Any reviews on the wicked edge Gen III sharpener?

[REK Knives]

You are right. I am a perfectionist as well and that is the reason why I have just about any sharpener available, the WE, Edge Pro (clone), KME, Thormek T7, Worksharp KO and just about any other available system. Ridiculous of course but I don't mind, I enjoy playing with them and at least I know from my own experience how each one performs and for each type of knife I can pick the one that is best suitable.

Nevertheless, It would be nice to have a near perfect system.

What someone needs to make is a Wicked Edge accessory that is basically a tormek small knife holder jig on steroids... one that is made super strong w/ a pivot and knob so you can clam every knife VERY securely by using the handle, and then simply rotate on the axis to get to the 0 angle so your angle bar at the base will be good. I will try to make a video to explain.

 

[ToddM]

That's a very interesting idea.

Handles typically have large flat parallel textured areas that could be clamped/held more securely than many blades, as you said the small knife jig on steroids. It would also be easy to have a couple clamp "jigs" one for flat handles and one for rounded, add some type of axis rotation and that could be quite the ticket. Blade length might still be an issue, but you could have a fixed handle clamp, and the sharpening rod base slotted to allow the sharpening rod base to move back and forth either to center on the blade or use multiple steps along it's length.

It also fixes the issue of having the clamp get in the way of the sharpening rods because the clamp would now be behind the path of the rods. This opens up being able to use a more beefy clamp with more adjustment options without reducing sharpening angles.

 

[Acadian]

What someone needs to make is a Wicked Edge accessory that is basically a tormek small knife holder jig on steroids... one that is made super strong w/ a pivot and knob so you can clam every knife VERY securely by using the handle, and then simply rotate on the axis to get to the 0 angle so your angle bar at the base will be good. I will try to make a video to explain.

that's exactly what I was going to reply to fvdk.

I have the Gen III clamp and haven't had many problem, but I mostly use it with the longer arms + Tormek at the moment.

 

[fvdk]

What someone needs to make is a Wicked Edge accessory that is basically a tormek small knife holder jig on steroids... one that is made super strong w/ a pivot and knob so you can clam every knife VERY securely by using the handle, and then simply rotate on the axis to get to the 0 angle so your angle bar at the base will be good. I will try to make a video to explain.

I have the Tormek small knife holder and I have seen your video about it. I never had much luck using it in combination with the WE but I think I understand what your modifications would be like and they would certainly be an improvement.

What I would like to see is a clamp that is a combination of the original WE clamp with small notches like the old style Lansky clamp and tapered style notches like those from the Smit's clamp.

 

[REK Knives]

just finished uploading... quality will be better in about 10 min. but here are my thoughts:

[video=youtube;BjvhCMCTcoA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjvhCMCTcoA[/video]

 

[Fred.Rowe]

What someone needs to make is a Wicked Edge accessory that is basically a tormek small knife holder jig on steroids... one that is made super strong w/ a pivot and knob so you can clam every knife VERY securely by using the handle, and then simply rotate on the axis to get to the 0 angle so your angle bar at the base will be good. I will try to make a video to explain.

Yes indeed. Its odd that the company has not come up with this fix.

 

[clayallison]

What someone needs to make is a Wicked Edge accessory that is basically a tormek small knife holder jig on steroids... one that is made super strong w/ a pivot and knob so you can clam every knife VERY securely by using the handle, and then simply rotate on the axis to get to the 0 angle so your angle bar at the base will be good. I will try to make a video to explain.

We've been working on something like that through most of the year though it's not as full featured as what Josh is describing in the video...

 

[REK Knives]

We've been working on something like that through most of the year though it's not as full featured as what Josh is describing in the video...

Would love to discuss via email clay if I can be of any help (which I doubt haha!)

 

[Twindog]

One mistake that Wicked Edge made with the new Gen III jaws is to make the clamp too wide. The old Gen I clamp is 1 inch wide. The new Gen III clamp is more than an inch and a half wide. That greater width, when dealing with a distal taper, reduces the clamping power of the forward edge, leaving the clamp to basically pinch the blade in the back part of the clamp, allowing the blade to easily pivot.

The second mistake was to design the clamp so that it could not conform to the distal taper of the blade, magnifying the effect of the first mistake.

The third mistake was to use a cam to clamp the blade. The cam has basically one tightness. The thicker the blade, the tighter it will hold. The thinner the blade, the weaker the clamping power. This limitation is why the clamp cannot accept a blade wider than 3/16th.

Put all three of these problems together with a thin blade and a distal taper (or a blade thicker than 3/16th), and you have a system that doesn't live up the standards of a premium sharpening system.

Basically, the design of this system works best with a blade of a specific thickness and no distal taper. I don't see an easy fix to the clamp. The company needs to redesign the clamp. Either that or come up with a handful of clamping jigs that can be inserted over the spine to compensate for various blade thicknesses and distal tapers.