Wicked Edge Sharpeners @ SHOT 2012

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Finally received my own Wicked Edge sharpener and have sharpened six knives with it. First, let me give some background - i am not a knife guy, chef, or anyone who has more than a very basic competence with knives. In preparation for this, I've done some online research on sharpening and different theories. One of the basic things you've got to understand is raising a burr. Until you understand that, you might as well stick to pull through sharpeners.

Ok, I've sharpened about six knives now and these are my first impressions and are subject to change as I learn more.

If you are looking for something to keep your knives sharp in the kitchen with minimal effort, the Wicked Edge is probably not it. It can certainly do that; but there are other products that can do it more easily or cheaply - and even midrange solutions like the Sharpmaker can get knives sharp enough to shave the hair off your arm.

The big places the Wicked Edge excels is in reprofiling a bevel very precisely and in doing a scary sharp, mirror-edged polish on the blade. It does both of these well enough that it makes you wonder "How much faster/prettier could I make it with the extea-coarse stones and ultra-fine stones not included in the Pro Pack?

A couple of random thoughts:

I really likehow you can work on the knife while looking at the edge at the same time. The Spyderco doesn't have that and watching the stones work was like an education on the different kinds of steel. I tried putting an edge on a letter opener and you could literally watch the edge fold over and crumble if you tried an angle of less than 30 degrees. Likewise, I got a quick education on why my $5 kitchen knives are different from the $220 set I got as a gift.

Once I recognized the difference I really wanted to grab my knives that had better steel and see what I could do - hold off on that temptation for as long as you can because the stones get a lot better with a little break in (and so do you). I ended up doing a Kershaw Black Horse and was disappointed not to get the mirror edge I was looking for (scary sharp; just not pretty). Later on I did much better on polish on a kitchen knife. I think both the stones and I just needed a little more work.

As rjrivero noted, the system takes some time and patience to set up; but even a complete novice like me can produce professional results with a very short learning curve.

Ok, back to making all the knives in the house ridiculously sharp... More later

 

[Valkman]

but even a complete novice like me can produce professional results with a very short learning curve.

I agree. I made knives but never did know how to sharpen very well. I just sharpened them on my grinder and hoped they came out well and some were better than others.

Now every knife I own gets a super sharp, super shiny edge that cuts like a laser. I love my WE! I just wish I owned more knives so I could sharpen more.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

As evidence that a total novice who is doing well to make even bevels with a Sharpmaker can do a mirror edge with nothing but the Pro-Pack I contents and patience, I offer this (and the bevels are perfectly even as well):

 

[rjrivero]

Nice edge, Mr. Roberts! Nicely done.

Your review is much better written than mine, and my hat is off to you for your review. I would also like to second your recommendation to keep off of your good blades until you have a few "practice" knives under your belt.

The thing that I have noticed is that even though both sides have a nice bevel gage to go by, you really want to make sure you match the angle to the bevel of the blade on each side. I haven't found a knife YET that I set the stones the same on both sides. I don't know if that's because of the fact that one half of the blade holder is held steady and the other side moves side to side to clamp the knife.

One little issue I have is with the base. They provide these nice countersink hex drive screws, then the base has no countersink to the holes. They provide neoprene backed washers? The base is 1.25" thick, and the screws are 1.5" long. The wicked edge base has threaded holes in them that do not go all the way through the base that are about .25" deep. While ascetically pleasing, these parts just don't all add up as nicely as I would expect. Countersunk 1.5" threaded screws end up too long to snug down the base. I went ahead and countersunk the screws like they are designed to be used, and then used a dremel to cut the screw down so I could snug the wicked edge holder to the base. The neoprene backed washers would take up the space just fine, but I didn't like that solution at all. In the scheme of things, these are nit-picky points and I'm VERY happy with what I'm able to achieve with this knife sharpening system.

The other thing you want to make sure of when using the leather strops with the diamond strop paste is to be sure to keep them from cross contaminating. You don't want any coarse grit paste on your fine grit strops. I use alcohol and paper towel to clean the blade and bevel before I put the strops to them, and then again before I switch to the fine strop. When I store them, I put them fine to fine and put them in a plastic baggie and wrap them up so they can't flip around.



Regardless, with the Pro Pack 1, this thing does a much nicer job than I could ever have done freehand. I will be posting some pictures when I can get around to it.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

One thing I am discovering is the system isn't ideal "as-is" for very thin blades with high angles (paring knives for example). I tried to sharpen a couple of cheap Henckel knives I'd picked up somewhere. The blade on these was so thin that by the time you screwed the clamp shut, the screw was protruding out the other side - which severely limits your range of motion on that side.

Additionally, if you try to do an angle of greater than 20 degrees on the thin knife (as you might on a small, thin paring knife), then it is difficult to avoid the screw and not drag the stones across the top of the clamp -(which scrapes the coating off the clamp and clogs the stones both).

The solution isn't especially difficult, you just need to wrap the blade in a U-shaped piece of paper, cloth, rubber, etc. to make the spine/clamping area wider. However, I thought I'd mention it here in hopes that it would save someone else from doing the same.

I'd also note that I'd read online os people doing this to protect the blade so that the clamp doesn't leave marks on it. I've got the second generation clamp (which I believe is on all WE sold after March 1, 2012) and so far I have not noticed any problems with this. The clamp holds the blade quite securely with no movement and no marks on the blade.

One other thing, is I had done knives that were sharp enough to shave the hair on my arm with a Sharpmaker. You might have to scrape a bit; but they would lop off some hairs, though maybe not always at the base or in a particularly even fashion. The high polish edge shown above will shave almost like a razor. It removes all the hair in its path where the hair meets the skin. When people talk about the hair jumping off the arm before the knife even touches it, this is what that looks like. Technically, both edges could be described as "sharp enough to shave the hair on your arm"; but there is a very noticeable difference between the two edges. So one of the things I've learned is that "shaving sharp" encompasses a much wider range of sharpness than I had thought. If you have seen me use that term prior to yesterday's post, please understand that my idea of "shaving sharp" at that time was the first example, and not the latter.