The Sharpmaker is a fine system for keeping a blade sharp at the the preset angles, but a poor choice for shaping an edge. It isn't rare for people to use knives long past the point that they should be sharpened, and thus you will not only have to be concerned about removing visible damage, but on occasion may have to create an edge on a significantly worn knife. Plus, you would want to have a wider range of angles. What is functional for a cleaver and a paring knife are angles much further apart than the Sharpmaker settings. The critical question is do you want to rely on power or not. If you don't, the the Edge Pro is the clear winner. Get the scissor attachment as the ability to sharpen them is far more rare than with knives.
There are also a few other useful tools. First is a large bastard file and a clamp. Many knives will be soft enough to file readily, and such blades are often very blunt. You clamp the blades and reset the edge with the bastard file. On some jobs, a small battery powered Dremel (or drill) with an x-coarse sanding drum, will speed the process up further, for example on a lawn mower blade. However the sanding drums are not cheap, so you may be better off just using the file. The Dremel does have other uses such as creating new tips. Also have a way to remove rust, as you don't want to clog up a file or a hone with debris.
In addition, a coarse waterstone (220 SiC) and some lapping compound is much faster than the Edge Pro for the initial bevels. For the cleanest final bevels you put the freehand angle just a little higher than the final angle. Then on the Edge Pro you just have to move down just a little (a few minutes work), and you are left with a crisp clean edge. On a larger heavy use knife, this may not be of any importance so the waterstone + lapping compound (and/or file), create the relief angle, and you just sharpen with the Edge Pro, little or no shaping. In any case, I would get at least two of the coarse Edge Pro hone, as you will wear them down rather quickly.
Finally I would have on hand some strong backed sandpaper, or some leather and sandpaper to use as a hanging strop for convex edges. Now you could just put v-grinds on the convex bevels, but this looks bad for one, and you will see some performance degradation as well. With very coarse sandpaper, about two inches or so wide, you can restore even a visible damaged bevel in no time at all. Just like in the above, the initial shaping can be a bit rougher, so you could even do this part with a file until the edge is clean and free of chips and/or dents. You then use the sandpaper and finish with a strop to clean up the bevels, smooth out the curve, and of course sharpen the edge.
Experience is also the key. There are a number of problem knives that you need to know how to deal with. For example, on laminate Japanese knives, the center core can be 63+ RC and very brittle. You need to go very light, with very fine hones or you will break the steel apart. On some of the cheaper knives, with poor grade alloys, they won't hold any kind of edge at all. On those knives you are best just shaping an edge, and leaving it with a filed or coarse honed finish. Make sure as well that you have a good handle on angles, you don't want to put a too thin edge on a cleaver and have it get damaged too readily, or thicken the edge on a paring knife and have it suffer a vastly reduced cutting ability. Finally, if you do go with the Edge Pro, some blanks and a couple of Ez-Lap hone will produce the optimal finish on the high alloy steels (CPM S90V, 10V etc.), but they may be so rare you don't need to be concerned about them.
Also, as noted by Sal Glesser in the Sharpmaker video, there are many household items that would benefit from being sharpened, it is not just scissors and knives that need some attention. From a potato peeler to a garden shovel, all of them could benefit from work on the edge. You put a fresh filed edge on a trowel and any gardener will soon realize that his life has become much easier. As well, it would not hurt to have a decent background of steels, grinds and other aspects of knives. If someone is using the wrong blade, then a simple sharpening won't leave him very satisfied, but if you can restore the blade but as well point him in the right direction for the correct knife, then things will be so much the better.
Now if you do want to use power, then the Tormek is a direct upgrade over the Edge Pro. It will get you there faster, and has jigs for all manner of tools. The only ability that you lose is the varying grits, but in general you can do with the grading stone on the Tormek. This also means that you don't need the large bench stone, however the file would still be useful, on the larger softer blades. As for the TruHone, and other devices (CATRA, Razor's Edge), I have not used them, but they are usually geared for sharpening hundreds of knives a day. As well I would be curious about the size of the knives they can take. Could you for example even fit a Trailmaster into the sharpening slots?
As for a belt sander, I use a 1x30" and it works well and will be much faster then even the Tormek. There are a lot of abrasives available, up to 5 micron SiC and then leather belts for the ultimate polish when loaded with CrO. The biggest problem will be with overheating the edge. With plain carbon steels and very thin blades this can happen very quickly. Do all your shaping on fresh belts, and cool in water after each pass. I have not used an upright or horizontal, and would be concerned about the ability to hold the edge in position to form a smooth v-grind edge. Of course you could just put convex bevels on everything.
Bok, thanks for the comments on the TruHone, did you own it or have access to it at work? If the latter did anyone else comment on the TruHone? I have suspected that the edges formed from such machines would not be as crisp, but have never seen them. Was the problem with the edge not getting sharp enough, or not lasting as long as you would prefer? Was it too rough, or an aligment problem such as a large burr?
-Cliff
I watched the video and checked out the general setup of the unit. Amazingly, I took to the system straight off and my first knife came out like a cut throat razor. It was so easy to use and when I polished the egde with the 3000 grit polishing tape it looked better then it did when I bought it new. The stones cut very well and the 180 will reprofile an edge very quickly. I have used the 100 grit stone just the once and it cuts metal very fast. There is only one slight drawback and that is serrated knives that have been sharpened poorly in the past. Short of using a narrow steel to reprofile the serrations and then sharpening the flat side there isn't much you can do. Having said that I have pointed this out to my clients already and they seem to accept this.
) as opposed to someone with a grinder. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot of skill required to use a grinder etc. but it's the clients perception that matters.
