Knife Sharpeners for the Unskilled

Any skill takes a bit if time to acquire. Smiths tri hone and a four sided wooden strop is a good start. Some knives may require a file to get started if they are very dull. I was self taught and it took me months to figure it out. I still need to keep the steps in mind and not get impatient...
A good steep angle on the blade is important, imo.
 
I can't get the motorized WorkSharp to work. I suck at it, apparently.

Conversely, I can get this one to work very well, scary sharp as they say.

61Y9o9Qb94L.__AC_SX300_SY300_QL70_FMwebp_.jpg
 
Work sharp professional precision adjust. A nice upgrade from the plastic original model. It's a little spendy but cheaper than an edge pro or wicked edge. Takes a little time but you can make some crazy sharp knives and no guess work with your angles.
I have never been good at a stone or anything unguided. With the work sharp it's easy to have a shaving sharp knife. I sharpen by buddies knives for free and after the first knife they're happy to pay $10 a blade.

For quick touch ups I use a spyderco triangle sharp maker.
 
The best system I've used is the Edge Pro.

No way I put one of my expensive knives in a Worksharp- not going to happen. I've seen guys with those take too much steel off.
 
This thing is too easy. Id never go back to rebeveling with a hand scratcher

Spyderco ceramic, steel, and leather to touch up after that.

No burrs left!
 
As mentioned above, Spyderco sharpmaker. Simple and effective, and not too expensive. Just don’t let your knife get super dull and it’ll never take long. I touch my EDC up weekly in about 45 seconds on my sharpmaker and can easily shave hairs when I’m done.

Or, just buy one of these and never have to worry about sharpening again:

I have an outdoor edge for field butchering. Lots of fixed blades for other things. Fillet knives, kitchen, pocket, etc.
 
Are you using a sharpie with your worksharp?

The first step is to color the bevel with a sharpie and adjust your angle until a fine stone removes the sharpie cleanly

Now, drop back to your coarser stones, work the edges to build a burr, flip the burr and burr the other bevel.

NOW your edge is apexed. Work in successively finer grits to refine that edge.

I'd be happy to PM, email, text or talk to you to help you get your system working for you. I do sharpening as a side gig and I'm pretty good at it.
The sharpie tip is huge. O/w you are sharpening and might be screwing up the original angle of the blade.
I'm descent at sharpening, middle of the road if you will, the sharpie tip helped me understand every knife is a little different and I can't use the same angle for each.
 
I've used the KME knife sharpening system with great success. The impatient aspect to your personality, however, may push you to a power unit, which I have never tried. As said above, any of these systems require patience and practice. The Sharpie tip is gold to establish correct angle. It probably takes me 45 minutes to sharpen a knife from dull to sharp (and when I say "sharp," I mean mirror polished edge sharp). I use about four different grits of stones for angle and polishing and then four different leather strops (from Stropman) with different compounds to polish the edge to a mirror finish. The process is very therapeutic and requires A LOT of patience. Like 1,000 stroke patience to do a knife from start to finish. No way I'm sharpening a multi-hundred dollar knife with a power unit of any kind.
 
the wasabi system seems to look good, But I do everythign free hand so no hands on experience

 
Edge Pro if you have time to kill otherwise the Work Sharp. I used stones for years and the Work Shop is faster and easier.
If you want to have pride and use stones to sharpen a knife or a hand file to sharpen a chain for a chain saw then go for it.
But the Work Shop sits on my bench and gets used often.
 
I’ve used the spyderco one mentioned above and liked it- used it at a relatives house on their really dull knives and was able to get them sharp again- wasn’t real fast but it worked pretty well.

I have a set from smiths what works pretty good - similar to this one- https://www.scheels.com/p/027925505...MI_t_PjaDJiQMV0gKtBh1EJiP4EAQYDiABEgKUV_D_BwE
I'm no pro by any means, but using the Smith's as linked here I can pretty quickly get any of my knives sharp and there's two slots for different angles. I'm also very impatient and tend to do the entire house of knives in one sitting a couple times a year. Wife is hell on my butchering knives, I need to hide them.
 
I use the Gatco system and consider myself “just ok” at sharpening. But I am able to get the knives so they shave arm hair.

Fine diamond and the ceramic stone for resharpen/touch up work.

IMG_3295.jpeg
 
New here, but another +1 for the Spyderco Sharpmaker. Utilitarian, requires little effort, results are excellent.
 
I have used the ken onion worksharp for years and get excellent edges with this system. I mainly use a belt progression where I go from a 400 grit, then a 1000 grit, then a 1500 or 2000 grit. If I batch a few knives through at once I can get several razor sharp in maybe 5-6 minutes.

The only down side is that the guides on the worksharp can leave some light marks on the blade. Thats not a big deal for me with working knives, but I cant use it to sharpen the knives I make for sale. For knives I make for others, I sharpen on a paper wheel and then strop. With good edge geometry, these are also very quick to sharpen.
 
I have a Work sharp and I think it's mediocre at best. I put a way better edge on my knives with my Lansky sharpener.
 
For those of you who use the Work Shop sharpener, which one do you use of the two below?

Thanks,

Eddie
 

Attachments

  • WS1.JPG
    WS1.JPG
    54.2 KB · Views: 15
  • WS2.JPG
    WS2.JPG
    34.2 KB · Views: 15
Back
Top