Product Review: Work Sharp Guided Sharpening System

Image provided by Work Sharp.

Knife sharpening is easy. Yep, you heard me. It’s easy, but it takes practice! When you try the new Work Sharp Guided Sharpening System, you will see that not only is it easy, it’s fun, and you will want to sharpen everything. Work Sharp sent me the new kit and the upgrade kit to review. I had no expectations going in, but I couldn’t wait to start sharpening things! 

Here’s what comes with the kit:

• Benchtop Sharpening Platform
• Coarse Diamond Plate (320 Grit)
• Grit Fine Diamond Plate (600 Grit)
• 17° / 20° Angle Guides (2)
• Ceramic Field Hone
• User Guide/Quick Start Guide

The Guided Sharpening System features:

•     6” coarse (320 grit) and fine (600 grit) Diamond Sharpening Plates
•     17° and 20° Angle Guides
•     Coarse and Fine Ceramic Hone with built-in Angle Guides
•     3 sizes of ceramic rods to sharpen serrations
•     Pivot-Response technology
•     Removable diamond plate holder for sharpening tools

Sharpens:

• Curved Blades
• Straight Blades
• Serrations
• Tools
• Hooks and Fine Points

The Upgrade Kit extends the range of diamond plates by adding an Extra-Coarse 220 Girt for blade repair and coarse tool sharpening, an Extra-Fine 800 Grit for delicate sharpening tasks and edge refinement, plus a Leather Stopping plate with 0.5 micron honing compound and a 25° Stropping Angle Guide.

First off, when you open the box, take everything out. Don’t start assembling it right away. Read those instructions. People work hard to put those together for you, so you don’t make mistakes. Read them all the way through and then put it all together. It’s a really well thought out and downright cool system!

Now, I reviewed the Work Sharp portable knife sharpener a few years back and it is still in my backpack when I hunt. In fact, after my review of it, a handful of my hunting buddies picked some up and continue to use them. Get ready for the new and improved version! This new one is slick! The key factor is this:

It features the innovative Pivot-Response System which allows the abrasive to follow the curve of the blade – making manual sharpening faster, easier and more precise than ever.

That’s it in a nutshell. The Pivot-Response System is exactly what we DIY guys have been looking for. If you want to see it in motion, check out the Work Sharp website videos. it’s really awesome to see how well this works.

 
As part of the review, Work Sharp provided a brand new CRKT knife to test out with. If anyone knows CRKT knives, when they come to you, they are already razor sharp. I needed a dull knife, so I put the call out to my hunting buddies. ‘Who needs a dull blade brought back from the dead?’ One of my hunting buddies immediately said he needed his knife sharpened as it was incredibly dull. He wasn’t kidding! It was quite possible one of the dullest knives I have seen and I really wasn’t optimistic about getting it sharp again.

What I like about the new system compared to the portable version is that I don’t feel like I am going to slice into my fingers with this one. The guides are more pronounced and easier to follow. Plus, you are elevated off the table or bench you and on and have more area to work with. That gives you that full range of motion. I began with the extra-coarse diamond plate and the system worked well and followed my movements. It took some doing (the knife was really dull) to get an edge back, but I was successful. I did notice that you want to have the system on a table or something at the right height for proper movement. Too high and it gets very uncomfortable.

Once I had an edge, I followed up with the coarse and then fine grit plates. I find knife sharpening therapeutic in that you get a flow going and once you see that edge getting sharper, you feel great! I worked on this knife for a while because I wanted to fully test out the system. I have to say, I really like the way it works and it gets knives really sharp. My friends knife is now very sharp and ready to use in the field.

You are probably thinking the Work Sharp Guided Sharpening System is expensive, but you’d be wrong. At $59.95, it’s not only reasonable, it’s a sound investment. I am most certainly recommending this to anyone who wants to sharpen their own blades. Now I need to go find a few more blades to sharpen!