Powered Sharpener Setup Recommendations

[blgentry]

I've had my Kalamazoo set up and working for 2 whole days now. I've messed around and sharpened a terrible knife and an ok knife. Neither impressed me much. But that's ok. I'm just getting started with this machine.

I now see what all the talk about the platen is about! You essentially can't use the platen from the left side unless you track the belt *all* the way over there and make sure it's at the very edge. This is impractical and makes the machine make noises that sound like it doesn't like what you've forced it to do.

Looking at grepper's picture of his cool blade angle guide, it appears that there's no platen at all. Do you use a platen Mr. grepper?

I've read about cutting down the current platen; not sure that would work well for me. Maybe it would. I think I'd like to have a decent platen without a rolled over edge on either side so that I can approach it from either side and get all the way up to the blade without having the handle or guard of the knife run into the platen and block my progress.

I'd also like to have Grepper's guide! When is that thing going to be available sir? Sign me up.

Brian.