Spent some time talking to Clay Allison at the Wicked Edge booth and I have to say I was very impressed.
He demonstrated his sharpener on several knives (mostly walk-ups who had bought knives at nearby booths) and the results were spectacular.
After watching him use the system and describe it, I could find no problems or faults, nor could I see anything that could be corrected or adjusted to improve the system. I won't say he's thought of everything, but if he's missed something I would be surprised. He appears to be a perfectionist--or at least extremely concerned with attention to detail.
Everything is perfectly repeatable. The system is designed so that a knife can be removed and reinstalled in the sharpener in exactly the same position. There's even a space in the back of the manual where the appropriate information can be recorded for a knife.
The result is that once you get a knife sharpened, the next time you sharpen it, the edge will be identical if you use the recorded information to set the system up. More importantly, since it's all repeatable and the system results in a single bevel blade, you don't have to remove as much metal to get back to the same sharpness as you would if you had to resharpen a double bevel edge. That makes resharpening faster and increases the useful lifetime of the knife. It's also faster because you don't have to spend any time redetermining the setup required to get the edge angle you want.
It sounds complicated, but it's not. It's actually very simple. Anyone should be able to achieve essentially perfect results on their first attempt.
The system will also work with ceramic knives, although it seems that best results on ceramic blades are achieved using extremely fine grit stones--or even stropping with the strops and diamond grit paste.
Pretty neat system--I may have to have one in spite of the price. That's saying a lot since freehand knife sharpening is a very enjoyable pastime for me. I get very good results with my freehand sharpening and have fun getting it done. But I'll have to admit that I'm not achieving results anywhere near what the Wicked Edge system can provide. And it's taking me more time too.
He demonstrated his sharpener on several knives (mostly walk-ups who had bought knives at nearby booths) and the results were spectacular.
After watching him use the system and describe it, I could find no problems or faults, nor could I see anything that could be corrected or adjusted to improve the system. I won't say he's thought of everything, but if he's missed something I would be surprised. He appears to be a perfectionist--or at least extremely concerned with attention to detail.
Everything is perfectly repeatable. The system is designed so that a knife can be removed and reinstalled in the sharpener in exactly the same position. There's even a space in the back of the manual where the appropriate information can be recorded for a knife.
The result is that once you get a knife sharpened, the next time you sharpen it, the edge will be identical if you use the recorded information to set the system up. More importantly, since it's all repeatable and the system results in a single bevel blade, you don't have to remove as much metal to get back to the same sharpness as you would if you had to resharpen a double bevel edge. That makes resharpening faster and increases the useful lifetime of the knife. It's also faster because you don't have to spend any time redetermining the setup required to get the edge angle you want.
It sounds complicated, but it's not. It's actually very simple. Anyone should be able to achieve essentially perfect results on their first attempt.
The system will also work with ceramic knives, although it seems that best results on ceramic blades are achieved using extremely fine grit stones--or even stropping with the strops and diamond grit paste.
Pretty neat system--I may have to have one in spite of the price. That's saying a lot since freehand knife sharpening is a very enjoyable pastime for me. I get very good results with my freehand sharpening and have fun getting it done. But I'll have to admit that I'm not achieving results anywhere near what the Wicked Edge system can provide. And it's taking me more time too.