Amoo
@amoo
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I’m glad you’re enjoying it! We often get questions about our recommendation to go back to a larger grit with the strops after a finer stone. The reason it works well is that strops behave very differently from stones in that the substrate of the strop is compressible, so you don’t get as much of the grit contacting the blade, nor with as much force as you do from a stone. Said simply, it’s just not apples to apples when it comes to grits. It’s further complicated when you get into abrasives that are friable or when the stone has been manufactured by sintering, which melts the particles together in a fairly random way. Ultimately we want to completely redo our grit chart based on the width and hopefully depth of scratches that each of our abrasives leaves. We just need to get a cooperative SEM operator to work with us on it
This does make sense Clay, and it is reflected in the pictures that are currently up for the current grit chart when you look at the different between stones and pastes.
I do have one additional question. If I remove my clamp from the base and zero my angle cube on the base, I can verify my WE is level on my Bamboo base. Now if I set my angle cube on the guide where the arms ride and zero it, then set my angle cube on the base it reads .45 degrees. Essentially I can see by eyeing it my guide rod is higher on the left then the right.
My question is this. When I am zeroing my angle cube then setting the angle on my stones, should I zero my cube on the rod where the arms ride or should I zero my cube on the bamboo base?
So after my first night with the 2017 WE it’s literally like using a completely different product. For those curious I ended up going with the new WE120 with a few extras. The WE120 comes with the Micro adjustable arms and for those anal people out there like me who want that angle cube to read exactly 17.00, now you got it. In total last night I re-profiled and sharpened 9 kitchen knives. I sharpened everywhere between 12 and 17.5 degrees per side and by the time I hit my 4th knife, I was bicycling like I had been using the machine for years. I wasn’t able to do this with the old WE arms, they just weren’t fun or smooth.
For those of us who aren’t sharpening as a business, or even those who are, I think sharpening can and should be therapeutic and enjoyable. As a customer I should feel like I’m getting the benefits functional upgrades that come along in a product’s lifespan. If I’m going to spend $375 on just the sharpener before other upgrades, I should enjoy my purchase. Thanks to a change in WE’s product line, I now do, I feel all of that. This thing now gives me exactly what I would expect for a product of this price. I get consistent, repeatable results at exactly the angle(s) I want and now I can bling my system to taste/budget without feeling like I got the short end. Hell, I spent more on my order for my new WE plus extras then I did on my old Pro Pack 1, and I don’t regret a single thing. I didn’t spend more because I had to, I spent more because the base product allowed me to.
I decided I wanted a larger work space, so opted out of the WE base and instead mounted my unit on a 16.5″ x 12″ x 2″ 8.5lb bamboo cutting board. I of coarse added the 800/1000 grit stone as I feel it almost mandatory to work your way to screaming sharp edges. I already ready have a collection of 5, 3.5, 2.5, 1.5, 1.0, 0.5 and 0.25 Diamond Lapping paste around the house for polishing up other things, so I opted out of the lapping films, but did get 3 leather strops. If I blow out a strop, $2.00 plus some shipping and I can have new leather on my door in a matter of a few days. I do hope we see some balsa strips show up eventually in the replacement parts section, as I would have been interested in testing it out, but knew if I took one across a knife edge the wrong way, it was pretty much donezo.
I almost opted for the 1500 Grit diamond stone, but was extremely confused as to where it fits into the micron chart. We know 1000 Grit is 7 microns. The 1500 grit would obviously be lower then that, but the product description recommends using 6 and 3 micron lapping films after it. Shouldn’t a 6 micron film definitely be a step backwards? Either way I’m definitely going to hold off and wait for this thing to be added to the grit comparison chart before deciding to buy it. Would really appreciate a video as well on it as I couldn’t even find one via our google overlord.
In closing, thank you Clay and WE for making these changes. I no longer feel obligated to upgrade old technology because the “starter sets” now include some of the newer tech. I have a product I am happy with and proud of and leaves no doubt in my mind I bought the right product for the job. I now feel I’m starting with an acceptable base product and am free to customize as I see fit, without feeling “nickle and dimed” like I did previously. This is a vast improvement and I can’t thank you enough for taking honest feedback to heart. I really love this product and really have great respect for the entire company.
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This brings me to another question. Do you need to have sharp scissors, or do they work more upon two pieces of metal being closely together?
I own a veterinary clinic. A sharp pair of surgical scissors vs a dull or kinda sharp pair of surgical scissors is night and day. There are many many many more things and kinds of scissors then just plain old paper cutting scissors, but the sharpness of the blade plays a major factor, not just the tolerance.
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Welp was finally able to get a hold of somebody at WE today. Dude named Red. Turns out Kyle completely dropped the ball. Turns out he never even put my information in their system, let alone “personally pick out arms that work” and get them out to me…. Maybe I’ll have arms that work by the end of the week…. ME WE experience so far, arms that bind and a CS rep completely forgets to send me out new ones…..
@amoo – Most of us are back from Shot Show now. I’ll follow up with Red this morning to be sure your new arms have been sent. Please let me know if you need anything else. You can email me directly: clay@wickededgeusa.com.
Thanks Clay. I know this review comes off extremely negative, but I promise you I am very happy with my WE pending the resolution of these issues. I was honestly extremely shocked by the binding collars as I didn’t find that in any other review I had seen on the original arms, but hadn’t seen any reviews of the updated Gen 1 arms, so assumed (incorrectly apparently) that this was an issue caused by WE’s modifications to the original arms.
I was even more shocked when I flat out never got my replacement arms. Everything I have heard about WE is kind of like what I hear about Benchmade, just flat out amazing CS. I was really happy with how Kyle handled everything up front, but was then kind of floored when I never got my arms. Mistakes happen, especially at busy times of the year, as a business owner myself I understand this all too well.
Overall I still believe this is going to be a great product for me and am extremely excited to have it working correctly, but until then I’m just trying to be as honest in my review as possible.
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