Touching up the factory edge on a Strider

[John Gilbert]

Hi Guys,
I hope you can help me figure out what I’m doing wrong… I’ve had my WE for a week and have re-profiled and sharpened a couple kitchen knives and that works fine.

I’m not quite ready to re-profile my Strider SMF (waiting on my 800/1000 grit diamond stones and more experience), but I wanted to touch up the factory edge with ceramic stones and strops. I read the sharpening FAQs and all the sharpening instruction articles on the Wicked Edge site, and thought I was ready. I mounted the SMF with the blade centered front-to-back in the clamp, marked the edge with a sharpie, and set the angle to 22 degrees. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten. No joy… It seems that no matter where I clamp the SMF, the stone works the edge okay at the heel but never hits the edge from the belly to the tip. Its way, way too low (almost touching the shoulder from the mid-belly to the tip). I’ve tried both depth settings and nothing seems to work.

Can someone please tell me what am I doing wrong?

Thank you for any insight you can provide!!!

[Edwin Lurvey]

Any time you take a hand sharpened knife, no matter how good, and put it on a controlled angle system, you will never match the factory edge. Every knife will be re-profiled to some degree, some requiring more material removal than others. My WEPS hasn’t come in yet, but I have used other systems, and this is certainly the case. If you do not want to reprofile until your stones come in, maybe you can do a touch-up by hand on a bench stone if you have one, and can work on mimicking what ever the factory edge is.

[Edwin Lurvey]

Also, regarding your specific situation, with the stones hitting the edge on the heel, and not at the belly or tip, it is because it is common practice when hand sharpening (on stones or power tools), to rotate the knife up at the tip to create an even bevel width visually and dimensionally, but the angle has changed, most time because of the taper of the main grind, and the curve up to the tip, but on controlled angle systems the tip bevel is almost always a little wider than the heel bevel. Just physics – can’t change it, unless you hand sharpen. I have also heard that the change in angle was to strengthen the tip by making the angle wider and having more material behind the weakest part of the knife.

[Leo James Mitchell]

First of all there is no reason to wait for experience to sharpen with the WEPS…even if you make a mistake, it can be easily repaired with little negative consequence to the knife. I can remember feeling the same way when I first got mine.Scary!:woohoo: Second, the paddles up to 600 grit that you have right now, will do a credible job putting an edge on your blade while you wait for the 800-1000’s, a little toothy but sharp as the dickens.Third, to sharpen or touch up an edge to best effect, it is best to first build an original edge with the WEPS from scratch. It will give you amazing results and remember when you do that first edge with the rig,try clamping the knife as per the book and then be sure to get the burrs up on each side with the diamond scratches completely reaching the edge again, as per the instruction book. BTW, the best paddle movement when first raising those burrs is an up and down scrubbing stroke along the whole edge. Once you have the burrs up, just proceed through the grits to the 600’s using the sweeping strokes and then you can do some polishing and edge refining with the ceramics and finally go through the strops too.
You will be pleasantly surprised with the keenness of the edge you can produce. The 800/1000 paddles will only take an already very sharp edge and make it frighteningly sharp!:ohmy:
Give it a go!

Best regards
Leo

[Jende Industries]

+1 on all of the above!

Factory edges are generally not very precise…

Also, check out this thread about stroke directions, which may help.

[Edwin Lurvey]

I will also add that your method is correct by finding the factory angle on the heel, and then reprofiling the tip and belly to match it – you are taking a good amount of material off of the shortest part of the knife. If you set the machine to the tip or belly factory angle, you will end up with a very wide bevel everywhere else, and will have to take alot of material off of the longest part of the knife.

ESEE puts a 20 deg bevel per side on their knives, and it is pretty close to 20 deg on the heel, but probably about 30 per side on the belly and tip.

[John Gilbert]

Also, regarding your specific situation, with the stones hitting the edge on the heel, and not at the belly or tip, it is because it is common practice when hand sharpening (on stones or power tools), to rotate the knife up at the tip to create an even bevel width visually and dimensionally, but the angle has changed, most time because of the taper of the main grind, and the curve up to the tip, but on controlled angle systems the tip bevel is almost always a little wider than the heel bevel. Just physics – can’t change it, unless you hand sharpen. I have also heard that the change in angle was to strengthen the tip by making the angle wider and having more material behind the weakest part of the knife.

Aahh! It NEVER occurred to me that the angle would change from the heel to the belly and tip! That explains a lot about why I couldn’t work this out. I just didn’t expect that.

THANK YOU Sir!!!

[John Gilbert]

First of all there is no reason to wait for experience to sharpen with the WEPS…even if you make a mistake, it can be easily repaired with little negative consequence to the knife. I can remember feeling the same way when I first got mine.Scary!:woohoo: Second, the paddles up to 600 grit that you have right now, will do a credible job putting an edge on your blade while you wait for the 800-1000’s, a little toothy but sharp as the dickens.Third, to sharpen or touch up an edge to best effect, it is best to first build an original edge with the WEPS from scratch. It will give you amazing results and remember when you do that first edge with the rig,try clamping the knife as per the book and then be sure to get the burrs up on each side with the diamond scratches completely reaching the edge again, as per the instruction book. BTW, the best paddle movement when first raising those burrs is an up and down scrubbing stroke along the whole edge. Once you have the burrs up, just proceed through the grits to the 600’s using the sweeping strokes and then you can do some polishing and edge refining with the ceramics and finally go through the strops too.
You will be pleasantly surprised with the keenness of the edge you can produce. The 800/1000 paddles will only take an already very sharp edge and make it frighteningly sharp!:ohmy:
Give it a go!

Thanks Leo!

I think I’m still too much of a chicken to make the SMF my first non-easy-kitchen-knife-reprofile, but you’ve inspired me to keep learning now, so I am going to give it a go with an old Buck ultra light. I feel much more comfortable experimenting with it.

[John Gilbert]

+1 on all of the above!

Factory edges are generally not very precise…

Also, check out this thread about stroke directions, which may help.

Thank you for the tip! I’m going to try the up/down motion followed by the sweeps to get my burr on my Buck!

[CAWalter]

It is correct that the edge profile needs to be re-profiled from the factory grind. They very a lot.

This may help to understand that clamping in the middle doen’t necessarily give you what you want.

A little learning curve in using this sharpener. But worth it.

http://www.wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=91:finding-the-sweet-spot-positioning-your-knife-from-front-to-back&catid=38:instructions&Itemid=81

CAW

[Dave Schur]

I will just add for color that I have not seen any factor edge that did not need a complete and total reprofile, and some of them are just wicked screwy (admitedly on my cheap spyderco’s not a strider). I didn’t need to take off a ton of steel, but the edge was either really skewed, or inconsistent. What I love about the wicked edge is it sets a very scientific edge (as long as you record your settings).

I can’t say I blame you waiting for the 800/1000 on the Strider. I would maybe hand strop it for no and then reprofile when you feel confident you have the stones you need.

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