I received one of these (05M09.40) as a Christmas gift to hopefully replace my inexpensive eclipse style honing guide. No matter what I did it did not seem to want to clamp the blade squarely in the guide and the result was skewed sharpenings. Frustratingly I put a brand new chisel in that was definitely square to start and started putting it over my thousand grit diamond Stone and it very quickly started to sharpen askew.

I called Lee valley to see what I might be doing wrong or what I was missing and they explained they were having issues with some of these guides and we're happy to send me a replacement. The replacement arrived today and was supposedly tested before it was shipped out to me but I'm having the exact same issue. I'm more than willing to admit its user error but I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong if that's the case.

If it's just a matter of getting it set right I guess that's fine but if that's the case then it must be so finicky as to require 15 minutes of setup, and double and triple checking every time you put a blade in which makes it not super useful.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had any issues with these? Is there some trick or tip that I'm missing? Or maybe these just aren't very good guides? I am operating under the assumption that veritas makes quality items although I don't own anything else from them...

I have tried multiple different blades different styles of chisels different brands of chisels I even put the thin leg of an engineer square clamped into the guide knowing that it is flat and square and ran it over the stone and it sharpened crooked. If I agonize over getting the blade in, seated properly and a square as I can, when I sight down to compare the edge of the blade with the brass wheel it looks like they are not parallel.

Any thoughts? I'll be calling Lee valley back but I don't know what else they're going to tell me...