Hey folks, my name is Bill, and been lurking the forum for several weeks, anticipating the arrival of my WEPS. I have learned a lot and hope to continue. I have been freehand sharpening for a couple of years, but ready to up my game. My question is about how to approach an asymmetrical edge. I never bothered with them before, noticed but didn't give much thought. Just sharpened to manufacturers edge. I have been going over my collection, and to my surprise quite a few are off, cheap and not so cheap knives alike. Take for example the ZT 0550 in my pocket now…The right side (as if viewing from WE vise), the shoulder starts at about 1/16in. at the heel and stays almost parallel to edge - to tip, not bad. But the left side starts the same, 1/16in. at heel, then starts quickly to drift too more than double at the tip. I do not know the angles yet, but am wondering where to start. Is correcting possible without loosing to much meat off blade, or does it need to be a gradual tune-in. I don't mean for this to be a knife specific question, because I have several that are off. Looking for some overall guidelines. How do others view and solve this problem?

Hi Bill, Welcome to the forum! I ran into this same problem with a Kershaw RAM. The factory grind was off at the tip on the left side. I brought the shoulder down until it was gone. I just could not have that beautiful mirroed edge meeting that rough factory miss grind! I guess it really depends on whether it bothers you enough that you're willing to lose a little metal to fix it and of course just how far off it is. You will love your Wicked Edge by the way!

Thanks for reply 4j, you brought the leftside shoulder down, starting from tip?

I just used the 100 grit stones for a longer time than I normally would have until I brought the shoulder of the edge down to just past the miss grind. Now mine wasn't off a lot so it is not noticeable that I removed a little more metal than I normally would have to correct this factory defect.

youtu.be/dDsWh_M7Rekhttp://youtu.be/dDsWh_M7Rek

(Can't seem to embed the video)

This shows the concepts behind doing asymmetric bevels on a grinder but it translates very nicely on the Wicked Edge. You actually have far more control with the Wicked edge with the additional benefit of even using two different angles if you wish (not a requirement).

Just set the angles on both sides - usually the same angle. If you wish to shift the asymmetry to one side or the other just grind more on that side.

Note that you can maintain angle asymmetry and go more or less acute in terms of the overall included angle.

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Ken