Bob Johnson2
06-04-2005, 12:19 AM
Rx'ed the new MKII today, in short it looks and works as advertised. I haven't had a chance to sharpen with it other then a few dozen passes on a diamond plate just to try it out, as I'll be away for a few days I figured I'd post my early impressions.
The new unit seems to be a big improvement over the old model I have. Repeatability of blade placement seems to be good, it is held quite a bit more firmly, and when using the setup guide it comes out almost exactly square when checked with one of my steel engineer squares. As you can see from the images, it's about twice the size of the old one, you get a much more controlled grip on it. Weight is also double, 10 vs 20 oz's. As I haven't had time to sharpen anything I can't tell if the angles set by the guide are acurate. I'll add a note on Monday or Tuesday after I had a change to try it.
I mounted a 3/8" chisel and it will turn after it's clamped in the jig, but it takes roughly double the torque to do so then on the old model, the bigger blades (I tried a 1" and 1 1/2") hold quite steady, taking a good deal of effort to get them to turn. If you've used the old model you'll know this was not the case with that one. If you give it a bit of care It doesn't llok like doing the thin ones will be a problem, again I'll check that deeper early next week. The blade centering markings show it'll take up to 2 3/4", down to 1/4" The micro bevel is down the same way as the old model. The roller is twice the size making it much steadier in use (at least as much as I tried). That's about it for now, I appologize for now being abel to verify the actual sharpening quality, but I've only had it about an hour and I'm calling it a night. There are 8 images in all, so this will be 2 posts. Hope they work out...
The new unit seems to be a big improvement over the old model I have. Repeatability of blade placement seems to be good, it is held quite a bit more firmly, and when using the setup guide it comes out almost exactly square when checked with one of my steel engineer squares. As you can see from the images, it's about twice the size of the old one, you get a much more controlled grip on it. Weight is also double, 10 vs 20 oz's. As I haven't had time to sharpen anything I can't tell if the angles set by the guide are acurate. I'll add a note on Monday or Tuesday after I had a change to try it.
I mounted a 3/8" chisel and it will turn after it's clamped in the jig, but it takes roughly double the torque to do so then on the old model, the bigger blades (I tried a 1" and 1 1/2") hold quite steady, taking a good deal of effort to get them to turn. If you've used the old model you'll know this was not the case with that one. If you give it a bit of care It doesn't llok like doing the thin ones will be a problem, again I'll check that deeper early next week. The blade centering markings show it'll take up to 2 3/4", down to 1/4" The micro bevel is down the same way as the old model. The roller is twice the size making it much steadier in use (at least as much as I tried). That's about it for now, I appologize for now being abel to verify the actual sharpening quality, but I've only had it about an hour and I'm calling it a night. There are 8 images in all, so this will be 2 posts. Hope they work out...