- Joined
- Sep 12, 2023
- Messages
- 4
Hi,
I'm a newbie to knife sharpening and don't have the steadiest arm so I got Work Sharp Precision Adjust Pro (WSPAPro) get some knives actually sharp before I try to learn free hand. But my question should be answerable by anyone with either precision adjust system and perhaps with similar systems. I watched half a dozen videos on both precison adjust systems, but no one talked about my issue. The first steak knife I tried to sharpen I don't think I raised enough burr and made the mistake of trying to sharpen it to 14.25* which was what the factory did. Won't be doing that again, It amost worked but scraped off the edge of the clamp in one place. It is only a cosmetic issue but there is obviously a reason that they say 15-30 degrees. There isn't much leeway. The second knife I got sharp enough to cut paper cleanly with only downward pressure. So, I'd call it the WSPAPro a very beginner friendly system, I just needed to follow directions better. I really like it a lot. But I noticed that on 4 different knifes I can't set a consistent bevel angle as I explain in the example below. The 4 knives are a Chicago Cutlery steak knife, then three four star Henkel Zwilling an 8" chef and a 8" slicer both are B's which I think means factory second, plus a 4" paring knife which was the second knife which I got very sharp. I suspect the problem with the Chef's knife was an uneven grind on the belly where the bevel narrows to half the diameter seen on the rest of the blade before returning to the normal thickness at the tip. I assume this won't matter because like any knife, I will reshape the blade with the lowest grit the first time I sharpen it myself.
I'll use the chef knife as an example of the problem. Just so there is no question whether the knife is properly set in the clamp...I set the knife so that there the amount of blade to be sharpened measured equally on each side of the clamp (clamped as close as possible to the spine in the middle of the edge to be sharpened), and the distance from the clamp to the cutting edge of the knife is equal from either side of the clamp (so it is as close as I can get to parallel with the clamp). This knife is sharpened at the factory to 30degrees total per their website, which is also how it looks. I then put the angle measure on the arm, moved the top of the stone right up to the angle measure device and laid it down right in the middle of the clamp (also the middle of the blade to be sharpened). I set it to 15 degrees. But when I move the stone to the blade heel with the right side of the stone touching the end of the sharp part of the blade, i get 15.25 degrees and if I move it so the left side of the stone touches the blade tip, I get 14.25 degrees. I repeated the measurements many times. I adjusted the blade to either side of parallel, to make certain I wasn't missing the parallel point and again made repeated measurements. (Note the angle measure device can be very consistent, but can also be a little finnicky before it gives an accurate reading, especially if you aren't dead on at 15 degrees but close to 15.25 or 14.75). I got slightly different numbers by redefining parallel, but the same 1 degree range between the highest and the lowest. Some of the knives had a smaller but still significant range of 0.75 degrees.
My solution to this problem is to always measure the angle in the middle of the clamp with the stone against the angle measure device so I can set the same angle every time I reclamp the knife to sharpen or hone it. If I can set the knife in precisely the same way each time and I measure from the middle, then I suspect it shouldn't matter that the angle is slightly different at one end of the blade from the other. After all the steak knife turned out plenty sharp and it had the same problem with an angle range. In all the videos I don't remember anyone talking about where to measure the bevel angle when you are setting it,
My main question is: Am I right that if despite the range, if I just set the angle based on the middle of the blade I won't have a problem reproducing my results without going back to extra coarse each time I need to sharpen it, or am I making some dumb error, that someone can help me understand?
Sorry if I'm being a little detail oriented, but it's not like my second attempt was sharp enough to trim my forearm hair. This despite the knife felt extremely sharp running my thumb perpendicular to the edge after I raised a good burr with nearly 200 strokes per side with extra coarse. But for the rest of the diamond stones I only took 30 strokes per side per stone for the rest of the grits. I went back to 150 strokes per side on the ceramic and 10 on the strop. I'm told most sharpening happens when you raise the first burr and if your knife isn't sharp after you raise a burr on each side, it never will be; no matter how much work you do with successive grits. But can I really get sharper after the first grit than evenly working both sides with extra coarse to produce a burr? If so, please explain how.
My other questions are: How do I get the knife sharp enough to cut down arm hairs with a pass that doesn't touch skin? Is that what a mirror finish does or is that just cosmetic? Does having such a fine edge make basic sharpness harder to maintain? Do I need to work each grit level as long as I did the first? That is hard to believe since I've seen a video of someone getting an almost perfect mirror polish from a basic precision adjust with 2 diamond grits, 1 ceramic, and a green compounded strop. Time lapse and a sawing technique made it hard to compare how much he was actually working each side.
Thank you for reading all this and for any advice you may have on any of the questions.
Adam
I'm a newbie to knife sharpening and don't have the steadiest arm so I got Work Sharp Precision Adjust Pro (WSPAPro) get some knives actually sharp before I try to learn free hand. But my question should be answerable by anyone with either precision adjust system and perhaps with similar systems. I watched half a dozen videos on both precison adjust systems, but no one talked about my issue. The first steak knife I tried to sharpen I don't think I raised enough burr and made the mistake of trying to sharpen it to 14.25* which was what the factory did. Won't be doing that again, It amost worked but scraped off the edge of the clamp in one place. It is only a cosmetic issue but there is obviously a reason that they say 15-30 degrees. There isn't much leeway. The second knife I got sharp enough to cut paper cleanly with only downward pressure. So, I'd call it the WSPAPro a very beginner friendly system, I just needed to follow directions better. I really like it a lot. But I noticed that on 4 different knifes I can't set a consistent bevel angle as I explain in the example below. The 4 knives are a Chicago Cutlery steak knife, then three four star Henkel Zwilling an 8" chef and a 8" slicer both are B's which I think means factory second, plus a 4" paring knife which was the second knife which I got very sharp. I suspect the problem with the Chef's knife was an uneven grind on the belly where the bevel narrows to half the diameter seen on the rest of the blade before returning to the normal thickness at the tip. I assume this won't matter because like any knife, I will reshape the blade with the lowest grit the first time I sharpen it myself.
I'll use the chef knife as an example of the problem. Just so there is no question whether the knife is properly set in the clamp...I set the knife so that there the amount of blade to be sharpened measured equally on each side of the clamp (clamped as close as possible to the spine in the middle of the edge to be sharpened), and the distance from the clamp to the cutting edge of the knife is equal from either side of the clamp (so it is as close as I can get to parallel with the clamp). This knife is sharpened at the factory to 30degrees total per their website, which is also how it looks. I then put the angle measure on the arm, moved the top of the stone right up to the angle measure device and laid it down right in the middle of the clamp (also the middle of the blade to be sharpened). I set it to 15 degrees. But when I move the stone to the blade heel with the right side of the stone touching the end of the sharp part of the blade, i get 15.25 degrees and if I move it so the left side of the stone touches the blade tip, I get 14.25 degrees. I repeated the measurements many times. I adjusted the blade to either side of parallel, to make certain I wasn't missing the parallel point and again made repeated measurements. (Note the angle measure device can be very consistent, but can also be a little finnicky before it gives an accurate reading, especially if you aren't dead on at 15 degrees but close to 15.25 or 14.75). I got slightly different numbers by redefining parallel, but the same 1 degree range between the highest and the lowest. Some of the knives had a smaller but still significant range of 0.75 degrees.
My solution to this problem is to always measure the angle in the middle of the clamp with the stone against the angle measure device so I can set the same angle every time I reclamp the knife to sharpen or hone it. If I can set the knife in precisely the same way each time and I measure from the middle, then I suspect it shouldn't matter that the angle is slightly different at one end of the blade from the other. After all the steak knife turned out plenty sharp and it had the same problem with an angle range. In all the videos I don't remember anyone talking about where to measure the bevel angle when you are setting it,
My main question is: Am I right that if despite the range, if I just set the angle based on the middle of the blade I won't have a problem reproducing my results without going back to extra coarse each time I need to sharpen it, or am I making some dumb error, that someone can help me understand?
Sorry if I'm being a little detail oriented, but it's not like my second attempt was sharp enough to trim my forearm hair. This despite the knife felt extremely sharp running my thumb perpendicular to the edge after I raised a good burr with nearly 200 strokes per side with extra coarse. But for the rest of the diamond stones I only took 30 strokes per side per stone for the rest of the grits. I went back to 150 strokes per side on the ceramic and 10 on the strop. I'm told most sharpening happens when you raise the first burr and if your knife isn't sharp after you raise a burr on each side, it never will be; no matter how much work you do with successive grits. But can I really get sharper after the first grit than evenly working both sides with extra coarse to produce a burr? If so, please explain how.
My other questions are: How do I get the knife sharp enough to cut down arm hairs with a pass that doesn't touch skin? Is that what a mirror finish does or is that just cosmetic? Does having such a fine edge make basic sharpness harder to maintain? Do I need to work each grit level as long as I did the first? That is hard to believe since I've seen a video of someone getting an almost perfect mirror polish from a basic precision adjust with 2 diamond grits, 1 ceramic, and a green compounded strop. Time lapse and a sawing technique made it hard to compare how much he was actually working each side.
Thank you for reading all this and for any advice you may have on any of the questions.
Adam
