea. I will try this out later today, i’ll let you know what happens…
Realting to the convex edge, i read the blog posts long ago, when they were written. Actually i find your blog very informative.
The A1 test has always worried me. I am a lover and a user of big chopper knives, much bigger than the Fallkniven you posted about, and i am actually very scared about the possibility of not being able to sharpen them on the WEPS. Moreover, almost everyone is FFG! :pinch:
I read the FAQ entry about finding the angle of a straight edge: i cannot understand how to apply it to a convex edge yet…
Ad a last question: should i buy a progression of strops from 14 m to the .5 i already have to maintain a convex?
Thank you all, bye.

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