I'm always playing with new sharpeners...
After watching the video for the Work Sharp Knife Sharpener, I was intrigued by the tool. I shopped around on-line, there some fellow on e-bay who was selling the tool for $149! OW! The other retailers were pricing the tool at $69-$79, and I wasn’t about to pay twice that price. After a short wait, I had one in hand.
First impressions mean a lot, whether it’s people or products. Upon opening the shipping box, there was a very attractive overall package. As soon as I laid eyes on it, I knew good things were to come. Even better, it was easy to remove the tool from the package! Open it up, cut a couple of zip ties, and you are ready to go. It seems that often in this day and age, you have to have cutters, pliers, screwdrivers, and a chainsaw to get an item out of its package.
After removing everything from the box, I took inventory:
Work Sharp Sharpener
Instructional DVD
Detailed instruction manual
80 grit belts-2
220 grit belts-2
6000 grit belts-2
Warranty Card that also gets you 6 extra belts
The next thing that I did was round up some blades that needed to be sharpened. I had a selection that covered the gamut, ranging from various kitchen blades by F.Dick, Kuhn, Sheffield, Sabatier, and Frosts of Sweden, to some cheap Chinese folders, hatchets, and a kukri, to knives from Kershaw, Timberline, Buck, Ka-Bar, Western, Gerber, Frosts of Sweden, Leatherman, a custom skinner from a sawmill blade, and an old BSA hatchet. Some of the known steels were 13c26, 12c27, 1095, 420HC, D-2, Aus-8A, and Krupp 1.4116. I did not have any of the newer “super” steels to try.
To save time switching belts, I sharpened everything with the 220 grit belt, then went back and ran everything on the 6000 grit belt. I used the 20 degree guide on every knife blade.
I decided to start with the kitchen blades. None of my blades are expensive, so if I was going to mess something up learning the process, they were my sacrificial lamb. In sharpness, they ranged from working sharp to barely usable. Using the 220 grit, and following the directions in the manual, 5 passes on each side of the blade resulted in a very sharp blade on every knife, with some of them shaving easily. They easily cut paper using draw cuts with the paper being held by the corner. The 220 grit left just a tad of toothiness to the edge, something I prefer myself. I like an edge with a little grab to it, versus an extremely smooth edge that will slide on tough materials.
Having declared myself successful on the kitchen blades and gaining confidence that I would not ruin a blade, I moved on to my folding knives. Again, these ranged from butter knife dull to reasonably sharp. The cheap Chinese knives were up first. One of these, with a decorative brass handle, was given to my 11 year old son by an older man we met while fishing a few years ago. I was really amazed at the quality of the edge after sharpening it. Perhaps it has a decent HT or steel in that blade? Some other Chinese Frost brand knives took a decent edge, but could not hold it at all. The Chinese hatchets and kukri also took very fine shaving edges. I had not been able to get a decent edge at all on any of them in the past, using an assortment of pull-through, crock stick, and diamond pad sharpeners. I should also state that the edge angles on some of these blades were so obtuse that it took more than 5 passes per side to get a sharp edge on them.
Once I moved through the cheaper blades and into quality steel, it was eye opening. The ease in which the blades became razor sharp was astonishing to me. After 5 passes per side, the majority of them were shaving with little effort at all. I used the Work Sharp to re-profile the blade on my Kershaw Skyline and my Buck Extract. I had sharpened the tip off of the Skyline with my Lansky hone by moving the stone completely off the blade instead of stopping it. It was not BAD, but it did not have a sharp tip at all. A couple of passes of the edge against the 220 belt had its point sharp once again, then 7 passes on each side had it shaving sharp. On the Extract, I had chipped the edge in a couple of places (I don’t remember how). Again, a few passes against the belt removed the chipped areas, and 10 passes on each side had it shaving. I worked though the knives and each one of them easily cut using draw cuts on paper sheets held by the corner.
By now I was reasonably confident that the Work Sharp was going to easily handle whatever I had to offer, but what about a thicker D-2 blade? D-2 is somewhat notorious for being difficult to work. I have a Ka-bar FIN drop point that has a .200” thick blade of D-2 at 58RC. This knife has been a project of sorts. I stripped the coating and re-ground (cold method) the blade to get rid of most of the hollow grind, making it a “semi” convex grind, I guess you could call it, and cold blued it. Basically, I wanted it to cut with less effort than it did with the thick edge and hollow grind. I ground the sharp edge off of the blade to make holding the blade easier with no chance of getting cut. I had not reprofiled the edge since bluing it. The Work Sharp profiled the edge with no effort at all. 10 passes on each side had it shaving sharp. Working through the rest of the blades was quick and effortless, with the results being, once again, that all blades could easily draw cut paper held by the corner.
I had two pairs of scissors to sharpen. One was a pair of garden shears that my wife uses to cut weeds, hedges, branches, and what-not. They were pretty dull. They would not cut paper or cardboard. After 8 passes per side with the 65 degree scissor guide they were easily cutting paper. The other pair of scissors was a pair of Fiskars utility shears with recurve blades and “serrations”. I use these for cutting fiberglass mat, cloth, and other tough materials. This pair was a bit more difficult, but after 10 passes, they were very sharp as well.
The last tool that I used with the sharpener was an old BSA hatchet that I picked up at the flea market a couple of weeks ago. I stripped the nasty green paint off of it, removed the wood scales, cold blued the entire tool, and then did a cord wrap on the handle finished with a soaking in fiberglass resin for the cord. It was DULL. I mean, there was no edge at all on the head. I put the 80 grit belt on the tool and decided to use the 25 degree outdoor knife guide to see what kind of edge it would take. It took 22 passes per side with the 80 grit belt to make both sides of the edge meet. It was toothy and would have been fine for type of chopping and splitting that is done with a hatchet. I wanted to take it a little further and used the 220 grit belt to refine the edge. 5 passes on each side had a decent cutting edge on the hatchet. It is not good enough to cut paper held by the corner, but it will easily cut paper with draw cuts when the paper is against a board. I am sure that further work will make the edge much better.
After I finished with the BSA, I put the 6000 grit belt on and polished all of the knife blade edges. Basically, this belt is a power strop, in my opinion. 5 passes per side resulted in a nice polished edge that was extremely sharp. I did use the 6000 grit on the two smaller hatchets as well with excellent results.
The total amount of tools/knives I sharpened was 32 different items. This was accomplished in less than 2 hours. Yes, I said less than two hours to get 32 blades to at least shaving sharpness, if not hair popping sharpness. That works out to 3.75 minutes per blade, which is EXCELLENT in its own right, compared to manual hand held methods like sticks, stones, guides, plated, and paper/mouse pad. When you take into account the time to switch between blades and belts, and putting back into sheaths, etc., it is even better. I would estimate that the actual sharpening time per knife is less than one minute for most blades.
I know that I, personally, absolutely, cannot put a new, re-profiled, convex edge that is shaving sharp on a knife in less than 4 minutes with any other method. Sure, you can touch up an edge that is already at the desired angle and reasonably sharp in less time, but to re-profile to a specific convex angle, and to a shaving edge??? Well, the results speak for themselves.
In using the Work Sharp, it seems that the better the quality and/or the harder the steel, the better the results are, and that makes sense to me. We are using a high speed abrasive surface to sharpen, so it only stands to reason that a softer surface is going to cut faster and easier while a harder surface is going to cut more slowly, resulting in more of a polishing or honing effect. The knives with lower quality steel definitely cut faster and rougher than the higher quality steel and needed more attention to pressure and speed on the pull stroke. A Cold Steel Canadian belt knife with their Krupp stainless gave me issues for some reason. RC on these is supposed to be in the 56-58 range, so it is not soft steel, per se, but the 220 cut it pretty fast. I almost ground the tip off of this blade in fact. The 220 belt gave a good cutting edge, but the when I used the 6000 grit, it seemed to lose some of the edge instead of increasing in sharpness. I went back to the 200 grit and then stropped it a few times on a piece of cardboard and it was a hair popping blade. I am still wondering about that one?
The Work Sharp sharpener will do a fine job on most any blade and any grind. I do not have any blades that are thicker than .200”, so I am not able to remark on how well it will do with thicker blades. All of my knives are between .065” and .200” but I believe that as long as the body of the blade is ground thin enough to allow the edge to make contact with the belt, there will not be any issues. Of course, if you use the tool without any of the guides, then you can grind or sharpen any size blade and thickness of steel.
The one grind that I feel isn’t at its best when sharpened on the Work Sharp is the scandi grind. It put a shaving sharp edge on a stainless Mora Clipper but I feel that the edge you get when sharpening on a flat stone using the bevel is better suited to the blade, then put a micro bevel on the blade to prevent rolling or chipping. The bevel that I got from the Work Sharp was a bit wider than I like, but I’m being particular, honestly. You could happily sharpen scandi grind blades forever with the Work Sharp and have a razor sharp cutting tool each and every time. I did a bit of carving and a couple of fuzz sticks and didn’t notice that it was any easier to do or that it was more difficult to do. Since the scandi is probably my favorite grind because it is so easy to maintain, most of my outdoor knives have it. You can take a flat plate or stone as a field sharpener to maintain the profile easily. On the other hand, setting the convex edge with the Work Sharp and then having a strop for the field would be just as easy, unless you damaged the edge in some way and then you would have to fix the edge once you had access to a sharpener that can do that type of repair.
Comparing the Work Sharp to other sharpeners, I think that it is probably the most versatile that I have used. I currently have the following sharpeners at hand: Work Sharp, Harbor Freight 1x30 belt sander, Lansky Diamond Kit, Chefs Choice 310 Electric, Chef’s Choice Pronto 464 Manual, Chef’s Choice 440 Manual, Chef’s Choice 420 Sharpener/File, Smiths 4 in 1 Knife/Scissor, Smiths 3 in 1 System, and Smiths DC4S Combination Stone.
The Work Sharp is much faster and easier to use than any of these sharpeners, and in addition to the speed, you get a quality cutting edge on any knife or tool. The Lansky will give a fabulous and consistent edge, yet takes quite a bit of time to set up and use in comparison. The Chef’s Choice systems can give great edges, yet they are restricted to thinner blades. The Chef’s Choice 420 and the various Smith’s stones can produce great sharpness as well, but consistency of angles can be problematic without some kind of angle guide, adding to the time needed to get a good edge. The 1x30 belt sander can damage the heat treat and easily round tips or do other damage to the blade if not used properly. I will be honest and say that I just cannot get an edge of any quality or sharpness with the 1x30 and free hand techniques. The Work Sharp eliminates all of the downfalls of other systems and still maintains a true and consistent angle when using the guides that are provided. A paper wheel system is as fast as the Work Shop and will give fabulous edges, but for that system, you have a sizable investment in the wheels and compounds, plus you have to use a buffer or grinder that will be permanently attached to a bench, or if not, isn’t easily portable. The Work Sharp is small enough that you can take it with you anywhere that you will have access to electricity or a generator to plug it into.
To sum up, I feel that dollar for dollar, feature for feature; you would be hard pressed to get a better system than the Work Sharp Knife and Tool Sharpener. It can handle any sharpening chore with aplomb. From your thinnest, most flexible fillet knives to your .250” thick wood splitter, hatchets, axes, shovels, just about anything you need to sharpen, the Work Sharp Knife and Tool Sharpener has it covered.
