I've been seriously lusting after the Wicked Edge and Edge Pro Apex sharpening systems. Without trying either, I feel like the Edge Pro is more my style, but the Wicked Edge would just be amazing given the speed. It seems like you can get amazing results with very little time. I've been using a Lansky system for about 15-20 years now, and am an expert with it. Between my own knives, customer knives, and sharpening every knife that belongs to every person I know (several times), I have sharpened probably around 3,000-5,000 knives. Everyone that knows me knows that I love to sharpen knives and always have my Lansky with me, so friends/coworkers/customers always bring me their pocket knives and kitchen knives to sharpen. I have gotten to the point that I could get knives to literal shaving sharp with my Lansky. I even shaved one day at work with my Griptilian H20 (with soap and no razor burn!)
All that being said, something attracted me to the Wicked Edge. I didn't have $500 to spend on it and was really thinking about WHY it was superior to a Lansky. Besides maybe better build quality and tighter tolerances, what is it about the Wicked Edge that makes it better? The best answer I could come up with was that you're essentially doing one stroke per side, then switching to the other side. That keeps you from focusing on one side for too long and bending a burr over to the opposite side. This was something I learned years ago with the Lansky. I had learned that (especially towards the end, with the finer stones), you want to switch sides often and not work too much on one side. That was key to getting great results with the Lansky. If you fail to do this, you create a tiny burr that basically just gets flopped from side to side. Doing just a single swipe per side, then switching, should minimize this phenomenon, at least in theory.
Always trying to make things myself, I started thinking of ways to make my own Wicked Edge. Then, I realized that the Wicked Edge and Lansky are actually very similar, but that the Wicked Edge is just vertical, allowing you to switch sides without moving your grip/the knife. It dawned on me that I could just make a mount/jig for my Lansky that essentially made it a poor man's Wicked Edge. So, I made such a jig. Now, this is my prototype, and was done in a hurry just as a proof of concept. As a fine carpenter/furniture maker, it bothers me that it's so crappy looking, but I'll make a pretty one soon enough. So forgive the roughness.
After sharpening a few knives, I can say that it works AMAZINGLY well! I am VERY impressed. It has gotten my knives to that level of sharpness where you can split a free-hanging hair. That level of sharpness had eluded me with the Lansky until now. Below are some pictures of hairs that I was dangling with one hand, and with the other hand, used my Paramilitary 2 (S30V) to split, curl, and shave. It basically just bites right into the free-hanging hair and peels it right in half.
In this first picture, you can see that I split it numerous times:
In this one, you can see the curly part, where it just split the hair right down the center:
And here are some pictures of the highly polished, razor sharp edge:
The one caveat is that you essentially need TWO of each Lansky stone to make this work. I don't have two of each, but I DO have a full set of natural stones and a full set of diamond stones. I looked it up, and they are the same grit (Coarse diamond is 120 grit, Coarse natural is 120 grit, and so on). So, basically, I would just use diamond on the right, and natural on the left, make about 20 strokes, then switch and do 20 more. Obviously, this is not ideal, but it's still giving amazing results. I will get a second set of diamond stones to make it perfect. The other trick that I learned from a guy on YouTube (and this is genius) is to use sandpaper taped onto the stones. So, my process is this:
-Use a single Extra Coarse diamond stone to establish the bevel (one side at a time)
-Starting from here on with the Wicked Edge type motion, use Coarse diamond and Coarse natural
-Medium diamond and Medium natural
-Fine diamond and Fine natural
-Using Extra Fine and Super Sapphire stones as bases, tape on 1200-grit wet/dry sandpaper, use as above
-Move to 2000-grit sandpaper
-Lansky stropping hone with green paste (I only have one so I have to alternate)
-Final stropping on a strop with green paste
I'm very happy with the results, and feel I'm getting results that are at least comparable to a Wicked Edge. The best thing is that it cost me nothing since I just used scrap wood laying around the shop. I will need to buy a second Coarse diamond, Medium diamond, Fine diamond and stropping hone, so that will be around $50, but that's a tenth of the Wicked Edge. I will say that I don't think this would be a big money saver for most people, as you'd likely spend at least $250 to get all the stones and all, but since I already had them, it saved me.
