Sharpening knives with a rounded spine on Edge Pro Apex can be tricky sometimes. This is especially true for knives with longer blades that need repositioning to reach the whole blade. I've come up with a simple DIY hack that makes sharpening curved spine knives easy, precise and repeatable with exceptional results.
You will need:
- Edge Pro Apex
- Long wooden or bamboo skewer
- 2 strong rubber bands
- marker
- knife with a rounded spine to sharpen
Move the guide all the way back as you won't use it. Cut the long skewer in halves a put them throught the holes on the sides as pictured above. Secure the bottom of the skewers with rubber bands, using the pivot screw as an anchor. You might have to cut a small notch in the skewer so the rubber band won't slide off.
With skewers secured, trim them so they are long enough to rest the blade against them, but not too long as the stone will hit them while sharpening.
Place the blade on the sharpening table and find the best position. If your knife edge extends over the sharpening table, marks on the pivot won't pre precise anymore and you will have to adjust your sharpening angle (you have to do this everytime anyway). Best way to do this is to mark your knive bevel with a marker and see, if your stone removes all marker from the bevel. If if removes the marker from the very edge only, the angle is too steep. On the other hand, if it leaves some marker near the cutting edge, your angle is too shallow.
Make a small mark where the blate touches one of the skewers and extend it to the other side of the blade. You will align this mark with a skewer every time you switch the blade to the other side. This will keep your sharpening angle constant through the whole process.
This hack can be used for large kitchen knives too. You just create multiple marks on the spine to keep your setup constant when moving your blade around.
