Wicked Edge not so Wicked

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Sentinel09

Joined
Jun 11, 2013
Messages
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I just recently joined Blade Forums and it is great! I wanted to sharpen my knives and got mixed results on the Spyderco Sharpmaker. So I bought a Wicked Edge and tried to sharpen my Sog Trident. I went from 100 grit to 1000. I took my time and was expecting a razor edge but it would not cut paper cleanly. I must have done something wrong. Any ideas? Thanks
 
Did you raise a burr for the full length of the blade on both sides of the edge, starting with the 100-grit?
 
This was my experience when I first got my wicked edge. This is a little counter intuitive - you purchased a guided sharpener which is supposed to be fool-proof, but you must realize that it isn't foolproof - take your time, practice on some cheaper knives, and make sure you raise a burr along the entire edge. Then move up a grit and start scrubbing it off. Ideally you only need to put in the time with the 100 grit once per knife. After sharpening a LOT of knives, I can now put a beautiful edge that glides through phonebook paper.
 
Yes I raised a burr on both sides. I could definitely feel the burr.The steel is Aus-8 which I hear is not too hard to sharpen. Thanks for the reply.
 
Thanks for the reply. It's encouraging that you had a bit of a learning curve. I'm going to practice on the in-laws knives until I get it right.
 
If you raised a burr on both sides using the 100-grit stone, then you need only remove the burr gradually as you progress through the rest of the stones. Once I get the edge profile set with the 100-grit stone, I go through all the other stones, always making sure I get an ever smaller burr on both sides as I go. I spend just enough time on the finer grit stones to remove the scratches from the previous stone.

At the end, you need to use very light pressure to make sure you remove the burr completely.

The edge should be extremely sharp by your 1000-grit stone. I like to strop lightly freehand when I'm done, but it's not necessary.
 
Practice and time my friend. I find that my best sharpenings occur in the middle of the night/early morning, when everything is calm and quiet and I can almost hear my knives thanking me. Otherwise things tend to get rushed or hurried. It's worth dragging ass the next day to have your favorite blade as keen as a light saber. Good luck to you.
 
It took me five or six knives before I truly got the hang of using the WEPS - and I've been sharpening knives for 40+ years. But once you get the hang of it, the fun really starts!

TedP
 
Just took a look at the Wicked Edge system. No offense to the folks that designed and manufacture that product, but it seems like $300+ is a lot for systems like these.

That said, I'm going to try to put my skills where my mouth is, and over the coming months I'm going to try to make a DIY guided shapening station for less than $50 (not including the stones). My ideal would be something that is can be rapidly used in the field and easily stored in a small pack. For free-hand sharpening, I've found a Fallkniven DC4 to be more than adequate for this. Now my task is to make something a bit more fool-proof.

If there is already something out there along these lines, please let me know. I'm a ignorant fool sometimes.
 
You have to let the stones break in and that can take 15-25 knives. Even the higher grits will be much more coarse than their rating at first. There's just no way around it. Keep using them and you'll get better and better edges. And even though this is a guided system there is a learning curve and it's not as simple as just clamping a knife in and getting a great edge. Check out the forums on the WE site and ask questions. There's a lot of helpful folks over there. Trust me, once you get it down you will get mind-blowing edges. Stay with it.
 
It's all about proper technique. The tools are not important. Skilled sharpeners can use a concrete brick.

Read as much as you can to discover what you are doing wrong.
 
No matter what you use to sharpen, everything takes practise. I learned on a butcher "steel" and found an awesome black ceramic hone made by Chicago Cutlery that is just plain wicked. I now have a 3 step process, I start on the ceramic depending how bad the knife is then on to a 40 yr old steel then comes my Hand American Polished rod and I finish it off on a leather strop. I've spent hours perfecting my technique and can get knives sharp enough to slice phone book paper and shave with if need be, and i do it all freehand, but it took hours upon hours...... I want to get the wicked edge pro pack 2 and get stones up to 30,0000 and diamond paste up to 64,000, overkill yes, but thats how I roll.
 
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