What angle are you sharpening? Might be too shallow. I have on PMV-11 that Secret Santa gave me last year and it is just awesome. My Lie-Nielsens remain sharp for a long. I also have Stanley 750s that perform wonderfully but I don't use them anymore.
pat

get a new one, I have found if you are not dropping a good deal of money on one the unit will be made of crap that just rots out. So even if you get it to work the pot metal is probably more than half gone in 8 years. The good thing is the new one will probably use the same lock ring you have in place already, hopefully it is still solid as I have seen those rot out too

I bought 3 shaptons from Amazon vendors in Japan. They work great.

Are they the same as the ones sold in the USA? I don't know.

One item to note is the shaptons from Japan have instructions in Japanese (no big surprise) and the DIETER SCHMIDT FINE TOOL COMPANY had them translated and posted them online. They advise to soak the stones for 6 to 10 minutes before using.

The shaptons sold in the USA have instructions that say to splash-and-go, with no soaking necessary.

My technique is to flood the surface with lots of water until its dripping off all sides then wait a minute or two and proceed with sharpening as usual.

Mike

Pretty cool, Pirate. I like the cabinet top idea. I've been promising myself to build a similar cabinet to house the printer, fax, cable modem and related 'shtuff' for a long while, but never got around to it.

Well done!
Bob

I just posted in the Swap & Sell. Check it out if you're interested. (Sorry if I'm not supposed to do this. It's my first time posting in the Swap & Sell. Someone let me know if I'm breaking a rule and I'll delete my post.)

Here the new code is smokes need their own breaker and it supposed to have one of these

I think you did great for all the firsts! I think you'll like the cherry a lot better after it darkens. I bet if you left it in the sun for a couple days it will be a lot better.

How about using some large magnet catches? Like on a refrigerator, etc.
Maybe a push type. No knob at all.

Using the raptor--no thinking required. They're a good value.

I have found that using PVA with a few drops of CA to hold the joint works well together. Best of both!
Ag