Learning the Wicked Edge..... HELP

When you were raising the burrs, did you use a straight up and down scrubbing motion as opposed to sweeping and did you use a fair amount of pressure? As I indicated earlier, this would be the only place you use any kind of pressure under normal circumstances.
When you were sure you had your burrs on each side, did you test the whole length of the edge dragging a cotton ball or Q-tip. I know a lot of folks just test with their fingernail to check the burr but I think dragging the cotton ball along the burr shows you exactly where the burr is or isn't and whether it is uniform or not.
Also don't underestimate the value of the Sharpie here. It will show you whether you have removed material evenly and if there are spots you have missed.
If you are not getting the edges you expect, then, this has to be the a
main area where things may be going wrong.
Stay at it mate, you will get the edge you want.

Cheers
Leo :thumbup:
 
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I've been having the same problem, although I don't have any of your freehand skills or deep knife sharpening experience. I have the Pro kit. I seem to be doing better with the DMT Aligner kit I picked up for comparison.

You should rule out one possible defect, that of excessive play in the rod linkages. My unit had that. WE promptly sent me new rod assemblies but my results actually haven't improved much so far but I've so far only worked new one knife with the new rod assemblies so far.

Check out the YouTube channel of jdavis882. He's got a new WE (with tons of prior sharpening experience including freehand and EP like yourself). He talks about his initial struggles and learning curve. He also had the same rod linkage play issue and shows it in one of his videos - that really gave him problems in the beginning. It's fixed now and he's getting better results. It's probably best that you rule that particular rod linkage play issue out.

Please do keep us posted...
 
LittleHouse
jdavis882 is CrimsonTideShooter
 
Aha, well at least I had good intuition about the source of the problem! :o
Great channel John, I've learned a lot from your excellent vids. And congratulations on getting married.
 
I know it`s been awhile since this post was started but i am having the same problem. I can get my edge shaving sharp but no bite to the edge.
 
IMHO I would suggest to stay on a lower grit (no more than 1k) and remove the burr with the last stone used, with multiple hair-light passes, alternating sides. let us know!
 
hippi97 said:
I know it`s been awhile since this post was started but i am having the same problem. I can get my edge shaving sharp but no bite to the edge.
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I think the revelation for John, JDavis (aka CrimsonTideShooter aka ... :) ), as well as myself, was holding the stones at the top. By holding the paddles at the top, you are basically levering the stone against the edges which pushes the top of the paddle inward and the bottom of the paddle outward as much as possible, thus removing the play in the paddles/arms. You can actually get more than an entire degree of variance with the play in the paddles, so if you hold the paddles in the middle or bottom, you're hitting the edge at any number of angles within that degree or more of play. To put it simply, you're only hitting the apex of the edge on the occasions when you get lucky with your stroke once in a while, and I find that it almost never happens. So basically, if you're not holding the paddles right (at the top) you're sharpening the bevel, roughly, but you're not actually sharpening the edge much at all. In fact, I think the only reason people get semi-sharp edges with this wrong technique is because when you move on to the strops the "give" in the leather finally "kisses" the apex of the edge enough to give you a little bit of sharpness - which makes you think you're doing something right but the system just isn't very capable. Try holding the paddles at the very top so you can feel them lever or almost lightly "bind" against the edge and you'll quickly feel the fact that you're not only hitting the apex of the edge every time, but you're creating a perfectly flat bevel by hitting the bevel at the same exact perfect angle every time. You NEED to be hitting the apex of the edge with EVERY stroke! I think this is probably the biggest source of the problems of most beginners on this system. It was certainly the revelation for me! :)

Also, vary up your technique. Do scrubbing motions along the edge if you want (I don't use this technique much), do up and down grinding along the edge taking turns on each side, doing an equal number of passes, and most importantly - learn to do the "pedaling a bike with your hands" type motion that Clay Allison does, where you're going "up and away" with back and forth strokes with both hands. I think most people think this looks easy and then they get the system and find that you need to be quite ambidextrous to do this very well. However, practice and build the muscle memory and strength in your arms until your strokes are exact mirror images of each other with equal pressure and equal, perfect up and away strides. Make sure you're going perfectly up, away, and in line with the edge as you pull the stones off the tip of the blade. Meaning - you have to take just enough pressure off the paddles and continue your stroke of the end of the blade as if there was actually more edge there guiding you. Continue the stroke as if along an invisible edge. Otherwise, you will round your tip or curve it, etc. That's one of the techniques that take the longest to develop, but eventually you can get a perfectly shaped, very sharp, factory-looking tip.

There are other things you'll have to learn, like how to judge how forward or backward your knife is in the clamp, and also making the flattest portion of the edge exactly level to your work surface. These things will allow you to get an edge that has a bevel that is perfectly the same width from heel to tip, as opposed to the edge most people get, which widens slightly (or abruptly) as it gets to the belly and then the tip. There are just lots of little nuances of this system that would be easier to show. I should make a video. Most of all, just practice and get your stones broken in, which will take quite a while. I've spent countless hours with this system and it take effort and time.

Also, if you got even the Pro+ pack and your stones are broken in and you're spending an hour or two per knife and you're still wondering why your edges are semi-mirrored at some angles but still have tons of scratches and grind lines within the mirror, I can let you know what it actually take to get a perfect (to the naked eye) mirror polish. It took me a long time to figure it out and there are so many stone choices and peoples opinions that it's confusing trying to figure out what you need to get a perfect mirror polish. It's not really about how high you go up in microns on the strops - I can get a 95% perfect mirror polish with a 10 or 14 micron strop and a 99% perfect mirror polish with the regular 3.5 micron strop that came with my Pro pack - it's about what all grits you use going up before you even start with the strops. If you don't have a semi-polished edge before going to strops, you're not going to get a true mirror polish where it looks like the edge is literally chrome plated and void of scratches. The higher and higher micron strops only make the mirror a little brighter, to some extent, but as far as I can tell, you're not really going to see a difference using strops higher than 1 micron or even 3.5 microns. Going higher will just hone it more and more perfectly and it really only matters much when under a microscope. I only go up to maybe 3.5 or no higher than 1 micron and my edges are perfectly mirrored without visible scratches at any angle and I feel zero toothiness in the edge - just sticky, continuous, mirrored edge.

BTW, I also do the "pedaling" motion thing back toward myself to counteract the scratch patter that's formed when going away from yourself, and also to better refine the heel of the blade. You have to be careful and you can't start the motion toward yourself at the very tip of the knife, because you'll inevitably break the tip or screw up somehow, but you can start your stroke around the middle of the belly of the blade and come off the blade "up and away" at the very heel. I usually do this a little bit every so often in order to break up the scratch pattern that you normally get going away from the blade. I also do up and down grinding strokes, taking turns on each side since you can't use both paddles simultaneously, for the same purpose and also just because that technique especially helps you feel the fact that you're hitting the apex of the edge. That's the most important thing, and I always use a Sharpie along the blade to make sure, because you HAVE to make sure you're hitting the apex with each stroke, from heel to tip, every time.

Aaron
 
CrimsonTideShooter said:
Something I noticed, when I'm finished with the edge it looks fine in some spots (normally the middle of the edge), but near the heel and the tip it looks as though some of the stones didn't do their work. Take stropping for example. It appears as though the strops don't do their job near the heel and tip.
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I've never used one of these systems, but the concept is pretty simple. Something to note is that your sharpening medium is abrading the edge from a fixed position, and maybe you're not hitting the edge. You can see here in this photograph what happens with systems like this when sharpening the tip of a knife:

DSC_3814.JPG


The angle of the rod is different than if it were perpendicular to the edge, which is why the tip and belly of this knife have a slightly larger bevel than the middle (where the rod would be perpendicular). The angle at the heel could be different, as well. Have you tried moving the knife forward so that the heel is closer to being perpendicular to the sharpening rod position (and same for the tip?)

CrimsonTideShooter said:
Also something else I noticed, even though the edge was sharp - it lacked any bite at all. It would slice paper fine (my absolute bare bottom sharpness test) but it didn't bite my skin at all. Kind of confusing.
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Sounds like what you get from a buffed edge. With a buffed edge you can slide your fingers up and down the edge with no worry (if you're using the Three Finger Test) because microscopically it is like the tip of a ball point pen, but it will still cut paper and shave hair with no abandon.
 
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Hey Aaron, way a go mate! An excellent explanation that had even an old hand with the WEPS like me paying close attention.
Well done! :thumbup:

Best regards
Leo
 
hippi97 said:
How do you stop getting the buffed edge ?
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The buffed edge is created by the give in the leather or stropping medium rounding the apex of your edge. It's controversial, since a lot of forum guys believe that leather loaded with a polishing rouge is the only way to finish their edges since it does cut newspaper cleaning and shave hairs cleanly (if this is the only thing their knife does, have at it). While it will cut these things fine it just won't have the toothy-ness to push cut through something like the skin of a tomato, which is like what CTS experienced. To prevent this, if sharpening freehand, use edge trailing strokes on a hard-backed surface like newspaper laid across your stone, instead of a leather strop. Or if using a system like the EP or Wicked Edge, use only upward strokes only with your finishing stone, but this is in concept only since I only sharpen freehand.

I hope that makes sense.
 
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