Work Sharp vs Sharpmaker

[flphotog]

Ok, here's the question, I currently have a Sharpmaker and love it, but it can be a little labor intensive, that is my only real issue. I don't have a lot of knives, maybe 20 or so unless you count my second set of kitchen knives that I'll be getting rid of at some point.
Would the work shape gain me anything other than perhaps accomplishing the task a little faster? My real concern is the amount of metal that it could remove, I'm very happy with my knives and I don't want to damage them hence my leaning toward a more manual system. I get an excellent edge with the sharpmaker so the end result isn't the issue, more the amount of work involved. I find if doing several knives for myself or a friend it an be a bit hard on the wrist, I'm of an age where that can be an issue.

 

[Bobby3326]

The Ken onion work sharp is an excellent tool, that'll get your blades hair popping sharp. That being said it does require a lil practice using a cheap knife. The amount of meal removal depends on what your trying to accomplish, reprofiling with a course belt will obviously remove some steel.

Once you set your bevel maintaining the edge is rather easy and you won't be removing much steel on the finer belts, after use a few passes it'll restore your edge unless you have edge damage.

I absolutely love mine with the blade grinding attachment, I can get hair whittling edges with it fairly easy.

 

[postoak]

I'm going to make a post about the 1x30 belt sander I bought recently, but I'll just say here that worries about removing too much metal, convexing the edge, and overheating and removing the tempering are overblown in my experience.

 

[Bar99]

Those edges are beautiful. Ken Onion Worksharp? Does it have any downsides?

The Ken onion work sharp is an excellent tool, that'll get your blades hair popping sharp. That being said it does require a lil practice using a cheap knife. The amount of meal removal depends on what your trying to accomplish, reprofiling with a course belt will obviously remove some steel.

Once you set your bevel maintaining the edge is rather easy and you won't be removing much steel on the finer belts, after use a few passes it'll restore your edge unless you have edge damage.

I absolutely love mine with the blade grinding attachment, I can get hair whittling edges with it fairly easy.

 

[stonesell]

A sharpmaker is not enough, to remove much metal, but great for touch up. Worksharp is much better for faster progress, but avoid the tip of the knife, which can easily be destroyed, by going too fast.

 

[bgentry]

I have both a SharpMaker and a WSKO (not an original Work Sharp). They are totally different animals.

The sharpmaker is a touchup and maintenance tool and it does it's job really nicely. But it can't really sharpen a truly dull blade; at least not without more coarse rods and a bunch of effort. The WSKO can sharpen exceptionally dull blades. I've ground pretty much entirely new edge bevels with it on a number of blades.

But, since it's variable speed, and has such a wide variety of belts, it can also be a pretty subtle tool also. Run the machine at the minimum speed with the X4 belt and it will polish the edge nicely (not a mirror, but nice) and will do so in a very controlled manner. I taught myself how to use it doing exactly that: Lowest speed setting and a fine belt. It only took one session to progress from that, up to medium speed and the coarsest belt included with the machine. Now I own a 60 grit ceramic belt, a 200 micron Norax belt, and I routinely run the machine at 3/4 speed for larger jobs. The WSKO is very versatile machine. I've even done some handle repairs with it.

If the WSKO has down sides, they are all rooted in it's small form factor and small belts. It's a reasonably powerful machine for being so small. But it pales in comparison to a 1x30 or 1x42 machine. I'm certain I'll end up with a 1x42 at some point. For now, I'm happy with the portability of the WSKO and it's nice speed selections.

Oh, I forgot to mention: I'm comparing the WSKO to belt sanders because that's how I use mine: Freehand, without the guide.

Brian.

 

[Bobby3326]

Those edges are beautiful. Ken Onion Worksharp? Does it have any downsides?

The only downsides are easily over come, like if using the standalone unit the guides can and will scratch the finish on a blade, especially non coated blades.This is fixed by adding blue tape to the side of your knife.

Next the guides aren't precise, for ex if you sharpen a ¼"thick knife on the 20° setting your actual angle will be less due to spine thickness. Your angle will be closer to 17° or less, which can be fixed by sharpening at a slightly higher angle than what you want for thicker knives, or get the grinding attachment and free hand it(which is 100 times better imo anyway).

Then there's always practising your technique to avoid tip rounding, but following directions should prevent that..


O and btw the purple 6000 belt sucks, when I used the standard unit I found it would make my knives duller than they came off the x4 belt. To prevent this you'll want to adjust your angle guides to a slightly lower angle to keep it from rolling over the edge. (It's really flimsy)


Ps. All those knives were done on the Ken onion work sharp with optional blade grinding attachment. The 12k stropping belt brings it to a slightly hazy mirror polish, then a strop and compound will bring it pretty close to a mirror finish. Eventually I'll get some optional belts to bring the grit progression closer which should yield near prefect polishes before stropping.

 

[flphotog]

Thanks all, I'll keep all of this in mind.