When you’re new to sharpening with your Wicked Edge system, what are the best tips and tricks for success?
We asked our forum members to let us know the most important best practices.
Below are some highlights, and we highly recommend reading the forum thread. We especially recommend asking your own questions to the forum – you’ll notice that questions in the forum receive multiple thoughtful answers.
- Start with a cheap / practice knife
- Stones perform best when fully broken-in (about 20 sharpening sessions). It's best to learn and break-in your stones on a knife you're not afraid to scratch or mess up on.
- Find the correct angle
- Use a Sharpie to color in your bevels and then observe where the stones are removing the ink
- Find your blades sweet spot
- Check out this video on how to find your angle and sweet spot. Even though your sharpener may be different, the process is always the same.
- Raise a burr on both sides of your blade along the entire length of the blade
- If you're not sure if you have a burr, keep working it. When you're first starting, it's always better to have a burr you can stand on and get a sharp knife rather than getting to the end and realizing your blade isn't as sharp as it should be.
- Keep your strokes light
- Too much pressure when sharpening no only increases the risk of you getting cut, but it also leads to poorer results due to deep scratches that impact the blade's cutting ability.
- Use the same recorded settings every time you sharpen
- Wicked Edge created the repeatability tools to save you time and your blade's metal!
- Patience, patience, patience
- There is a learning curve to a Wicked Edge and making sure your technique is correct will save you time in the long run!