Any negative reviews on wicked edge??

Jake5713

Jake5713

Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Messages
384
Title says it all. I am considering purchasing a pro pack wicked edge with my end of the month bonus and wanted to know if there are any negative reviews out there.... If you own this system I want to hear your experience either way.... Thanks
 
I've had one for a couple of years. The process can be slow, but the
results are superb. If you're going to sharpen for money, it's too slow,
but if you want a REALLY SHARP edge, it's a great tool.

My wife and I do commercial sharpening with a Tormek and with paper
wheels (thanks, Richard J.) but our Shun Kitchen knives get the WE.

Tomatos tremble.:D

Bill
 
You might search on here as there are threads about it. It works as described but the trick is to get a burr on one side then the other. Unfortunately this can take a long time if a knife has an uneven grind. By long time I mean it might take hours. The WE gives consistent results and it's easy to use. A bonus is you can use sandpaper over the paddles if you want to use sandpaper instead of diamonds. I like that for simple carbon steels.
 
I got the pro pack 30% off because it was backordered, so it was under 300. I thought even that was overpriced but it's a good product, maybe the best guided system.
 
Oh and I never achieved a mirror polished edge with the pro pack. You need higher grit than 1000.
 
I have one and I do enjoy it. I would have likely been just as happy with an edge pro though even though I havent used that system. I chose the WEPS because I liked the idea of using diamond stones for faster re-grinds and no stone flattening required. Plus I liked that I could quickly strop with it.

Some of the difficulties involved in using the WEPS is clamping different and odd blade shapes. There are tricks you need to learn to get a full flat ground blade clamped properly, and any knife without parralel flat surfaces to clamp to. Also, the system is a design work in progress. Clay has made new style arms that are more accurate for setting angles. Make sure you call and work out a deal to get the new arms instead of the old ones. The system also lacks a bit of portability if that is an issue, although they do have a smaller version to fill that role. Most of my knives are Spyderco, and I have been able to clamp them all.

I find that once I set a bevel up once on my new knives, I can just touch up my edges again very quickly to sticky sharp with the strops alone. Knowing what I know now, I would be just as happy just owning convex grind knives and freehand
stropping them to maintain edges, but I do get my convex knife very sharp just by stropping it on the WEPS.

I definitely wouldn't give it a negative review, I'm just sharing some honest small negatives so you can better decide what you want. There is a good forum on the WEPS website that you can check out to ask questions and get some great info. Also, Clay has many YouTube vids teaching how to use the system.

Hope this helps you out.
 
Negative reviews? I doubt it as long as it's used for it's intended purpose, ie. personal use. Not really a steep learning curve but the basics must be followed and you will get better with practice. Stone progression is important and building a burr is only important on the first course stone to set the angle, after that it's just play time. Not rolling the edge is another skill that may take some time to master but other than that it's idiot proof. Results come out just fine with a very usable edge at 800 or 1000. Taking it to 1200 is just gravy and anything beyord that is for the perfectionist.
 
The strops in the pro pack will bring it to a decent mirror polish if you spend enough time on them. The diamonds do seem to leave tiny scratches though. If you want one of those obsessive crazy mirror edges, you probably need the ceramics, shaptons, or Choseras.
 
I left my stones in the sun one day and some of them fell out of the handles. That's the only negative thing I could say. I souldnt have left them baking in the heat tho.
 
They're really quite good, I have the ProPack as well, have for a fair while now. The only real negative reviews I have seen were a while back when a single run of jaws had about 10% of the batch fail to be hard enough. Quite a few of that run ended up bending and needing to be replaced, although Clay displayed their usual superb customer support and had replacements out nearly instantaneously to the people who had trouble. Mine was one of the good ones out of that lot, the jaws never bent.

The plates are held on to the handles with contact cement, and it IS possible for heat to loosen them up. The good news? They go back on just as easily. Squirt of Super-77 and slap them back on, and they're good as new again. Part of that is intended, I believe, so that the paddle can be re-used should there ever be a need to. The ceramics or an aftermarket diamond film are really needed between the 1K and the strops if you want a mirror finish from it, or go with the waterstones after you're done profiling. Personally, I don't bother. The edge off of the 1K diamonds followed by stropping with the pro-pack strops to remove the burr is quite good.
 
Here's an excellent video comparison below...

I just picked up a Wicked Edge Pro Pack 1. It is awesome, i also have an Edge Pro Apex. They are both good but i would give the edge (no pun intended) to the Wicked Edge. I actually like the roughness of the diamond stones on the Wicked Edge for removing steel and re-profiling and the fine, ultra fine and 3000 grit tapes on the Edge Pro for polishing.

I love that the blade is clamped on the Wicked edge, it makes for a very very exact, proportionate and sharp edge. The Edge Pro (IMHO) has too much variation because you will find yourself putting more pressure on the stones as you are sharpening and the blade will either lay flat and ride on the "flat" of the blade or it will tip down away from the flat and lay on its front edge closer to part you are sharpening. Like a Delica with the older saber grind, it rides perfectly on the flat but if you speed up your motion and or loosen your grip while holding down the Delica, you may find that you have tipped away from the flat....

You may also find you are doing it more on one side than on the other.... it may seem like nothing but these few degrees make a huge difference in achieving maximum sharpness.... You can still get it sharp & you can still get it to whittle hair but the fun is in how much, or in the case of sharpening how little effort you have to put in when you drag the blade across the surface you want to cut.

On the other hand, if you take your time and want a super low degree slicing / showtime style edge. The Edge Pro will do what the Wicked Edge cannot.... this one was done on the Edge Pro at less than 15 Deg (my guess would be around 12)...

So, absolutely no bad marks for the Wicked Edge but it has a few limitations... One last thing (to address your original question) even though i can't get the super tall mirrored edge like on the Edge Pro, I do notice that i can get my blades much sharper using the Wicked Edge system... I'm keeping them both! and i still want a shaprmaker!

photo1-20.jpg


Here is a great comparison for both of them

[youtube]SGo3pKhp6L8[/youtube]
 
dcmartin said:
Here's an excellent video comparison below...

I just picked up a Wicked Edge Pro Pack 1. It is awesome, i also have an Edge Pro Apex. They are both good but i would give the edge (no pun intended) to the Wicked Edge. I actually like the roughness of the diamond stones on the Wicked Edge for removing steel and re-profiling and the fine, ultra fine and 3000 grit tapes on the Edge Pro for polishing.

I love that the blade is clamped on the Wicked edge, it makes for a very very exact, proportionate and sharp edge. The Edge Pro (IMHO) has too much variation because you will find yourself putting more pressure on the stones as you are sharpening and the blade will either lay flat and ride on the "flat" of the blade or it will tip down away from the flat and lay on its front edge closer to part you are sharpening. Like a Delica with the older saber grind, it rides perfectly on the flat but if you speed up your motion and or loosen your grip while holding down the Delica, you may find that you have tipped away from the flat....

You may also find you are doing it more on one side than on the other.... it may seem like nothing but these few degrees make a huge difference in achieving maximum sharpness.... You can still get it sharp & you can still get it to whittle hair but the fun is in how much, or in the case of sharpening how little effort you have to put in when you drag the blade across the surface you want to cut.

On the other hand, if you take your time and want a super low degree slicing / showtime style edge. The Edge Pro will do what the Wicked Edge cannot.... this one was done on the Edge Pro at less than 15 Deg (my guess would be around 12)...

So, absolutely no bad marks for the Wicked Edge but it has a few limitations... One last thing (to address your original question) even though i can't get the super tall mirrored edge like on the Edge Pro, I do notice that i can get my blades much sharper using the Wicked Edge system... I'm keeping them both! and i still want a shaprmaker!

photo1-20.jpg


Here is a great comparison for both of them

[youtube]SGo3pKhp6L8[/youtube]
Click to expand...

Great detailed feedback
Thank you!!
 
Oh, I had one of my 800 grits "feel" much coarser than the other. I showed it to Clay and he put it under some magnification and explained the reason (forgot exactly what it was). Long story short he remedied the stones by lightly rubbing them together. Problem solved.
 
I just got my Wicked Edge last week and i`m happy with it so far.. I`m not getting the sharpness that i want to yet but i`m sure it`s me and not the Wicked Edge.
 
Jet B said:
I have one and I do enjoy it. I would have likely been just as happy with an edge pro though even though I havent used that system. I chose the WEPS because I liked the idea of using diamond stones for faster re-grinds and no stone flattening required. Plus I liked that I could quickly strop with it.

Some of the difficulties involved in using the WEPS is clamping different and odd blade shapes. There are tricks you need to learn to get a full flat ground blade clamped properly, and any knife without parralel flat surfaces to clamp to. Also, the system is a design work in progress. Clay has made new style arms that are more accurate for setting angles. Make sure you call and work out a deal to get the new arms instead of the old ones. The system also lacks a bit of portability if that is an issue, although they do have a smaller version to fill that role. Most of my knives are Spyderco, and I have been able to clamp them all.

I find that once I set a bevel up once on my new knives, I can just touch up my edges again very quickly to sticky sharp with the strops alone. Knowing what I know now, I would be just as happy just owning convex grind knives and freehand
stropping them to maintain edges, but I do get my convex knife very sharp just by stropping it on the WEPS.

I definitely wouldn't give it a negative review, I'm just sharing some honest small negatives so you can better decide what you want. There is a good forum on the WEPS website that you can check out to ask questions and get some great info. Also, Clay has many YouTube vids teaching how to use the system.

Hope this helps you out.
Click to expand...


Interesting, I was complaining to Clay about the loose tolerances on my arms. They're quite shakey. So much so that I have to always stop and tighten up the knobs on the arms. Does this mean I have the old style?
 
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