Work Sharp WS3000 Wood Tool Sharpener

Manufacturer: Work Sharp List Price: Our Price: $199.95

The best and easiest sharpening system I've ever used After using the WorkSharp to sharpen one of my chisels, it became apparent that I'd never actually used a truly sharp one. This is easily one of the best woodworking tool investments I've ever made. Effective machine, not for everything. This is the great tool for flattening the back of tools and working on the bevels for small plane irons and especially plane iron with curved profile. Fast, easy and great results can be achieved. But when it comes to work on the bevel of a wider edge, say 1.5 inch. This tool has its limitation. Because the rotation speed alone the contacting edge will be different, the amount removed alone the edge will also be different. It is very easy to have a curved corner at left when beveling a straight plane iron. So Now, I only use this machine wherever it is good at, and switch back to diamond plate or water stone for iron bevel sharpening. Best alternative to hand sharpening... Let me first say that I am a total novice when it comes to sharpening. I tried using oil stones and an angle jig but could not seem to get the hang of it. My results were horrible, probably because I was starting with some very dull blades that needed a lot of material removed before they'd be considered even close to sharp. Being a beginner/intermediate woodworker, I don't have too much need for a lot of sharp hand tools. However, the ones I have desperately needed help. I started to look at my options and thought it best to go for a motorized sharpening solution. The competition is very expensive when you consider the initial cost and then the price of attachments to sharpen different tools. Even some of the manual methods would cost a lot when you figure in the different grades of stones needed to get the best results. When I first saw the WorkSharp online I was fascinated by it. What a great idea! Being a skeptic though, I figured it was just too good to be true. After seeing some reviews I felt it warranted more looking into. I bought it on sale at a local store that I go to all the time (used a promotion they offered for 10% off of anything) so I got a good deal. I have not used it a whole lot just yet, but here is what I found so far: First, the price is very reasonable for what you get. The unit itself seems well made even though there is a good bit of hard plastic. The included accessories are well thought out and cover most of what the average user will need to use. I'm sure I'll find the need for some extras but for now it appears fairly complete for chisels and plane blades. The instructions are straight forward and well laid out. My first attempt at sharpening with the device was on a 5/8 inch chisel that was terribly worn out. In fact, after I got started I realized that I was going to waste a lot of time fixing a skewed bevel and rounded back plane. So I squared up the edge on my bench grinder before continuing. Once that was done, I was amazed at how well the WorkSharp did on that old chisel. I used the P120 face up to flatten the back plane first. Then flipped the disk over and used the P120 to grind the bevel to 25 degrees. I then took the chisel through the other three grits (including honing on the 3600) both back and bevel. The result was a mirror polished surface on both after about 10 or 12 minutes. It won't take near as long on a well maintained chisel but this one is better than new now! By the way, I also added a micro bevel to the bevel and that only took about 30 seconds. This is recommended in the instructions as a "Master Tip." Here are some tips that I think should help in initial setup: first, I found that when trying to stick the PSA paper disks to the glass plates, it can be very difficult to line up the holes. I had a brainstorm and used a socket wrench extension rod clamped in my vice to poke through the hole in the glass plate. This held the plate in place and gave me something to fit the hole of the sandpaper onto so the holes would line up perfectly. Second, I used a glue bottle roller to roll out the paper once it was stuck to the plate. It was easy to see there were no bubbles when only one side of the plate had paper on it but for the most part, I had no bubbles in any of the grits except the 3600. That one didn't matter much because it is cushion backed and the bubbles were very small. I gave it only four stars because I found that the heat sink did not work as well as claimed. My chisel got pretty hot quickly even though I believe I was doing everything right (according to the directions). I simply dipped the chisel in a cup of cool water and wiped it dry every couple of runs through the machine. No problem at all. UPDATE: I would now give this tool 5 stars! I found that the heat sink works very well when resharpening because not nearly as much material has to be sanded away. This device is well worth the money and performs as described. The results are excellent and I certainly was able to shave hairs off my arm with the finished chisel! I'll add more info as I use it and find out more tips/gotchas. UPDATE: I also want to mention that customer service has been excellent. My 3600 MicroMesh disk got ripped from one of the chisels I sharpened. I emailed customer support to ask for advice on replacing it and also complained that the system was not as good for very dull blades (too much material to remove). They advised me to clean the glass plate with IPA (isopropyl alcohol) to remove the adhesive. They also said they are sending me some 80 grit disks and a new 3600 MicroMesh disk to replace the torn one at no charge! This is great customer service!!! I want to upgrade this review to 5 stars (but the interface won't let me change my rating, it just lets me edit my review). After using the machine further, I found that it really is all it claims to be. The heatsink works well for resharpening and customer service is awesome! One recommendation: if you have gouges and such that need sharpening, you will probably need to purchase extra slotted wheels. The system only comes with one and you would have to change the disks on it each time you want a finer grit to sharpen with. It would be much easier to buy additional slotted wheels (they are reasonably priced) and have one for each grit (you'd save money on paper this way too, because once you remove PSA paper you can't reuse it). Very effective tool I bought one on the strength of almost universally laudatory reviews elsewhere. It certainly works for me- I'm a mediocre sharpener, it turns out, when I'm left to my own devices, or even to the devices many others are successful with. I have a Veritas MKII honing guide, and I can usually get a pretty decent edge with it and waterstones or sandpaper, but it isn't trivially easy for me and can take a while. And I find freehanding difficult unless I have a very well-established bevel to start with. So far, it seems to me that the Worksharp will do most of the work of a grinder in getting that bevel. And I am relishing the prospects both of an easier time, and less of it spent on, flattening chisel backs; and of not having to flatten my waterstones. Perhaps more skilled sharpeners than me dish their stones less when they use them, and so have less flattening to to do, and then do that more effectively- but I always seemed to spend more time than was reasonable on this particularly mindless part of the process. I use it with four grits (120, 400, 1000, 3600- I don't have the 6000 grit micromesh disk) for straight blades; the 120 gets rid of metal in a hurry (I was actually quite shocked at what 2 seconds on the 120 did to the bevel of a vintage Buck Bros chisel I was sharpening) and the edge is pretty damn good after the 3600. Then I work bevel and back a little with some 0.5 micron diamond paste on a piece of MDF (Veritas green stuff works too, but it doesn't feel as flat under the blade) to get a mirror polish. This portion of the regimen I do freehand, and it's a piece of cake to do with the big flat bevel. After that my edges are easily as sharp as I've ever managed to get them, probably sharper, and with much less effort. I am limited to the 4 preset bevel angles (20, 25, 30, 35), but I don't feel like I'm missing anything. Paper seems to hold up well, though it's definitely true that it's not cheap, and unless I find there's a big difference in quality, when I've run through the included paper I'm just going to use off the rack 6 in ROS disks for the coarser grits, and cut PSA sheets to size for the finer grits. I don't know about turning tools, but the slotted wheels work well for carving tools. But sharpening these is a freehand operation on this machine, so the more skilled you are, the better you'll do. I'm still not doing so good, but being able to see the edge does help. Would be more difficult to economize on discs here, given their perforations, but may be possible. So, as someone not innately gifted with sharpening nous, and who hasn't managed to develop it despite some quite serious time spent trying to, I am finding this machine a great help. It's obviously not as cheap upfront as scary sharp- though if you amortize the cost of the machine over, say, 10 years, and assume similar rates of consumable consumption, I'd say the difference in price is close to negligible. And I'd guess that if you bought yourself 220, 1000, 4000 and 8000 stones (or even combos) plus a decent jig, you'd be close to laying out the cost of the machine (though extra glass platens and slotted wheels will certainly add substantially to the machine's price, and they're too convenient to forego). Of course, if you can get sharp with spit, a piece of slate, your belt and your palm, this will seem like a preposterous piece of paraphernalia; but for me, the price is a relatively small tradeoff for an approach that I finally feel confident will get my tools sharp.