Wicked Edge - Stones gliding on steel near base of blade

TkSteve

TkSteve

Joined
Dec 1, 2013
Messages
333
Hello,

I have had my Wicked Edge for a few months now and am getting great results but am having a similar issue on many knives. I am using the diamond stones. I have written an email to Clay and for some reason can not join the WE forums.

I am getting an uneven bevel and an issue where the stones seem to glide on the steel near the base of the knife and bite into the steel very aggressive closer to the tip. Near the base of the knife the stones sound very slippy and smooth. Near the tip is a very scratchy grinding sound. I am using the recommended settings for each knife that are listed on WE database and BF members recommendations. For the XM18 3.5 I have it set to B and 22 DPS and checked its accuracy with an angle cube. This is what was recommended on the Hinderer forums. I had to resort to stepping it back out to 23 DPS to apex the edge and form a burr because I was getting NO WHERE near the base of the blade. I want to achieve an even bevel but this issue is preventing me from doing so. Any idea as to why I am having this issue? It is not just this knife. I had the same issue on my Benchmade 940 and my Endura 4.

WE Problem.jpg
 
Yup. I use sharpie every time. In the case where I was attempting 22 DPS I was not apexing the edge anywhere and simply could not remove ANY steel near the base of the blade. I was successfully removing steel closer to the tip but they just seem to not be removing any metal near the base for some reason.
 
Take a look directly into the blade edge in the problem area, while the stone is resting on the bevel above it. If it's like most blades, the steel gradually thickens as it transitions toward the ricasso, where the plunge grind curves up to the ricasso/tang. The grind is likely somewhat concave in that region, and only the corners/edges of the flat hones will make contact with the bevel as the edge of the hone encounters that curvature. The central portion of the stone will lift away from the bevel, as the edge of the stone rides up. Look for a crescent of light between the blade and the stone, when looking into the edge. This is almost always why I've noticed this 'slick' contact in the same area, because only the very edges of the stone are contacting the bevel. More so with diamond hones, which often won't have a lot of abrasive near/at the edge of the nickel-covered steel backing.

This is also why the sharpening gets very, very slow near the base (ricasso/plunge) of the blade, because the hone won't be in full contact. Only way to fix this is to keep working the flat portion of the bevels, gradually moving towards the ricasso while doing so. The hone won't be in full-flush contact until the whole bevel is dead-flat. If the curvature is pretty extensive, it usually comes down to accepting that some fraction of the blade's edge won't really ever be sharp, nearest to the ricasso.


David
 
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Thanks for the tips Obsessed! Makes sense and I will give it a try. I just am very weary of try not to remove to much steel.
 
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I'd bet there's still some curvature in the grind, in spite of the choil. In the pic, it almost looks like a tiny bit of recurve in the edge, just in front of the choil.

Easiest way to know, is to look for daylight in-between the bevel and hone, as mentioned above. Only takes a fraction of a mm of curvature to lift the hone away from the bevel.

Other thing to be aware of, the thicker steel in that area will likely need more work to grind down the shoulders of the bevels, before the apex is reached. Factory edge angles are almost always much wider in that portion, which maintains an even-looking bevel width from tip to heel. This is normal for almost all knives anyway; it always takes longer to hone that portion down. So long as the hone is riding the shoulder of the bevel, it'll still feel slicker as compared to feeling the apex 'biting' into the hone nearer to the tip.


David
 
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