# Ken Onion WorkSharp edition



## GaryWGraley (Feb 14, 2015)

Now, I see that most of you guys and gals are died in the wool stoner's and rightly so, stones do a wonderful job of sharpening your blades!

I had heard about the Ken Onion WorkSharp edition for a while and was interested but not enough to pull the trigger. Well a lady at work had a sizeable block of kitchen knives she needed to have sharpened up, I figured that made my rationalization strong to be able to justify getting one and hopefully get more sharpening jobs for kitchen knives from folks at work. Didn't want to have people mailing me knives, just a few here and there from work was all I was hoping for.

So, it arrived, she brought her block in, they were German knives, Wusthof brand and they were in dire need of attention!!! I used the Ken Onion on all of them and it did a really nice job, quick too and no heat build up that I could feel. As some of the youtube videos suggested, as you drew the knife across, you stop the belt with the tip still on the belt so as not to round the tip. I went through several grits and finished up on some shapton glass stones to get any final burr off and then stropped on a leather strop. The resulting edges cut very well and the belts gave the bevels more of a convex type profile at the shoulder of the bevel.

I put a yellow sticky note on the side of the block that said 'Block 'O' Death' which seemed appropriate  I rubber banded two handles at a time while the knives were in the block, which caused them to be pinched together and made it safer for me and her to transport back as they wouldn't slide out of the block while rubber banded. 

I was pretty pleased with the results, but no other takers at work, but, I have used the little belt sander like a miniature belt sander for other things, such as grinding down the kick on one of my folders to let the blade lower into the handle better.

The lady at work was very happy...until...she was cleaning a few of them up and grabbed about 6 of them by the handles and in the middle was one of the small paring knives, which when she gripped the bundle, the smaller knife was squeezed out like a small fish jumping out of a fish bowl and dropped down and sliced the side of her foot, inside part of her left foot, she was wearing sandals so that was exposed skin. A rush to the hospital and 7 stitches later she was ok, but the bill ended up being over $1k when all was said and done :scared4: when she came into work with it all bandaged up I felt so bad, but she said the doc said the cut was very clean and neat  I told her I'll give her some cards so she can hand them out at the emergency room next time.

She says she is keeping that sticky note on the block!

I've since had one other lady that brought in two very LARGE knives to sharpen, they were from Argentina I believe, never heard of the brand before, they had white plastic handles much like Victorinox has. Both knives were also in need of some care and the Ken Onion worked great, she expressed that she didn't want them THAT sharp, she had heard about the other lady's experience and said that her parents would be using these knives when they start their canning process, and that they were both in their late 80's, great, I figured if something happens due to the blade's keenness, I'll be on the nightly news !!! lol but she said she warned them both to take great care with them. I didn't take them to the higher grit of belts or to my shapton stones, but the resulting edges were very toothy and sliced receipt paper cleanly so they should handle their canning stuff pretty good I think.

Just wanted to share about the Ken Onion model, if you have friends that have lower end kitchen knives that need some edge work, this may be a real boon for you to be able to get them back in cutting order pretty quick.

G2


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## Keith Sinclair (Feb 14, 2015)

I know Ken Onion is known for Outdoor type blades. Do not care for his Chef Knives have sharpened a few.

The Work Sharp looks like a decent sharpener, I like that it claims to put on a convex edge. Lowest angle is 15% go lower than that for thinning on a stone. 

Also you mention Gary you finished up on a couple shaptons & stropped on leather. Once a kitchen knife is trained sharpening and touchups don't take much time at all if you are a good freehand sharpener.

Of coarse for the masses who have no interest in learning freehand, this could be an option that would work as you said on lower end kitchen knives that most people use.


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## Mrmnms (Feb 14, 2015)

I was given one of these by a guy I do knives for. He had it for a couple days and went through almost all the belts it came with. They were shot. I suspect he tried to do too much with them. I re did his kit and we called it a trade. It is a definite improvement over the previous model. You can sharpen to 15 degrees . You can adjust the speed . It will convex your blades. I've used it on a couple of very thin knives and old commercial boning knives with fresh belts. It did a pretty good job. I could see this for anybody not obsessed with knives. I won't be giving up my stones.


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## GaryWGraley (Feb 14, 2015)

I agree, I still love my sharpening stones and for my folders I've not tried the Ken Onion with those, the stones suit me better, but if I had to sharpen a friends folder that was in very bad shape, I might give it a try.

It was pretty intuitive to use so I wouldn't see anyone having too much trouble with it, but you can't make things totally idiot proof  I picked up several belts for it and that seemed to work well.

And yep, once I have the initial edges/bevels set, I would use the stones to tune them up, in fact the lady from work brought in the two paring knives as they see the most work and I sharpened them up there at my desk on my shaptons.

Now the shaptons I have are made to be used with the Edgepro system, so they are on aluminum backs, I hold the stone in one hand, between my thumb and pinky and the knife in my right hand and free hand sharpen using that method, for me it provides very positive feed back of where the stone angle and blade angles are in relation to each other.

I do have some of the Shapton glass bench stones that I don't use and would like to part with, 500 grit, 2k and 8k stones if anyone is interested email or pm me.

G2


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## Vesteroid (Feb 14, 2015)

Gary,

Your pushing a string uphill with this group. Stones or nothing here, more or less. I even gave up my edge pro after a few months here.


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## GaryWGraley (Feb 14, 2015)

Yep, but, it's good to know you have options, and one that produces them pretty quickly but I figured like you said, most will turn their head and maybe sneer just a little  but, it also might give them something to think about.

We all have friends that are NOT knife crazy as we are and they all know that we are the people to see if they need something sharpened, most of their knives you'd not want to even have your stones look at them, let alone be rubbed by them  so for those times, this is a viable option to help keep friends happy without the expense of your good stones.

G2


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## Mrmnms (Feb 14, 2015)

You make a good point. Not everybody has high end knives. It is well suited to a lot of stuff. I use a 30 inch and 48 inch belt for thinning cheap knives at times too.
I pulled it out for a couple of Forschers and old Henkels tonight. ( outside in my unheated summer kitchen) They'll be fine. 


GaryWGraley said:


> Yep, but, it's good to know you have options, and one that produces them pretty quickly but I figured like you said, most will turn their head and maybe sneer just a little  but, it also might give them something to think about.
> 
> We all have friends that are NOT knife crazy as we are and they all know that we are the people to see if they need something sharpened, most of their knives you'd not want to even have your stones look at them, let alone be rubbed by them  so for those times, this is a viable option to help keep friends happy without the expense of your good stones.
> 
> G2


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## GeneParmesan (Oct 17, 2022)

This thread is a little old, but I want to get this message out into the internet:

In case you are new to sharpening and are wandering through the internet trying to decide if a belt grinder, or for that matter any machine that promisses fast results, is for you considere the following:

An electric belt grinder is not a good tool to sharpen your knive, if you are a beginner.
That you can sharpen a knive in a few minutes is a bug, not a feature. Unless you are sharpening knifes regularly.

Because you are sharpening much faster the margin of error becomes very small. There is a significant risk to produce an overgrind as shown in the picture below.







Please note that this is a relative thick knive. If you just bought a thin japanese knife such errors will hapen much easier.
In retrospect the Work Sharp is not a tool for me to sharpen my knifes but rather a tool that I might use to completely reprofile my knifes or to round the back of my knifes.

I had this picture still laying around on my hard drive so I thought why not posting a little context about this tool before deleting the picture from my hard drive.


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## blokey (Oct 17, 2022)

GeneParmesan said:


> This thread is a little old, but I want to get this message out into the internet:
> 
> In case you are new to sharpening and are wandering through the internet trying to decide if a belt grinder, or for that matter any machine that promisses fast results, is for you considere the following:
> 
> ...


A certain member of this forum will be very upset.


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## Jae1L (Oct 17, 2022)

GeneParmesan said:


> This thread is a little old, but I want to get this message out into the internet:
> 
> In case you are new to sharpening and are wandering through the internet trying to decide if a belt grinder, or for that matter any machine that promisses fast results, is for you considere the following:
> 
> ...


what grit do you start with? I was thinking of getting one, but I guess I have to think twice


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## BillHanna (Oct 17, 2022)

Jae1L said:


> what grit do you start with? I was thinking of getting one, but I guess I have to think twice


@coxhaus


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## GeneParmesan (Oct 17, 2022)

@Jae1L 
I started with the medium grit belt.
The problem is that you have to pull the knife very evenly through the device. If you are in one area slower then the rest this overgrinds will appear.

Also due to the high amount of material that is removed I would never ever use such device on a thin knive. I mean some of these knifes are so thin that they bend to the side by the pressure of your fingernail (this is what we call 'Nagelgängig' in German Example Video).

For such knifes sharpening by hand with a 1000 grit stone would be the fastest thing I would do.


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## coxhaus (Oct 17, 2022)

GeneParmesan said:


> This thread is a little old, but I want to get this message out into the internet:
> 
> In case you are new to sharpening and are wandering through the internet trying to decide if a belt grinder, or for that matter any machine that promisses fast results, is for you considere the following:
> 
> ...


To me that looks like a steel issue with someone starting out hard and reducing the press as they go. I have seen that before on knives. It would be hard to do on a Worksharp Ken Onion unless you just stopped moving and ground away one spot. You would have to do it on purpose and then fix it so it would be a nice curve.

The Worksharp Ken Onion is the fastest way I know of to sharpen German knives. I have at least 30 knives that I keep sharp. I do not want to use stones as they are too slow.


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## GeneParmesan (Oct 18, 2022)

I think everybody has to decide for themselves if they rather believe that I just stopped moving and ground away one spot on purpose when using the Work Sharp and then fixed it so it would be a nice curve. Or if this is the result of handling the device not properly. A thing that could easily happen to you if you are a novice or not using the tool regularly.

@blokey
Was coxhaus the certain someone you mentioned?


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## coxhaus (Oct 18, 2022)

GeneParmesan said:


> I think everybody has to decide for themselves if they rather believe that I just stopped moving and ground away one spot on purpose when using the Work Sharp and then fixed it so it would be a nice curve. Or if this is the result of handling the device not properly. A thing that could easily happen to you if you are a novice or not using the tool regularly.
> 
> @blokey
> Was coxhaus the certain someone you mentioned?


At least show us a picture of you holding the knife on the Worksharp.

And I have seen that with old knives and steels. It is one of the downfalls of using a steel wrong.


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