New touch up thought
- This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 05/25/2020 at 3:19 am by
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I’ve been thinking about the free hand touch up challenge especially in the kitchen. In lieu of setting up our WEPS (inconvenient at best) for a few passes, I use a ceramic rod which under the scope gives our gorgeous WEPS bevel no love; it’s sharper but the WEPS bevel is on its way out (and a steel is much worse). There are other options to get an edge but none of them seem to last nor be as sharp as it was coming out of the WEPS. Its the same root cause that WEPS solved — some form of fixturing to minimize the various variabilities. The Spyder approach is interesting but expecting someone to hold a knife exactly vertical over a full knife edge to fully sharpen (not just touch up) is nuts. Plus the grit selection is for the birds. You might as well go freehand and develop your ability to feel that you are riding the bevel exactly. Anyway here is my idea:
Come up with a fixture that will hold 2 WEPS paddles in a few cross angled scissor patterns. Because the paddle surface is 3/4″ wide and there are 2 of them you would have a natural frame of reference for holding the knife vertical. You easily also incorporate some posts to help guide the knife to vertical. The real power here is that you could use any of our fine grits and even strops (I bet) plus with the Angle Gauge you could check the angles quick to make sure you are honoring the angle you put on it when it was in the WEPS.
Pic below, I still had interference issues trying to put a 17 DPS edge on the knife. I could have done some grinding on the high rise but I didn’t have the equipment with me. Had to go to the standard clamp and do 3 sections with knife moves which requires blending which is a major PIA. The edge came out mirrored but with a keen eye you can see the 2 blends. I will not do blending again.
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I’ve had that same knife at one time or another. Note that you can clamp it higher in the vise than what your photo shows. Anything above the flat part of the blade isn’t being held by the vise anyway. This ought to get you a lower angle. If it doesn’t hold properly, the top edge of the vise is probably bent.
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