Gerald Welsby

[Gerald Welsby]

Hi guys,
remember the good ol’ days when there weren’t any SWATs or VSTAs? You’d set your angle, sharpen with the first stone, move to the next grit and check the angle with your Angle Cube and sharpen again. And again and again through all the grits you were using. Then came the godsend, the VSTA. Now, imagine you are resharpening a knife with a 15 dps bevel and a 19 dps secondary. You set your 15 degree angle and sharpen away. However, you are starting with your stone resting on the shoulder of the secondary. By the time you form a burr the angle will be somewhere between the 15 and 19. In the old days you’d achieve the 15 degrees by successively adjusting the angle. With the VSTA you finish with what you start with.
Just a thought.
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Leo,
firstly, many thanks for taking the time to put the demonstration together. I know that you do these things by hand. We mortals 🙂 however, must trust to our WE’s to do the job, so must use angles rather than bevel ratios. In fact, just do this thought experiment. Draw a line, length 3 units and attach another line, length 2 units at the end, at 30 degrees. Superimpose this on a magnified end-on profile of your knife. You’ll see that with rotation and scaling you can put the edge virtually anywhere on the width of the knife.
Using angles of 18 and 12 degrees does not get me out of the woods either – the same applies. However, looking at your diagram the edge remains in the centre of the blade. In this case the bevel ratio is near as damn it 1.5 to 1. I’m sure that if my brain were not fried and I could do the trig your angles would come out as near as damn it 18 and 12 degrees 🙂
Clay, if you’re reading this, is there an approved technique for creating asymmetric knives? Searching on “asymmetric” reveals 0 results, of course!
Thanks again, Leo.
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Leo,
I tried to post something similar yesterday but it disappeared!
if the ratios refer to bevel widths, not angles then without specifying an edge offset from the centre of the blade then the 70:30, 60:40 etc. are meaningless. Taking as an example the 30 degree included angle and bevel ratio of 60:40, (I think!) I can sharpen at angles 5:25 and 25:5 and still meet the criteria. I still think the ratio applies to angles!
All the best,
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Hi guys. I’ve been away for a while, and come back to find this interesting topic. Firstly, I’m pretty well convinced that when a knife is specified as being ground 60/40 or 70/30, the numbers refer to the ratio of the angles, not the widths of bevels. In fact, assuming you want your edge to be in the centre of the knife it makes little difference. For example (assuming that my 40 year old trigonometry still serves) taking Leo’s case of a 60/40 split (1.5:1) on a 30° included angle, the ratio of bevel widths comes out at about 1.476:1.
It got me wondering though, how the WE would handle it. I think that initially it would sharpen to the lower point of the two sides. So, the burr would be formed with the edge offset toward the side with the lower angle. Thereafter, you would have to to sharpen only the side with the more acute angle until you judged by eye that the edge were in the centre of the blade.
What do you think?
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Clay,
so there is life in the old Frankenstangle yet! Just off to google my nearest milling machine supplier….
G.

[Gerald Welsby]

Steve,
that’s a VERY good question! Clay, are we to install (and pay for) the perfected floating jaws, only thereafter to pop the fixed-left-jaw LAA atop it?
Regards,
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Yes, Cliff. That’s about what I’m looking for! I definitely recall seeing your 5th picture on one of my edges somewhere though….. :))
Keep on rocking’ Cliff!

[Gerald Welsby]

Cliff,
yes, it’s amazing what 10c of raw materials will get you, eh? 🙂 But it’s true that these very cheap scopes can show us a whole lot about our edges. My problem is that I need to take the knife out of the WEP and lie it down and use my up/down microscope stand to get the best x500 view of my edge. What I need, and haven’t found yet, is a tripod stand which will let me see the edge in situ.
I think that that latest edge of yours could use some work though.
G.

[Gerald Welsby]

Hey Gib! Nice to put a message to the face:)
My problem with the current vice will melt away once the new one arrives so I’l stop banging on about it. Here it is, for the last time. If I want to put 19 dos on an edge I have to set the left angle to 17 degrees and the right to 21 degrees. An extra step but not difficult with the angle cube. The problem then arises that I need to apply the same planar pressure to the left and right stones while sharpening, to remove the same amount of metal from either side. I assume that this becomes a muscle memory thing for men like Clay who do thousands of these things. It certainly is not, for me, yet. Nor for many others if one reads the cries of woe passim on this forum. Most of us apply more pressure to the right edge.
As for the angle cube giving us angles accurate to 0.05 degrees…. Good luck with that one mate! The lash allowed by the rod pivot joints and between the rods and stone housings allows much more than that. Try setting a stone given your best efforts at 19 degrees, with the stone pushed fully up the rod. Push the middle of the rod firmly in the direction perpendicular to its length. Measure the angle of the stone. Now pull the middle of the rod firmly in the direction perpendicular to its length. Measure the angle again. I guarantee that the difference in angles will be more than 0.1 degrees! Then re-adjust the angle as you change stones 2 or 3 times and…
This is what makes the variable stone thickness adapter such a good investment. You initially set your angle at 19 degrees but then when you swap stones you are still using the same approximation to 19 degrees. It makes a palpable difference. Try one if you haven’t already.
Once again, it’s great to converse with you having seen your face so many times here.
All the best,
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Josh,
don’t need to – one came with the kit:) The point remains though, I have to measure, do the maths, measure again, do the maths again and THEN set the angle.
Btw, I’m having trouble finding your post about stones and metal removal. Can you give me a hint?
G.

[Gerald Welsby]

I can’t think of a downside to this upgrade. OK, maybe the blade thickness limitation. Or maybe $$. I spend enough time just fiddling with the couple of FFGs I have to justify it, unless it’s stratospheric $$.

For you Fahrenheit – Inch guys out there, 4mm works out to about 0.1575″. That eliminates the 1/4″ Bowie knives and such.

Can anybody think of a downside I’m missing?

Ok, this is not a criticism, just a discussion around the new product. I’d like to say thanks to Clay for the “onwards and upwards” policy of WE and not resting on their laurels.
My problem with the original WEPS 2 vice is that its left jaw is fixed vertically. (I’ve discussed this here in threads passim). That gave us two options: 1. tighten the vice and then do the maths to adjust the angles on the left and right sides. Should work perfectly but does not for non-expert sharpeners. 2. Try packing the left side with chamois or similar to even the angles either side. Worse, and not replicable.
The new vice eliminates this problem by centring the blade perfectly. There, however, is the rub! Most of the knives I sharpen (my own, and those I’ve given as gifts to others) are Japanese and are asymmetrically ground, blade and edge. So I don’t want a perfect 50/50 split of the blade angle, but 60/40 or 70/30.
I think that my problem can be worked around using Cliff’s Frankenvice (Or maybe Frankenstangle?).
See: https://knife.wickededgeusa.com/forum/9-basic-techniques-and-sharpening-strategies/13230-asymmetrical-bevels-new-owner?start=10#20858
I suspect that what will happen now is that I maintain a collection of cheaper Japanese knives, sharpened perfectly centred, and one of more exotic knives sharpened by doing some exact maths and then carefully applying the correct pressure to each side of the knife.
Still can’t wait to get one!
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Victor,
don’t worry about being a guinea pig. There’ll be hordes of early-adopters prepared to be Lemmings to get hold of this!
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Cliff,
brilliant! And so simple. I love the name “Frankenvice”. I hope it sticks. Two points:
1. The vertical slot gives us theoretically infinite variation of included angle of the blade, no?
2. A foreshortened version would eliminate the problems with the current vice.

Well done!

[Gerald Welsby]

Whoah Major! What is it you are finding frustrating about the current version (WEPS 2)? Just tell us what you think is not working right and there’ll be loads of people jumping in to help. FWIW, I think the as yet unnamed WEPS 3 will be a major advance for all of us, but the current version still gives excellent results!
Regards,
Gerald.

[Gerald Welsby]

Joe,
as you are now a two month two week owner you are now probably more savvy than I am. I became aware of this problem early on, and have been applying a lot of thought to working around it. Now that the as yet unnamed WEPS 3 has been mooted (Huzzah!) I’ll put in my two penn’orth. The left jaw of the WEPS 2 vice is fixed and vertical, as will be any blade clamped to it. So, when the right jaw is tightened the blade will be clamped with its centre line canted to the left. The cant will be half of the included angle of the BLADE of the knife. In the case of my Japanese knives this is typically 4 degrees, so half is 2 degrees. So, if I want to apply an angle of, say, 19 degrees to either side of my knife I need to apply a sharpening angle of 17 degrees to the left side and 21 degrees to the right side of the knife. This is as good as we are ever going to achieve with the WEPS 2, with both edges of the blade being sharpened at 19 degrees. However, unless you are a sharpening god like Clay or Benton you will never be able to apply exactly the same left-right and up-down forces to each side of the edge. You will inevitably apply more pressure to the wider, flatter right side of the blade, with the results which everyone is reporting now.
So, bring on the as yet unnamed WEPS 3. Its free floating jaws will eliminate all these problems and let us concentrate on achieving the best possible edges without compromise. From what I’ve seen in today’s newsletter we shall still be restricted to two pivot points for the shoulder of the blade, which tinkled a couple of bells in my head, but everyone ought to buy the upgrade.
As I have said, I was trying to think up a modification which would achieve this aim. I’m now applying my spare time to greasing myself up to swim the Atlantic to get the first one of these. It really will be that good, believe me!
All the best,
Gerald.

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