uneven grind

[swiggamortis]

Fellow knife junkies,

2 quick questions for you. I have an uneven grind from one side of the knife to the other but the angles are exactly the same. Does that mean the knife may be slightly off in the clamp? It is a smaller kitchen knife if that helps.

Next, can you use the WE to sharpen ceramic knives?

I appreciate the help and don’t forget there is no such thing as too sharp!

Russell

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driwash2

[tcmeyer]

If by uneven you mean that the bevel on one side is wider than the other, it could mean that the angles are different or that one side had been stoned or sanded longer or harder that the other.  You can move the edge closer to the centerline by stoning only on the short side until you think it’s right.  If it’s a daunting amount of effort, you might spread it out over several sharpenings.

For special cases, the user may actually want the edge offset to one side – for left or right handed persons.  For me, this is a rather thick-bladed chef’s knife I used for cutting veggies or hard sausages and allowed me to make thinner slices.  An offset edge will tend to drive the blade away from the wide bevel side.  At the extreme, the edge profile approaches a chisel edge.

 

Truth be told, I bought my WEPS hoping to sharpen ceramic knives.  And I didn’t own a ceramic knife at the time!  I was just plain curious.  OK, I also wanted to sharpen knives like Clay was doing in those videos.  Eventually, I bought a cheap ceramic thinking I could make it sharper.  I don’t recall exactly what grits I used, but after making absolutely no progress, I went to the next coarser grit and in one stroke I destroyed the edge, which shattered with every passing diamond.  There was no hope as the earlier (finer) grit still made what seemed like zero progress.

I tried again on a black ceramic blade I bought from WoodCraft and had similar results.  I’d say you can try it for touch-ups and stay with 800 grit on up.  Don’t expect to remove nicks and chips in the edge like we do with steel.

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Josh, driwash2

[Mark76]

I have sharpened ceramic knives with the WE. Use only the diamond stones, since they are the only material harder than the ceramic stones. Like Tom I started at 400 or 800 grit. You may also want to consider the diamond films, since they’re very fine.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[wickededge]

I’ve had pretty good luck sharpening ceramic knives. For me the trick has been to keep a little tray of water behind the sharpener so I can keep the diamond plates wet, otherwise they load up much too quickly. I agree with everyone else that it’s best to use the finest diamonds you can get away with while still shaping the edge. After the diamond plates, move right on to the diamond lapping films and you get get it shaving sharp.

-Clay

[Author]

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