Homemade Wicked Edge

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Moxy

Moxy

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Oct 30, 2011
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Just thought I'd share my weekend project. I was all set to buy a Wicked Edge for myself until I had the opportunity to briefly play with one when I visited a local knife shop. I was very unimpressed with all the play in the standard arms. So after a bit of research and a few design iterations I think had a design that would not only have minimal play, but would also be much cheaper to make.

It's pretty self explanatory. The main structure is built using parts made by a company called 80/20. It's basically an industrial erector set. The rail and brackets are made from really nice anodized aluminum. It works perfectly and allows the arms to slide and accommodate any angle you want. The rods are 1/4in in diameter which thread into some precision rod-ends. The clamp was the only thing I had to make from scratch. Its made from some 1/4in x 1.5in steel plate I picked up from the hardware store. Cutting and shaping it was pretty easy with my Dremel and bench grinder. The clamp is 6 inches tall and it's extremely strong. I ground some bevels in the clamp to allow for some nice thin angles. The whole setup is much stiffer than I expected and I'm pretty happy with it. There is literally zero play anywhere. I only have the 1000 grit stones so I cant get those mirror polished edges yet but I have never been able to re-profile an edge so quickly. These diamond stones just chew through steel so fast.

All in all, including the angle cube and not including the stones, I made everything for about $100 bucks. I got everything except the steel plate and some hardware on eBay. I still want to buy a nice heavy cutting board to bolt it down as well as the finer WE stones. If you're even moderately inclined with basic tools and taps I encourage you to try and make something similar for yourself using the 80/20 framework. The hardest part was just figuring out the dimensions and what hardware I needed to make everything fit together nicely and allow clearance for the stones and allen key. Let me know what you think and any suggestions you might have.










-Tony
 
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Bro made one a few years back.

Protip for ya. The place you clamp on the blade is important. The reason the tip of your blade has a wider edge grind is because you clamped it down too far back. Try clamping it closer to the middle.
 
harkamus said:
Bro made one a few years back.

Protip for ya. The place you clamp on the blade is important. The reason the tip of your blade has a wider edge grind is because you clamped it down too far back. Try clamping it closer to the middle.
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You are correct. I wanted to clamp it on the flat faces of the blade, which are only found under the choil, to ensure the knife doesn't move while sharpening.
 
Moxy said:
You are correct. I wanted to clamp it on the flat faces of the blade, which are only found under the choil, to ensure the knife doesn't move while sharpening.
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You can use tape to fill the voids of where the clamp wouldn't clamp onto the blade.

Clay has a video:
[video=youtube;17rDq-yiMIU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17rDq-yiMIU&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/video]
 
Amazing. I have a ton of experience with the wicked edge and you seemed to have created a couple enhancements. I like the sliding adjustments.
 
Hockey stick tape will probably give you a more secure grip after putting it on the knife than any other type of tape I know. It's more cloth like in nature. People recommended me to try masking tape when I used my Aligner but being a former hockey player I had that stockpiled and used that instead and it has a lot more grip both in the outside texture and the adhesive inside. The best play to pick some up is at a local ice rink as they usually carry a better and wider tape, where as the local sporting goods stores usually overcharge and sell narrower tape or just pick some up online.

Last 2-3 blade reprofiles I did used the hockey tape with only 2-3mm of the blade in the clamp as they were smaller traditional slipjoints. And they were held in rock solid with 0 movement, I couldn't have done that without the tape. It's a cheap investment with good results.

And if the thought of getting the adhesive residue off when you pull off the tape worries you just buy a pack of alcohol swabs for a few dollars it works wonders on that and cleaning up knives and other things in general.

Instead of bolting it down to a cutting board you could also bolt it down to a piece of wood that fit into a vise if you wanted to go with something more compact and easily stored when not in use.

And lastly the project came out nice, keep us posted on how it works out for you.
 
I tried to email you, but didn't go through I think. Anyway, excellent work! I was wondering if you could perhaps offer a tutorial or the links to the items you used to set this up? :D
 
For those curious, here is a list of the items I bought. Just copy/paste into ebay.

Main rail: 8020 T Slot Aluminum Extrusion 10 S 1010-Black x 12 N
Arm slides: 8020 T Slot Aluminum Pivot Arm 10 S 4149 N
Clamp support: 8020 T Slot Aluminum Corner Bracket 10 S 4176 N
Base support: 80/20 Inc T-Slot Aluminum 10 Series 2 Hole Inside Corner Gusset 4132-BLACK N
connecting hardware: 8020 T Slot Hardware Screw & T Nut 10 S 3321 (25pcs) N

12" rods: 1/4" DIAMETER ROD 12" LONG STAINLESS STEEL TYPE 304 LOT OF 5
Rod Ends: 1/4 Right Hand Female Heim Rod End IMCA Heims Ends RH

All the nuts/bolts were bought at my local hardware store. To make your life easier I'd recommend you find rod ends that already have the fastener built in. I used an interference fit to get them mounted. Also make sure to get the "right hand" threads to fit normal fasteners. I cut my own threads in those rods with a die, and they screw right into the rod ends. Another tip is to get low profile nuts to mount the rod ends to the slide, that way you'll have clearance for the allen key. I hope this helps and makes sense.
 
Moxy, are you by any chance a mechanical engineer in your early-mid 20's? This is extremely awesome. Even though I love freehand sharpening, I just might have to give this a try.
 
bpeezer said:
Moxy, are you by any chance a mechanical engineer in your early-mid 20's? This is extremely awesome. Even though I love freehand sharpening, I just might have to give this a try.
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Thanks bpeezer. I am actually in my final year at SDSU for Electrical Engineering. I'm 24. :)
I've just always been a hands on kind of guy.
 
Moxy said:
Thanks bpeezer. I am actually in my final year at SDSU for Electrical Engineering. I'm 24. :)
I've just always been a hands on kind of guy.
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Great stuff :thumbup: I'm in my final year going for Mechanical :D
 
This is great. I had a question on the dimensions of the 1/2" by 1.5" steel plate that you engineered? Are they about 9" for the main and 4" for the bracket/locking plate?
 
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