WORK SHARPBenchtop Woodworking Tool Sharpener

The first photo is of just some of my wood chisels that I sharpened in just 30 minutes on the Work Sharp WS3000, right after it was delivered. It's the perfect sharpener.I will note that I sent this particular machine back to Amazon for replacement, because the fence adjustment was so difficult right out of the box. I had to use channel locks to move it. The new machine works perfectly.***Use DRY lubricant on the fence adjustment screw, or it will get difficult to adjust.***I was about to buy a Tormek sharpening system, which is known as the best system. It's extremely expensive. I have a Bucktool wet utility sharpener and 2 other systems.I require these 5 things:1. It has to sharpen all of my chisels and plane irons. I haven't been able to sharpen the vintage butt chisels (except by hand on a stone), because they won't fit into the sled that I own.2. It needs to have multiple grits. The Tormek comes with a 220g wheel. You can hone it with a stone to change the grit, or buy wheels that cost $250+ each.3. I want repeatability. If I sharpen to 25°, I want to keep it at 25°.4. I want simplicity. I don't want something that's difficult to use.5. I want a system that's ready to go. I don't want to carry a 40# machine to my bench. I want to be able to hone a tool in real time, as it's needed.The Work Sharp WS3000 satisfies all of these criteria. It has 120g to 3600g on the wheels, with 3 more grits on the slotted wheel. It's only about 12" x 8" , which means it can sit on my bench, plugged in, ready to go. It's repeatable. I've set the angle to 25° for my chisels. The adjustable fence keeps them square to the wheel. You just gently insert a tool bevel side up and let the Work Sharp do the work. It can't be simpler.I've never flattened the backs of my chisels. I did on the WS. None of my chisels were Sharp, with chips in a couple. Some were extra hard metal. All needed their angles corrected.For the first time, my chisels are scary sharp. They really do shave hair. They glide through soft and hard woods. I'll be honing my plane irons next. They're actually in good shape. My planes are very expensive, made by well-known manufacturers like Veritas and Bridge City Tools. They hold their edges, but it wouldn't hurt to hone them on the 3600g wheel.I'm extraordinary happy with the sharpener. I can finally use my butt chisels, which were sharpened completely wrong, and were unusable. I sharpened a chisel thats well over 100 years old, an heirloom from my husband's grandfather. The sharpener handled chisels with Vanadium.It really is the perfect sharpening system for a small shop.

I love this sharpener. I've only had it a few days and have sharpened every chisel in my workshop. (I'll include a couple of my lessons learned toward the end of this review.) Next up are my narrow plane blades. I didn't purchase the wide-angle attachment but will do so in order to get all my wider plane blades as sharp as my chisels are now. I do all my woodworking by hand, so it's essential to have sharp tools. The Work Sharp 3000 is so effortless and so fast that I could take half a dozen chisels from banged up to perfect in less time than it would usually take me to do one chisel by hand. And going forward it will be a no-brainer to keep every chisel perfectly sharp -- it literally takes less than a minute or two to return a perfect edge to a chisel that has been dulled from ordinary use.Before this, I've tried diamond plates and oil stones for sharpening. I found the diamond plates didn't have a very good feel and didn't provide a good end result, so I had basically settled on oil stones for all my sharpening. For a new chisel I would start on the bench grinder to set the initial hollow bevel then proceed to hand sharpen either with a Veritas Mk.II jig or free-hand. I am a hobby woodworker, so I'd rather not spend all my time sharpening and have no time to do the actual woodworking. Yet I still want tools that are sharp enough to effortlessly pare and plane everything by hand. I probably get there eventually using oil stones but the reality is I don't have enough time in the workshop to become an expert hand sharpener. As a result I would sometimes get a great edge with oil stones, but other times not. The Work Sharp takes out all the guesswork, so the results are beautiful every single time. And it's fast. As long as the basic shape of the chisel is there, all it takes is a couple 2-second touches to each grit to do the job.LESSONS LEARNED* For most tools, I need just a few taps on the 1000-grit disk, a few on the 3600, and a few on the 6000 (bought separately -- the 6000 doesn't come with the machine itself, but in the separate fine-grit pack). If it has been a while since the last sharpening, the 400-grit disk might be helpful, and very occasionally maybe the 220. At the end I pass the chisel over a flat leather strop with honing compound added to it -- I didn't buy the leather wheel but might do so, as that seems like a good final step.* I have a bench grinder that I will continue to use to set the initial hollow bevel on new tools. If my ultimate goal is a 25-degree edge (such as a regular bench chisel) then I'll grind something closer to 20-degrees on the bench grinder. That way the Work Sharp 25-degree setting will add a 25-degree micro-bevel. The beauty of the micro-bevel is you only have to sharpen a small portion of the steel, making it very fast and saving the life of the sharpening sandpaper. If you don't have a bench grinder, then it would be great to use the 20-degree setting on the Work Sharp along with the rougher grits (120, 220) to grind the primary bevel -- but don't go any higher on the grits than that. Switch to the 25-degree setting, start low on the grits, but then work all the way up to the highest numbers.* I find the fence that you adjust based on the widge of the chisel is somewhat unnecessary. You need to leave a little extra room so you can slide the tool up and down the ramp, so it's just as easy simply to push the tool against the wall on the far left or right of the ramp and not worry too much about the adjustable fence.* The sandpaper stuck to the bottom of the ramp isn't the best way to remove the burr. Instead, I simply turn the Work Sharp off and wait for the wheel to stop spinning (that happens pretty quickly), and as long as I have the same grit on both sides of the wheel, I just put the flat base of the chisel on top of the wheel and swipe back a few times. Just know that with this approach you have to be sure you do the same thing with each grit as you work your way up, otherwise the nicely polished base of the chisel will not be polished at the end of sharpening.