tcmeyer
@tcmeyer
active 4 months agoForum Replies Created
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The slickest method I’ve used in the past is isopropyl alcohol with a battery-powered scrubber.
The fact is that I haven’t cleaned my diamond stones in years. The swarf simply does not accumulate to the point where it’s a problem. But I don’t use my sharpener on the dining room table, like some users.
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A bigger reason may be that the factories don’t want to taper the tip to match the primary grinds, as it would leave the tip subject to breakage. The wider bevel doesn’t mean necessarily that the angle is more obtuse. Trying to find a sweet spot that gives you a constant bevel width at the tip will drive you nuts, unless it’s a very thin blade.
Look down on the spine at the tip and imagine how thin it would be at the same degree of taper as the sides of the blade.
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I have three WE rigs: A Gen 3 Pro with a 3/4″ riser block added and the SS aftermarket micro adjusts (my design), a WE130 with the same type microadjusters and what would called a WE120, with the original vise and on which I use the rods/microadjusters from the WE130 rig.
The Gen 3 Pro is a very nice rig. I especially like the incremental adjustments which make convex jobs a breeze. But there are a couple of limitations I don’t like. The geometry is such that when sharpening a narrow blade (as is not found in most kitchen knives), the top inch or so of the stone won’t touch the center couple of inches of the blade. It will contact the parts of the blade which are farther from center. I added the riser block to get more use out of the upper end of the stones. Doing so solves one problem but trades it out for another: the detent labels are off by about three degrees and the highest achievable angle is about three degrees less than stock.
For very wide knives or knives with very low bevel angles, I use two Low Angle Adapters stacked one on top of the other and extra long guide rods. This only works well on my rigs with the 5/16″ angle bars. I have three sets of guide rods: 11″ 14″ and 18″. For some situations, I much prefer the original vise. I would hang onto the WE120 base and vise assembly. You can swap between the 120 and the 130 rigs in only one or two minutes.
I recommend that you watch my video on using the Gen 1 Wicked Edge vises. It’s at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBRsrJrB-gw
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I can’t imagine not using the micro-adjust on every knife I sharpen.
The main purpose is to match the angle of the edge of the knife you just mounted. If you know what that angle is, you’ll want to be spot-on to avoid starting a major profile job. If you don’t know what the angle is, you’ll want to use the micro-adjusts to zero-in on the current bevel with the Sharpie method and a loupe or hand-held microscope.
If you are starting a new job, you’ll want to record the blade height, angle setting and horizontal position. Recording the measured angle is very helpful. But if the measured angle is, for example, 20.5 degrees, do you return to 20 as a set angle or to 21? Being off by a half of a degree can cause you to create a lot of work for you. With the precision that the Wicked Edge works to, being off by 0.15 dps can make the difference of sharpening at the apex or sharpening at the shoulder. This is even more impactful at the belly of a typical hunting or pocket knife. Being ready and able to adjust to a tenth of a degree solves a lot of problems.
Mcmaster Carr sells carbon fiber rods which you could thread yourself if you get a 1/4″-28 die and die handle.
Carbon fiber rods are quite expensive at $50 plus shipping for a 48″ length.They also sell rods in Garolite, which I believe is the equivalent of G10 and has some lubricity to it. It sells for $16 per 48″ rod.
I made my rods from precision stainless rods and I have two sets: one at about 11″ and another at 18″ for when I double-stack my low angle adapters to sharpen my Japanese knives to 8 dps. You only need three or move turns of the thread. A few more if you want to use a jam nut.
On second thought, I don’t know how stiff Garolite would be.
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I’ve been using a micron/mesh chart that was published by Advanced Abrasives about 10 years ago. It’s always worked for me and seems to match up very close to the chart on the WE grit/micron list taken from the WE support list.
I think it’s important to note that we’re not publishing a set of standards for the industry – just a guideline to use as a frame of reference for WE users. Which is pretty much was Clay says in his last statement: “Our thought process is that what matters at the end of the day is what each abrasive does to the knife. Once that is quantified, we should be able to state something like the following: Abrasive X has n effect on the metal. With each grit having a quantified effect, it should be easy to see where each fits within a progression.”
I’ve run into this problem of abnormally large clusters of diamond grit a few times before. In instances where the cluster is aligned parallel to the stone, they are really hard to knock off and the normal process of breaking them in doesn’t do it. On particularly hard steels like my ZDP-189’s, they can produce some really nasty chips. I found that clamping a section of glass in the vise and working the stone with firm pressure over the corner of the glass will do the job.
The vendor’s process of manufacturing diamond stones distributes the diamond grit randomly over the steel platen and then nickel-plates the assembly to anchor the particles to the steel. The break-in process is supposed to knock off any particles that aren’t directly attached to the platen. Unfortunately, randomly distributing particles can occasionally result in a random cluster oriented in disadvantageous direction. I’ve suggested to Clay that there are other vendors doing a better job out there, but he doesn’t seem to have found one.
Sorry I’m late on this one, but here’s one tidbit I have to share:
If the long bore diameter is larger than the rod diameter, you’ll want rods which are extra long. If you slide the handle high enough to have the rod drop out of the upper bushing, you’ll see some angular error and if the bushing are a tight fit, you’ll see some binding between the rod and lower bushing.
I’m currently using a design in which there is no bore or bushing. The two halves are flat, with 1/4″ spacers on each side of the rod. The spacers are attached to the two halves with double-faced tape. The side-to-side tolerance is irrelevant. Imagine the halves are 3/4″ wide and the spacers are 3/16″ wide and attached so that their outboard edges line up with the sides of the two halves. That leaves a channel 1/8″ wider than the rod diameter. No precision required as side-to-side movement doesn’t effect angular accuracy. The thickness of the two layers of double-faced tape allow just enough clearance for the rod to move freely in the channel. If you don’t follow, consider that I don’t have a round bore for the rod. I have a slot. The rod can move sideways in the slot but not relative to the stone faces. You only need accuracy in the axis perpendicular to the stone faces. Not side-to-side.
For stone-to-stone uniformity, invest your efforts in the repeatability of the distance between stone face and the flat back. Generally, a 0.010″ error will result in a 1/1oth degree error in accuracy. I cut my spacers from a 0.250″ thick slab of ABS using a table saw.
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I used the VSTAs quite a bit and with good success when I was using custom stones which varied in thickness by more than 0.010 – 0.015 of an inch. They take only a few seconds to make an adjustment, as compared to using an angle cube with each grit change. Like Mark says, they never really caught on and users simply found it easier to either use the angle cube or toss out any odd-ball stones. The original intent was to allow the inclusion of Chosera stones and strops in the mix with diamond stones. Then came the Gen 3 Pro, which doesn’t use the angle bar and there was another nail in the proverbial coffin.
I had modified my first sets of handles, adding bronze bushings to tighten up the slop between handle and rod. This worked really well, but my manufacturing process produced too much variability and I had to adjust for the differences in the distance from stone face to rod center. This happened with every grit change – not just every handle change, and I found that once I had mastered it, using the VSTAs became second-natured to me. I don’t know if any other serious user felt the need to use them enough to become comfortable with them.
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I had to look at a few of the new product photos to see what you meant. The new version has only one pair of holes for the height position key.
I don’t know how different the hole height position is from the previous version, so can’t say for sure, but my experience is that there’s only a small change from one position to another, whether you use the key or not. I quit using the key a long time ago and I position the blade wherever I think it is the most secure. Obviously, very narrow blades get mounted higher, but I don’t necessarily mount wide knives much deeper into the vise, as the blade is clamped only by the small pads at the upper outboard corners of the vise. Going deeper doesn’t really add clamping security. I haven’t seen much change in the bevel facets with slight changes in mounting height, but most of the knives I do are kitchen knives with little belly issues – hitting a sweet spot isn’t a big deal for me.
I’d say give a few knives a try, where you have records of the two-position key mounts to compare to.
