Best knife position KME vs Wicked Edge

[uilleann]

I am coming from the world of KME. The best position to put the jaws was a midpoint between the start of the blade spine to the tip and at an angle where the jaws are parallel to a line drawn between the tip and heel of the edge. Then do a magic marker on the edge and see what you get and adjust as necessary. For me, most of the time, this worked without much correction.

On the WE both the instructions and most, if not all, of the videos show you set the knife spine on the alignment stops about mid way along the blade. That puts the knife spine parallel to the WE base, regardless of edge geometry. Then do the magic marker thing and adjust the knife position, horizontally while keeping the spine on the guide, to get an even edge. From the videos it looks like you get some good edges out of this.

But why do both of these methods work, which one gets you closest to the right position. One advantage of the WE method is it gives you an easily repeatable position.

 

[DavidHoback]

The reason they both work is a cutting edge doesn't care where it is located in the world. It also doesn't care if it is not perfectly centered. When an edge is taken to burr on both sides then the burr polished back, it's going to cut! Now when everything is nicely even, and the bevels finished to a high polish, yes it can be better. But any edge taken to zero is going to be sharp! Period! Think about a CHISEL grind knife. How can they be sharp? The edge is way over to one side!

 

[REK Knives]

Curtis (cbwx34 here) will probably be along soon hopefully, but he wrote an excellent blog post on this topic a while back. With the forum transition it was 'lost' so I dug up a cached copy of it, may want to read through it here.

 

[l1ranger]

interesting thought uilleann - i was thinking similar on my lansky this weekend.

I think what you do with the KME is going to give you the most consistent angle across the entire blade.

the WE setup as you mentioned, is close to how I run the lansky, and on some knives, you can definitely see a difference in the angle along the edge

 

[DavidHoback]

The reason they both work is a cutting edge doesn't care where it is located in the world. It also doesn't care if it is not perfectly centered. When an edge is taken to burr on both sides then the burr polished back, it's going to cut! Now when everything is nicely even, and the bevels finished to a high polish, yes it can be better. But any edge taken to zero is GOING to be sharp.

 

[cbwx34]

Curtis (cbwx34 here) will probably be along soon hopefully, but he wrote an excellent blog post on this topic a while back. With the forum transition it was 'lost' so I dug up a cached copy of it, may want to read through it here.

Thanks... I actually lost that when the blogs went away. Teach me to save a copy....
(p.s. I answered this in the W.E. forum)

The reason they both work is a cutting edge doesn't care where it is located in the world. It also doesn't care if it is not perfectly centered. When an edge is taken to burr on both sides then the burr polished back, it's going to cut! Now when everything is nicely even, and the bevels finished to a high polish, yes it can be better. But any edge taken to zero is GOING to be sharp.

The question actually deals more with keeping the angle (and/or bevel width) the same along the blade, that's what the OP is referring to... not whether or not the knife will be sharp.

 

[DavidHoback]

Thanks... I actually lost that when the blogs went away. Teach me to save a copy....
(p.s. I answered this in the W.E. forum)



The question actually deals more with keeping the angle (and/or bevel width) the same along the blade, that's what the OP is referring to... not whether or not the knife will be sharp.

Ah!! Yes, I see that now. Thank you for explaining that better.

That actually is even easier to answer. It is really just simple geometry. No magic or anything!

 

[bflying]

I do very similar to what the op has done in the past. With varying placement along blade, and a varied angle. I'm no mathematician. It's been a few years (before the gray beard anyway) since I took 8th grade geometry. But I see the key as keeping the same distance, or as close as possible, from the edge to the pivot. Not sure it matters whether KME or WE, both have fixed pivot points.

If the blade shape allows that to be accomplished with a straight clamp, but varied point on spine (single axis adjustment only), that's great. But some shapes can just be better accomplished with a two axis placement accommodation. Sometimes that's because of the belly. And sometimes the spine thickness and slope forces little tweaks. So I usually lock a fixed point on the free floating arm, and take measurements at multiple points across the edge, adjusting the blade placement as needed.

I'm a sucker for perfectly even bevels. Maybe why I end up putting more than half of my new purchases on a sharpener....right out of the box.