What time is the Party?

[Anonymous]

With so many W.E. groupies out there, I have to wonder, where they are. Its not everyday that people are spending so much money to sharpen a knife. I spent the money, and understand just how good this system is. With all that said,  where are the other groupies..? they can’t all be out sharpening knives… Some should be here celebrating the awesomeness of this system, share in the knowledge that we have found the holy grail of knife sharpening systems..

I can sit here and hang out on this forum and sharpen a knife at the same time…its therapeutic.

Where are the photos, the stories, the people willing to admit they spent the money… Know what they are doing and have the finger bandages to prove that when they started, they did not have the same respect for a sharp edge as they do now, that they have finally found a system that makes knives incredibly sharp  . I need to share this special society, and we can scoff at all those You tubes of other systems who claim to be the best, with the knowledge that they are clueless.

Bill aka ET<b></b><i></i><u></u>

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[Anonymous]

Not much activity. here…. The backbone of this forum are the people who purchase this system and participate in its use, share experiences and photos and discus how this system has changed their knife sharpening experience. IM sorry that such a fine instrument can not be used to bring a bunch of people together with a common interest. While I agree, this system is so easy that even a child could do it. There are people out there that may not get it.

Anyone willing to spent 300 to 800 dollars to sharpen a knife, must have common interests. Knives, tools, hunting, culinary skills, and be on a financial level to afford such a system. etc. this forum does not have to be specifically about the purchase of a wicked edge systems, its just the roots of what could be a fun forum. Activity is cultivated by common interests and also the ability to offer feedback to other who find their way here. this includes comments to other members who post here. No one want sot post to an inactive forum… Meaning that no one will post if others will not make comments on that post. If you want to help grow this community, get involved.. read the recent post, offer comments, and on occasion start your own thread.

Bill aka ET

[wickededge]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for all your input lately. The forum has suffered a loss of usage in the last few months as we struggled with our old web company and have transitioned to the new one. Hopefully it will ramp back up as the new forum comes together and is easier to use. We’ll be posting more research and testing soon which has tended to draw people to discussions. I’ve also noticed that the forum isn’t being indexed by the search engines and I think it’s because of a setting in the plugin. I’m having Chris look into it. Another reason I think that it’s been quiet around here is that Kyle and I haven’t been around as much contributing. We’re working on that too.

–Clay

–Clay

-Clay

[Anonymous]

Clay, just incase you haven’t noticed, I can be a motor mouth.. If I like something, Ill support it. If a forum can handle general comments and experiences outside the actual wicked edge system, more people will get involved. People find their way here because they are either considering the system or already have it.  If this is just a question and answer forum, then no one will come here unless they have a question. Once the question is answered, they don’t come back… If that is what you want, its your property… if you want to grow a community, then you have to allow personalities to enter. Ive been involved with an automotive forum since I retired from General motors 15 years ago. When the forum was started we had two supporting vendors and a couple of hundred members, 15 years later, we have 5 million members, and 200 ( edited from 300 ) paying supporting vendors. these vendors all pay 300 a month to advertise to a captive audience. thousand of people flock to that forum daily, check in see what going on, say help to friends they have never met. We have many member who have been on that forum for 15 years. Another nice plug in is the addition of a real time chat window… an interactive place to talk in real time…. you usually find all the regulars from all over the world, checking in when they log on… its fun… but the bottom line in any forum is the commonality of the main purpose of the forum. ( Promoting wicked edge and its products ).  If you had a couple thousand people coming here a day, you could then sell vendor space.. ( vendors are all those guys with booths at those shows… you tell them you have a high water mark of a few thousand member, they would be very interested in that captive audience to promote their knives, sheathes, lanyards, etc.  when you get 5 million members you can charge 300 a month.

I certainly am not advocating running before you can walk…I understand the start up of a New forum and new soft ware development is time consuming and labor intensive.

Like they say, a journey of a thousand miles  starts with one step.

 

Bill aka ET

 

EDIT… we have 200 supporting vendors, not 300… IM going to change that to 200 .from 300

[Geocyclist]

Not a bad idea Bill.  I wouldn’t mind some advertising to have the the top knife makers here.  A lot of the talk is about their knives so they should have an interest.

This forum definitely has busy and slow spells.  Don’t know if it is seasonal or just happens that way.  Should be getting time to start talking about Shot, I think that is in January.

 

[Anonymous]

I don’t know how this forum was before, but the forums  I am on , all are fun and informative with a community of personalities, that people want to associate with. Nothing wrong with a forum being a hang out. For example… I used my ultra sonic cleaning  tank today to clean my stones. I set a bridge inside the tank that suspended the block above the solution and only the stone was submerged. this worked great to remove the embedded steel…. The problem was the stone feel out of the block… It vibrated the stone enough ( in 2 minutes ) to disconnect from the glue that holds the stone on the block. I then took a very sharp chisel, and removed the glue, and then re-glued the stone… This is some information to share, in the event someone else has an issue. So now IM back to the scrubbing method and the alcohol

[wickededge]

Anonymous wrote:

I used my ultra sonic cleaning tank today to clean my stones.

Which stones were you cleaning, diamond or ceramic?

-Clay

[Anonymous]

The ceramic…  …Curious… would there be a difference between the glue on the ceramics as oppose to the glue on the Diamond stones? I only did the two ceramics, and stopped.

I liked what the ultra sonic did, and the bridge that suspends the block just above the solution.  this is a bridge that came with my ultra sonic machine used to clean glasses and watched. the notch in the bridge are perfect size for the block, as if they were designed specifically for these blocks.. Ill post up a few pictures shortly…

[Josh]

The diamonds are taped in… So if the ceramics are glued then they must be mounted differently.

 

[Anonymous]

Definitely glued in…. I scrapped the glue off the blocks before regluing them . Not sure how the tape will fair with the ultra sonic, but if they come lose, I can use double sided tape to re affix them. I like the ultra sonic tank for its function. Its not like I’m sharpening knives every day, but the first week of ownership I’ve sharpened a couple dozen knives.  I may do a few touch ups during the week, but probably will never sharpen so many knives again in such a short time. The white ceramic stones showed a lot of evidence of black metal embedded in the white stone. After the ultra sonic, the stones where clean.,

MY W.E. is very new. its possible that the new blocks might be using glue… Ill try a set of diamond stones and see what happens.

[Anonymous]

I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I have a very good analytical mind, and a feel for mechanical functions.

I don’t really understand the need for glass or aluminum platens, other than being a spacer to elevate the stones from the block. I hope someone can explain the need for different sub straights.

Bill aka ET

[tcmeyer]

The glass and aluminum (or in my case, brass) platens are used as a perfectly flat substrate for film abrasives.  Because the film is actually a soft material, any contaminants or roughness on the substrate will raise a portion of the film, exposing it to slicing when moved across a sharp edge.

[Josh]

tcmeyer wrote:

The glass and aluminum (or in my case, brass) platens are used as a perfectly flat substrate for film abrasives. Because the film is actually a soft material, any contaminants or roughness on the substrate will raise a portion of the film, exposing it to slicing when moved across a sharp edge.

 

I think Bill is wondering about the choseras and maybe the ceramics being mounted to plates… not sure. I agree w/ you on the lapping films though!

[Anonymous]

Thanks, I can see the need to elevate from the recessed block. I’m guessing the film blocks  are very thin strips with an adhesive back. I can see the need now, for a smooth and thick  mounting surface… TYVM  ( in my best Elvis voice )

[Mark76]

I think you asked a very good question, Bill: where’s the party?

I’ve been on this forum for a few years now and I think I see a couple of patterns. One is that many users start to post here when they are considering a WEPS. They may stay here for a while, particularly when they’ve bought one and want to know how to use it optimally. But then they know how to use it and they depart again.

Another pattern is that the number of readers here is much larger than the number of posters. (Even though the statistics the old forum provided are probably way off due to bots surfing the web and other technicalities.) I am active on other forums as well and the number of questions I get there about the WEPS is larger than the number of questions I get here. That’s because people recognize me from this forum (or from my blog), even though they’ve never posted here.

The third pattern is that topics in which people post pictures of their results are always well-read (even though little people post them). A great edge that’s almost impossible to create manually is one of the reasons people use a WEPS and what better proof than a picture of a shiny mirror edge? Clay also uses these pictures sometimes on other social media.

The last pattern is what Clay also wrote about. When he (or somebody else) starts to do some research and posts his results here, that very often results in great discussions. The level of some discussions here then gets high; sometimes to the level of academic research.

Those days are for me the high times of this forum. What happens then is that not only we can have great discussions about how sharpening actually works. But then the forum also magically (I told you about the readers) attracts posters who not only contribute to these discussions, but also start there own topics. To which other people then contribute again, etc. To me these posters include some of the best sharpeners and theorists about sharpening on the web.

In these days the forum almost explodes with new ideas. On all sorts of topics. Many a myth has been busted here and new theories and practices have been formed. These topics are often illustrated by very nice microscope photographs, but still one of the most memorable threads to me is one with a very dry mathematical proof that the WEPS (or any proper guided angle system) sharpens straight edges of any length at the same angle. And there were discussions about what stropping actually does, or how stones are produced, how different types of stones have different effects on edges and why, etc.

So if you ask if this forum shouldn’t broaden it’s scope. It can. But this forum is not limited to the WEPS, even though that’s the starting point for many people. I think the real scope of this for sharpening and everything related to it. (I think everything related to knives is too broad: you’ll never be able to compete with Bladeforums etc. and there’s no need for it either.) As a mod I’ve never stopped a discussion and people have asked multiple times, for example, how the WEPS compares to competing products. People are free to discuss anything that interest them and Clay is also very liberal about this. Everyone understands there are better places to discuss politics, and religion than this forum.

This forum has been pretty quiet for over a year now. I think that’s mainly due to the lack of interesting new topics/insights/research posted here. The number of regulars here now that also post is low. Newbies keep coming but also disappear again. And this forum has been plagued by technical problems for a long time. Performance problems, stability problems, hacks, change of hoster. So I think the move to new a forum platform is very wise, even though the transition takes some time to do well.

So how to make this forum more active again? I think Clay’s answer would also be mine. And I think you had some very good points, Bill. I also have some more ideas and I’ll post those later. But I’m also curious about the ideas other people may have.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Author]

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