WE GO Review
- This topic has 23 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 01/20/2018 at 10:33 pm by
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I’ve been using a WE130 for just under a year and bought the GO as a curiosity as much as anything. After getting the machine I believe I am going to get more use out of this than I originally thought. So I said I’d review the GO when I had ample time with it and here it is…
I love the roll that comes with it to store and transport the GO, very compact and stores everything securely. Looks great and appears to be durable. When you open the roll the components are secure and accessible. It’s very easy and quick to set up, after a couple times to familiarize myself with the system it takes roughly 3 mins. to setup or pack up. Even came with a Uline marker which I thought to be a nice touch.
The machine itself is high quality as you would expect from WE. The base is very easy to clamp to most tables and holds the unit securely. This is my first experience with the original style clamp, all though I’ve used the same type clamp on other systems, and I found it very easy to use after a couple of go rounds. This will see a lot of use on small knives in the future. It’s just as smooth as the 130, but getting used to the lower height(compared to the 130) took a few passes. The most pleasant surprise and why I didn’t think I would get a lot of use out of this was the fact that it does not come with micro-adjusters so I didn’t think I could match angles with the 130, but to my surprise this is not an issue. The GO bar has marks on it and is tightened using tension instead of dimples drilled into a bar to secure the arm angle. By putting the angle cube on the stone and sliding the adjuster you can dial the angle in very accurately and is actually just as quick to set up a knife as the 130 is. No Micro Adjusters Needed!
The stones did a good job on the knives that I sharpened. The jump from 200 too 600 was not an issue, just a few more passed with the 600 side. The 200 stone did a good job on the 2 re-profiles I did, my biggest concern is with all the scrubbing with the 200 I wonder about longevity but we will see, these stones still amaze me. I have over 300 knives sharpened on the original set of stones I bought in early March of 2017 with my PP3 and I swear they are still getting better but they are not as fast as they used to be.
I did some angle measurements and determined that the clamp with stationary side on the right was a little over 2 deg. different from right to left by the marks on the bar. With the stationary side on the left the angle was only off by one degree, one side to the other and the right side read 20 deg. exactly(19 on left)with 20 deg. being the measured angle with the angle cube. The measured angle was 7/8″ above the clamp and I could get the sharpening angle down to 14 deg. without the stones hitting the clamp.
All in all I would have to say that for $199 this system will sharpen and maintain knives better than any other system that I have used or even researched in that price range. The GO is absolutely a stand alone sharpener just the way it comes. The GO has the potential to be so much more with the addition of a stone or two and a strop or two. The first thing I would recommend purchasing with it would be an angle gauge since you can be pretty exact with the angles, but if your just doing your own knives an angle cube is not a necessity but will be very useful.
The GO is a pleasant surprise to me and I was expecting quite a bit when I ordered it! I can highly recommend this machine! This is a great addition to the WE product line!
Only one issue…it came with one old style ball joint on the left side and a newer style ball joint on the right side. I didn’t even notice this until I had sharpen 2 knives all ready and is not an issue to me. I consider it to be personalized.
If anyone has any questions, please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer.
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Great review!
My question is this; where are you coming up with all of these knives to sharpen? 300 blades in less than a year is a very high volume for someone who does not sharpen for money. I’m guessing everyone on your street has wicked sharp knives 🙂
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Thanks for posting it @sksharp. Would you be willing to copy that review to the product page? https://wickededgeusa.com/collections/sharpeners/products/wicked-edge-go-pre-order
-Clay
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Sure Clay I’ll give it a shot.
Hey Organic,
I just looked at my sharpening log and I’ve gotten knives from 19 different people and 1 business, all friends and family. Now I’m starting to get calls from people that they know, but I’m charging for it now so we’ll see what happens from here. I only have 3 people that are paying me to do their knives at this point. Most of the folks have given me 10 to 15 or so knives but I have 2 brothers that have had me do every knife that they own. I counted 42 knives from one and 31 from the other so there’s the better part of 75 between those 2 alone. I myself have 2 block sets of kitchen knives and all the knives in the drawer from over the years, probably 30-35 in the drawer, I haven’t counted all of them so I don’t know exactly as I have not yet sharpened all of my own knives yet. I own 3 hunting knives a dozen or so multi-blade pocket knives plus 20 edc’s. I had to count twice because I thought I made a mistake but it was just north of 300 a little over a month ago now.
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Would you be willing to copy that review to the product page?
Clay I had to shorten the review to fit it in the review section on the product page but it’s a done deal.
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Hello Sksharp,
Thank you for the review. I wonder, how’s your stone holding up after a year of 300 blades? Do you have a recommended set of stones – hows the progression for you?
Thanks a lot.
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You are welcome loremipsum,
The older stones still work great . I’ve noticed that the 100/200 stones were not nearly as aggressive as they were even 50 or 75 knives ago, the fall off came fairly quick at least as far as my noticing anything. These are still giving me great results and are in many ways getting better and better, just not as fast.
My wife bought me a full set of new diamond stones for Christmas, 50 thru 1500 grit, (yea I know I’ve got it rough) so now I’m starting to break those in to go along with and eventually replace the old ones. This is one of the coolest experiences so far for me, to use the old with the new and compare. I wanted the complete set because of the recent upgrade in the paddles and I want the stones to break in as a set. I know that the new stones will not give you the results that they can after they are broken in but you can put a pretty good edge on a knife with stones that have only had a couple knives on them. Light pressure to finish a stone is way more important with the new stones compared to the older ones.
Progressions……………………Unless your asking about a certain type or style that is a tough question. I get myself in trouble with stuff like this because there are so many different factors to consider. These are generalities…Hunting knives to between 600 and 1000 diamond lightly stropped. Kitchen knives 600 to 1500 diamond, then maybe lapping film on the more refined. Fillet knives to about 1000 and edcs are all over the map depending on a number of factors but 600 to 1000 diamond works pretty well on most but who can resist throwing everything you have at a couple of your own favorites.
For pure sharpness diamonds thru 1500, then lightly stropped (maybe 10 to 20 passes with each side of strop) can produce crazy sharp edges when done correctly. Throw in the 6,3,1.5 lapping films in between the stones and the strops and you can get a whole different level of refinement.
Then my favorites the shapton pros which I generally stop either at 2000 grit or 8000 but have taken to 30k. The shapton stones impart a completely different scratch pattern, closer together and much more uniform than diamonds. The shaptons are capable of a different level of refinement in my mind.
I hope maybe some of this can help you. Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions you might have and maybe we’ll be able to learn together.
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Hello Sksharp,
I was asking for the durability of the stone due to concern of the economy of using the system. Right now I freehand my kitchen knives with old school benchstone, and reserve the system for precision edge on my pocket knife and fancy stuff. Reading your experience on the new stone I would take extra care in using them. I am not very familiar with diamond plates after all.
I was interested in the progression for a couple of factors, was interested to know what would be best for high vanadium steel. But I guess as I have all the steps, it is going to take little time from one step to another. Another reason is to learn about the performance of the abrasives – abrasives of different brands, materials, even with a standard of grit, would perform differently. Know the theory and technique, know the steel, know the abrasives… all essential to successfully sharpen knives. Especially modern super duper steel.
I do have Shapton Glass benchstone. But from my experience my s30v laughs at them so I think I would just skip. I no longer do much polish on my low vanadium steel knife btw.
Just a few more days until my kit arrive and another week for the films and strops to arrive. Guess I will play with some VG10 first.
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I do have Shapton Glass benchstone. But from my experience my s30v laughs at them so I think I would just skip
Shapton Glass Stones are similar to all stones that they also are available in many different grits. To make this blanket statement IMO is to short change yourself.
I have a full compliment of Shapton Glass Stones cut and mounted for my Wicked Edge Systems. These I use on quite a few Chef’s knives made of what you called the “modern super duper steels”, with great success and results. For example ZDP-189, SG-2/R2, AS, and HAP40, to mention a few. These rate in the range of Rockwell hardness from 62 to 68 as compared to CPM S30V at HRc 58-60.
I suggest, maybe you should apply the right stone and right grit to the job and live by your own quote:
Know the theory and technique, know the steel, know the abrasives… all essential to successfully sharpen knives. Especially modern super duper steel.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)4 users thanked author for this post.
I was asking for the durability of the stone due to concern of the economy of using the system. Right now I freehand my kitchen knives with old school benchstone, and reserve the system for precision edge on my pocket knife and fancy stuff. Reading your experience on the new stone I would take extra care in using them. I am not very familiar with diamond plates after all.
FYI, Josh of Razor Edge Knives says that he gets about 400 knives worth of sharpening per set of WE stones.
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I don’t know what else I can say about the durability of the WE diamond stones other than they have around 350 knives sharpened, they still work great, in fact I believe they are capable of edges now that were unattainable previously.
I have the shapton pro stones. S30V is not a problem at all, in fact I can probably sharpen S30V faster with the shaptons than with the diamonds to achieve a similar result, all though the result has always been better in my experience with the shaptons over the diamonds.
As far as a progression for vanadium steel goes, I can’t give you one absolute for any steel! Every steel manufacturer has there own recipe and heat treat and tempering process. I can say that of the knives that I’ve done, S30V is the best steel that I have experienced to this point. However I really love some high carbon steels as well.
Most of the knives that I sharpen are Chinese/Taiwan or inexpensive US made. Most folks around here don’t have a $500 set of kitchen knives much less $400 pocket knives so my experience with super steels and high end steel is limited. The few knives I’ve done with premium steel proved to sharpen a lot easier and to a better result than a lot of the unidentified and cheap knives. The cheap knives have been much more challenging to find an edge that is not only sharp but will hold up.
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These I use on quite a few Chef’s knives made of what you called the “modern super duper steels”, with great success and results. For example ZDP-189, SG-2/R2, AS, and HAP40, to mention a few.
Yes Mark, I believe people have success with the Shapton Glass on even high vanadium steel. I do however, reserve them to Chromium Carbide steel like ZDP or XHP and D2 alike. I do have success in freehanding my Techno and Slysz Bowie (XHP) on them. In a general sense, I believe initial sharpening with diamond and finishing with AlO ceramic (like Shapton glass) is all good.
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FYI, Josh of Razor Edge Knives says that he gets about 400 knives worth of sharpening per set of WE stones.
I don’t know what else I can say about the durability of the WE diamond stones other than they have around 350 knives sharpened, they still work great, in fact I believe they are capable of edges now that were unattainable previously.
Thank you very much, I will be much more willing to play with the plates then. However I do love to freehand sharpen kitchen knives. Maybe if someone hand be a pristine Japanese chef knife I will set it on the WE, but the best chef knife I have sharpened to date is my own Wusthof.
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I do love to freehand sharpen kitchen knives.
Hello Lorem Ipsum ?
That is an interesting name you chose.
I’ve tried hand sharpening and I suck at it so I’m a little envious of that ability. I could never hand strop in the past either, but learned stropping(to a point) very quickly with mostly good results in the past year so maybe with an increased knowledge of what an edge is and how it’s created I may be able to get results now but I’m not willing to invest in both methods at this time.
You let us know if you are able to produce edges with your WE, that out perform what you are able to do by hand. I’ve done a couple sets of Wusthof knives, those and Zwilling/Henkels sharpen very nicely and quickly and I really like both of their knives, mostly. I believe you will find that if you are hand sharpening at the same approximate angle as the WE that you will not be able to produce edges quite as good by hand. Now you may find that not to be true but I really am interested to hear your experiences comparing the two methods side by side.
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Now you may find that not to be true but I really am interested to hear your experiences comparing the two methods side by side.
Hello Sksharp,Thank you for your kind words. Imo if you understood the theory and real life practice on the WE, you are good to freehand. Anything up to VG10 is moderately easy with freehand. I just happened to play with the Dan’s EzHone a couple days ago:My skill only got to slice paper and can’t shave. I couldn’t achieve a shaving edge on the Hapstone (EdgePro derivative) either, that’s why I am getting the WE to learn what I am doing wrong. Still, I refrain from sharpening anything harder than s30v freehand.In any case I really recommend a set of Shapton Glass over oil stone. I had the smell of kerosene on the hand for 2 days and ruined to plan to make meat ball marinara. Of course unless you plan to freehand high vanadium steel then you need something like Sigma Power.1 user thanked author for this post.
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