The UPS man had a box for me today, containing the Work Sharp sharpener for which I had been waiting with baited breath. It was purchased from Amazon.com, with free shipping, for $69.99
I tried it on some duller-than-dull kitchen knives with the 40-degree (inclusive) guide attachment, and they ended up hair-popping sharp after ten passes with the medium grit, then ten with the extra-fine grit.
My EDC went through next, using the 50-degree (inclusive) guide. After the same treatment, I was able to push-cut some very thin receipt paper easily.
My forearms are now hairless, thanks to a few passes with the finished blades.
The WSKTS is highly recommended for those wanting a no-hassle razor-sharp edge on their blades.
Shown in your pictures is a great feature of the worksharp also. You can remove the angle guide, so you just have a mini belt sander. Doing this you could make the edges as thick or thin as you want.
I hate to split hairs(Sorry for the pun) but how difficult is it for the blade to shave after coming out of the WSKTS? A video would be great, the only bad reviews Ive seen said when they were finished the blades were reasonably sharp but not a truely keen edge, barely able to shave hair. Which was a huge disappointment to read.
Your review on the other hand sounds much more promising…does it shave cleanly smoothly with little effort? Could the 50* inclusive EDC edge shave similarly to the thinner bladed kitchen knives? Did you order any additional aftermarket belts?
Sorry for all the detailed questions just trying to quantify the results you achieved (as a fellow members word I take with more weight than a random from the interwebs) before I take the plunge myself which is nearing.
One way to make it shave better would be strop it on some leather, because it’s a convex edge. Or if you really wanted to use newspaper, just put it on the leather. If you have any compounds that’ll work well to. Being literally abraded with sandpaper, it’ll have some burr left over, so if you remove that, it should could smooter.
The EDC came out shaving sharp as well, but required a bit more attention than the kitchen knives.
A light touch helps quite a bit, and the guards can be dispensed with for the advanced users - I'm not there yet !
I plan on ordering a few intermediate grits, but overall this is something that I consider a game-changer that a monkey (me!) can use without f@#^ing up the blade.
My Smith system will be coming up soon in a giveaway. Please don't mind the blood on the bag - it's mine.
What do you mean “use newspaper”? I’m new to the sharpening game. Can you strop it after sharpening on newpaper? Does a leather belt work as a leather strop?
If i were in the market for sharpeners, i'd prefer this to any Lansky or Spyderco or Smith sharpening systems. Of course, nothing beats traditional Japanese whetstones plus leather stropping .. but good quality stuff of that costs even more, require patience and skill from the user, and are messy. Perfect sharpening is an art after all.
Physics is physics. Some regard 6k silicon carbide as good enough, some don’t.
Just go to microsurface and get the 12k grit belts + 1k belts….so that’s 1 more minute spent there on the 12k, then give it a 50 strokes pass on horsehide with 0.25 micron diamond paste.
Only the most hardcore 0.1% straight razor shavers would tell you that it shaves nicely but just don’t like the feel of it.
I can’t get this toy, as it’d be a usd160 investment for me in total (usd44 for USPS Priority International + $50 inverter for 12/24V). The good thing is that if you are in the market for a new set, just spend another 30 bucks on the additional belts and another 10 bucks or so on a leather strop and you are good to go in whittling hairs. I only delude myself that it takes the fun out of sharpening, so it’s not a good thing.
PS. Looking at a 10k Naniwa super stone at the present moment, the 10mm thickness. I need something between the Spyderco UF/DMT EE and 0.5/0.25m diamond paste.
Nice sharpener Chicago X. It appears by it's looks the thing could almost go 4 wheel driving. Lets hope that the only thing that is hairless from this exercise is your arms .
Nopbody can even confirm that this thingy won’t burn out in the future if i use a cheap ass $30 12/24V inverters that are doing sawtooth or squarewave waveform. The sinusoidal ones are like 70 bucks for a 300W model. You cannot use the normal AC inverters.
WS said that they were supposed to release a 240V version for international customers in 2011, unfortunately that did not materialise.
i have a worksharp and love it for what it is, but i recommend doing machetes and cheap kitchen knives first. you can easily mess up with this system, there are a lot of variables people dont think about. you have to periodically dip the thinner blades in water so you dont ruin the temper, thin knives get really hot really fast with a worksharp. thats why professional belt sanders are so huge and have variable rpm that can go really slow so it doesnt have as much friction and heat and removes less metal so you can remove only what you need to create a burr. pocket knives are also hard to sharpen because of the thumbstuds and how the edge goes all the way to the handle on knives without a choil.
read up on how to not round the tip off (most common worksharp user error) and also pick up some in between grits. the supplied belts are the quickest to turn a butterknife to shaving sharp but it could use some in the 400-2000 grit range.
not trying to burst anyones bubble on a great machine for the price, just giving realistic feedback from a longtime user (lol who said this is a gamechanger? worksharp has been around for a long time) anyway happy sharpening!
I picked one up today and I love it. I resharpened a Benchmade-knockoff from Manafont that I previously sharpened on my Lansky Diamond system. It did a great job! I am impressed with it. I also threw my SOG Tomahawk in for a few passes and was very pleased with it as well.
Tool like this . . . it's a game changer for somebody like me that ruins every damn knife he tries to sharpen. There are no sharp knives at casa de Foy because I have "sharpened" every single one.
We have a $100 knife that Foy's edge skills reduced to peanut-butter duty so, $69 will pretty much rescue every knife we have . . . maybe even impress Mrs. Foy, finally having something sharper than a fork in the house.
Now all you need to do is post a video. 
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