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Having said that, there appears to be a significant limitation to this jig....



It looks like you have to have at least 1.5 - 2" of blade on the left side of the knife jig in order to reach the stone and thus set the correct projection distance.  Unless I'm missing something obvious?

Finally got my KS-123 today!  So far I'm impressed!  Pretty easy to use out of the box, and accurate?  Set this to 15 dps:

I guess you would recondition the conditioner as you would any whet stone, so a diamond plate, as CB suggested, or you could use sic powder or playground sand on a glass or granite plate.

I think this issue is often caused by insufficient grinding of the heel section of the blade.  If you start at the heel, as I think most do, that section of the blade gets very little wheel time.  It's on the wheel, and then you draw it straight off and that's all the grinding it sees.  In contrast, the part of the blade that's on the opposite side of the wheel traverses the entire width of the surface.

At the speed I normally go, the extreme heel would be on the wheel for less than a second, while the section that was on the other side gets 3-4 seconds of grinding before it comes off.  That causes a high area at the heel and a dip in the section after. 

One way to deal with that is to hold the heel section on the stone for a few seconds before you start moving the blade.  What I've been doing for a while now is actually starting an inch or two ahead of the heel, then moving back to the heel, and then across to the tip.  Works for me.

The belly section can also get short shrift for the same reason.  Any time you have a curve, only one point on the blade can contact the stone at any given time.  As you lift your elbow to bring the bevel in contact with the wheel, each point on that belly spends a brief moment in contact with surface.  In the case of the belly it's mitigated a bit by the increased pressure that comes with the small contact patch.  I find I get better results going a bit slower on the belly section.

Today I dug out a 1200g CBN wheel and tried that.  Noticeable  difference in sharpness and edge smoothness, even vs. the SB wheel, and way better than the SG wheel.  And the water was cloudy with very fine particles in the bottom.  (Ignore the bigger "pieces" that's towel.)

Interesting.  Did you sharpen edge leading or trailing?

It's weird that Tormek sees the need for this with the T1/2 but not the T4/8.

I'm not a big fan of Zac's channel, but Larrin has absolutely been a gift to the knife community.  If you didn't know, he has his own Youtube channel that any knife steel nerd should subscribe to.

FYI, for those in the U.S., sharpeningsupplies.com now lists the KS-123 as "in stock."  I got a shipping notification for mine (ordered on the day of release) yesterday.

[1 mm]

I think CB pretty much covered it.  I have both and would never use a 1x30 on a knife I really cared about, even though I have a DC unit with variable speed.  Those who use them swear that heat isn't an issue if you use them properly.  They may be right, but I am dubious.  I use a relatively low speed and I'm careful to dip the blade in water to prevent overheating (I rarely see the "pros" doing that).  What I notice is that the water evaporates almost instantly as the edge passes over the belt, and that's a centimeter or more from the apex.  Of course what really matters is the heat within 1 mm of the apex.

Now, I could set the belt speed *really* low and thus avoid any possibility of detempering, but then there would be no speed advantage over the Tormek.

I got the same email, and I ordered the morning of release.   

Thanks! Does anyone have a recommendation on a shaft extension to put these wheels on the honing side, similar to what Vadim used?

The only one that comes to mind is https://schleifjunkies.de/en/

I believe you can also use the shaft extension that comes with the Tormek profiled leather wheels, if you happen to have one of those.

I've been round the bend with this issue, too.  The truth is that it's just a limitation of the current system, and there's no perfect way around it.  If you draw the blade straight across, keeping the jig perpendicular to the guide bar, and only raise your elbow to bring the belly into contact with the stone--as suggested by Tormek--you will have a higher bevel angle toward the tip. 

If, on the other hand, you pivot the jig to get the belly/tip lower down on the stone, there will be some inconsistency in that area, although it can be minimized with practice.  However ... there are some situations where no amount of pivoting can get the tip low enough to match the angle on the rest of the knife.

These days I don't let it wreck my head.  The angle difference generally isn't that extreme, and the system gets knives sharp, and quickly. 

dang its sold out and no stock until July and no option to get reminder when in stock

I ordered a second one from Sharpening Supplies yesterday and it noted restocking in two weeks.

I ordered one the day they were released and it said shipping in about two weeks.  Now it says they'll be getting more stock in July.

Where did you order from? I ordered from Sharpening Supplies on what i believed to be the day of release. I received mine days ago. A day after the first order, I ordered a second one and it was indicated shipping in two weeks. We'll see if it does ship.

I also ordered from sharpeningsupplies.com.  I guess I must have missed the first batch by a matter of hours or minutes.  Mine hasn't shipped yet, either.

dang its sold out and no stock until July and no option to get reminder when in stock

I ordered a second one from Sharpening Supplies yesterday and it noted restocking in two weeks.

I ordered one the day they were released and it said shipping in about two weeks.  Now it says they'll be getting more stock in July.

Wow, this is very exciting.  Can't wait to get my hands on it.  Hopefully the wait isn't too long in the U.S.