I'm still a rookie, so bear with me. I have been doing several relatively long kitchen knives, in my case Henkels, so far with blade length up to 8.25" But I have a 10.25" slicer lurking still which I have not tackled. I find that even with the tip support I have a lot of flex on the tip of the blade as the stone passes by.

I also did a short, very flexible paring knife, 3.25" blade which had this problem.

I have been using my other hand to brace the tip, mainly my fingertips and then a scrubbing technique in the last inch or so of the tips, and it works, but it would be nice to have it firmly clamped or supported. I have in mind making a tip support to go further out, drilling another hole in the WEPS base. Was wondering if anyone had done this.

Also had visualized an insert to be placed in the clamp with long edges supporting the entire bottom edge of the blade on both sides, perhaps available in several different lengths and widths. This would obviously have to be quite thin and strong so as not to interfere with the stones passing by. It's problematic because knives have so many different thicknesses, however.

Anyway, just some thoughts from a new user. I've still been able to get good edges out to the tip, but it requires some extra effort. And none of this applies with typical folders or fixed hunters, as they are much stiffer.

Editing to say this belongs in the techniques forum rather than the welcome mat! Sorry - maybe the mods can move it.

No sooner said than done!

Cheers
Leo

I recently had some very narrow sleeves made to support the spines of flexible blades but they didn't quite accomplish what I needed. I'm going to try some very thin shims of spring steel, maybe taped together to form a simple hinge like a book binding and see if they offer enough support for the blade. I'll definitely post results from that experiment. Also open to any other ideas to improve the support for flexible blades.

A possible problem with the hinge is that it does not take into account the varying width of the different blades.

1. For a quick fix, possibly 2 x thin shims that are on each side of the blade would stop the flex and not interfere with the stones. They would have to be long enough for the blade but short enough so as not to cover the tip.

2. Perhaps a mod to the current system to add on an extra clamp. This can be done by drilling a hole 90° to the angle degree rods in the middle of the base of the clamp. Then run a guide rod that runs in the same direction as the knife, to which an upright clamp can be attached to steady the tip. Something like this but not as big. Guide Rod or Flat version

Just opened the package last night and started on a nasty old 8" chef's knife that's been hanging around; says Japan on it and nothing else. Figured I'd learn on it for a bit and let the stones break in at the same time.
I could see right away what this thread is talking about. The tip rod helps.

My suggested solution is an optional clamp set whose jaws are shaped like a 'T' instead of an 'I'. The width at the 'T' would be 5", 2" extended to either side of the 1" center. Something like the plastic potato chip bag clamps.

Otherwise, I'm enjoying the sharpener so far. Problem is, I'm completely useless with my left hand on this...it's like learning to walk and getting coordinated. Left and right usually complement each other, not very often they have to perform the exact same skill with equall aplomb.

You know what's wierd, is my left hand does a good job sharpening while I always get cut on my right hand! I think I push harder with it and that gets me into trouble, while the left hand just keeps skating along.

I was thinking that if the handles we a little deeper. ie the stones were further apart from each other then your fingers would be further from the blade?

That would also allow for a shallower angle as the guiding rod would then be further from the stones and hence give a shallower angle.

dgriff, the T shaped clamp is a great idea. Coincidentally I took a run through the local Harbor Freight store today and saw this:

www.harborfreight.com/3-inch-hand-seamer-66654.html

which immediately set my mind thinking of how I could adapt that or the jaws from it to my WEPS. I didn't buy it though.

I'm kind of a tool junkie and even though I'm more inclined towards higher quality stuff, I do pick up the odd gizmo from there at times. They had a small arbor press on sale which piqued my interest, but I let it go. Don't have a need, really, but setting rivets in slab type knife handles comes to mind.

Monk69bl wrote:


It's true that the thicker the stones, or the further the distance from the center of the guide rod, the steeper the angle becomes. The same issue remains though of the stones hitting the clamp itself between 12-15 depending on how far the knife edge is from the top of the clamp. The new attachments for narrower angles solves that in two different ways. One attachment solves the issue fairly well though the stroke of the stone is limited over the clamp itself so, while you can get down to essentially 0 degrees, you have to make shorter strokes in that area. That attachment also does some great things in allowing for much wider angles and for dialing in exact curvature to convex edges. The other attachment is strictly for low angles and allows a full stroke length over the clamp.

One idea might be to use a secondary clamp instead of the filet knife support. It seems to me the idea would be to keep it very thin, so instead of being as wide as the original clamp, it could be very thin. However you could run the clamp the length of the blade. For extra support from swaying left and right with the sharpening method, the base could make a cross. the clamp would not have to be as sturdy as the the main clamp because the point is only to hold the knife from moving laterally. The only issue i see is finding a material strong enough to be used in very thin pieces.

After reading through this i think i should explain better. If you took the exact same blade holder that exists now and add a simple clamp to the top and have that clamp be about 1 inch long. IN addition, instead of having just a single hole for the rod to sit in, make the base a cross or X shape with the legs about an inch or more. A simple set screw at the end of each leg would hold it in place. The inch long clamp would give enough material to stiffen the blade and the cross pattern base will provide lateral support.

Clay if this sounds even remotely possible, i can possibly draw it up if you want to get serious about looking into it. I may not be translating my thoughts into words, but i think this would be an easy mod to the current design that would give ample support; assuming you can make the clamp at the top work