Having trouble getting knives sharp with wicked edge

Garrett Peters

Garrett Peters

Joined
Sep 5, 2017
Messages
159
High yall I got the wicked edge 130 with 100,200,400,600,800,100,1200,1600 grit stones. I just bought the system and thought it would be pretty straight forward I'm having trouble getting some knives sharp. Should I buy the strop? I got my skyline razor sharp but can't get my 940 sharp at all, thanks.
 
I do not have the wicked edge, but perhaps you could try sharpening just one side of the 940 at a time until you raise a burr, then switch to the other side until you raise a burr, then go to back and forth strokes again. The 940 has a thicker edge than the skyline and also has a more wear resistant steel. For this reason, expect the 940 to take a little longer to sharpen. A common reason for not getting a sharp knife when everything otherwise seems ok, is not reaching an apex. In other words the left and right side of your edge may not be touching. use your coarse stone to raise the burrs. Then you can progress through all of the grits. if you do it right, you should be able to cleanly slice news print and shave arm hair by the time you get to 400-600 grit.
 
Just commenting, I don't own a WE, the only real problem with sharpening (both for beginners and non-starters) is that you cannot see in realtime and on a big screen what you are just producing with your edge-leading or edge-trailing strokes. If people could see on a big screen and in realtime what is happening at the bevel\edge, all that sharpening, stropping, and polishing would be very straightforward to do and easy to understand, the why's and how to proceed next.

May seem overkill but imho isn't, a bunch of people incl experienced ones do use a cheap plastic portable microscope (instead of a magnifying glass or a jeweller's loupe) to see at least the magnification, if not in realtime.

If the blade is still dull, it simply means that you need to keep on grinding on the WE.

Seriously. That simple.
 
Give up.
Ha, ha
Well . . .I'm only half serious . . . make that only eighty percent serious.

Errrr . . ahhhh . . . I'm guessing you didn't read the instructions.
Read them.
Also I find it helps with insrtuctions, recipies in particulr, to rewrite them into a form that actually makes some kind of actual sense. In actual step by step form.
Oh my gosh I just gave away my secret MO.

As far as compound and strops forget that. If it isn't sharp by tne time you come off your first or second stone go back and reread the instructions and go again until it is.
The rest is just refining the sharp apex.
 
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Apex and burr on the first stone, if you don't find the hook (burr), work it for a bit, and then flips sides, work for the same time so it's not uneven, try to find that hook (burr) on the other side. Hence the reason why you use a knife that's not too expensive. Once you find the burr, find it on the other side, then you've got the edges coming together to form the apex. Don't work it too much any more on that stone, just enough to take the burr off, switching back and forth on each side of that first stone for that burr removal, and try to avoid the burr for the rest of the stones. If it's not sharp, you didn't find the burr/apex.
 
Alrite thanks guys I'm not the best sharpener but this all points a vivid picture of what I'm doing wrong thanks again?
 
...at any point when you THINK you are done...
Take a bright light and look at the finished edge while the edge is "pointed at your face." If you see any points of light, reflections of light, then those places have not reached the apex.
 
I find when I can't get and edge sharp it's usually on knives that are new or an off angle from a previous owner my problems are usually near the ricasso or tip ,You have to make the edge "your own",once you get your comfortable angle set it usually gets easier after that.I freehand sharpen so my edge is probably not like some of the precise edges you see around here ,but hey it works for me.
 
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