edgelord

[edgelord]

MarcH, sometimes I let myself fall into the minutiae of the process as I can find it relaxing and fulfilling. But if I’m doing some older daily use kitchen knives I let it slide and ‘good enough’ will do. Thanks for all your details and information, I appreciate your clarity and persistence.

 

j

[edgelord]

Marc H wrote:

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “allow the slight play in the hole the guide rod goes in”? Everything that’s intended to be tight should be used tight. We don’t want to allow any play where it really shouldn’t be. We want to hold and use our stones in a manner that’s keeping them stable and positioned as they slide up and down the guide rods while they are contacting the knife edge, consistently…

If I slide a stone onto the rod it isn’t a ‘Perfect’ fit, but rather the hole is ever so slightly larger than the rod. That slight enlargement seems to give it some back and forth. Sorry for the poor photos, but you can see the small gap depending on how I apply pressure to the stone – it has some play on the rod. Is that not normal? I had presumed that this play and my hand position / pressure was what gave me variation in the scratch marks. All my stones do this about equally.

 

And yes, I know this discussion is going pretty far down the sharpening hole, ha ha. My hand sharpened knives were very sharp but no where near as consistent as what I see on the WE130. If I wanted a certain angle done by hand it would be a ‘pretty close’, I’m sure others could do better. It made me terrified to sharpen my Chris Reeve Umnumzaan to be honest.

 

j

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[edgelord]

Marc H wrote:

They still keep the “zeroing” in the memory…

Thanks for this. I just checked and mine does keep zero.

[edgelord]

Marc H wrote:

You’ll also be able to recognize if your stone angle is off a little.

While we are off on somewhat of a tangent here, I did want to pick your brain on this. I noticed something on my 3rd knife sharpened on my 130 (and the first to go over 1000 diamond stone) with my new ceramic stones. I have a tiny usb optical microscope (not USB) and noticed at the higher grits that there were two distinct patterns, bottom of secondary bevel, and at the top. If I am very consistent it goes away. It seems to be if I allow the slight play in the hole the guide rod goes in to pivot the stone a bit it gives a slight deviance in the angle. Am I crazy or is that correct. Now I use my little finger to keep slight pressure at the bottom to hold the stone along the same path – does that make sense? Plus I slowed down. A lot.

I do think this pattern was there at the lower grits but it wasn’t so apparent and I didn’t notice. Now I know what to look for, and listen for it seems.

j

[edgelord]

Toxophilus wrote:

…using it along with the math gleaned from this forum’s past postings to find true center (thank you tcmeyer)…

Would you be able to direct me to this math? I dig the details.

[edgelord]

Marc H wrote:

… I suggest for accuracy you always position your angle cube on the stones the same, everytime you use it. Also place the stone against the knife edge the same way, positioned the same, every time you check the angle. Keep everything consistent. Only zero out the angle cube once at the beginning of your sharpening session…

Nice to know I’m on the right track as I’ve narrowed it down to pretty much these steps. However the cube I use powers off after 1 minute or so and loses its zero. When I see high end Mitutoyo digital protractors with less advertised accuracy than the DXL360 I wonder about it.

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