Work Sharp Knife and Tool Sharpener Ken Onion Edition – Item of the Day
Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is Work Sharp Knife and Tool Sharpener Ken Onion Edition. A few years ago I was asked my opinion of electric knife sharpeners on the air. My opinion in short was NOT GOOD, having examined many, they all have one thing in common, well two, first they don’t really work, second they damage knives. I also said if anyone finds a good one, let me know and I will evaluate it.
Then someone called in who had just bought Work Sharp he was quite satisfied with it and asked me to evaluate it. The Work Sharp comes in two models
- The Basic Model – for 69 Dollars
- The Ken Onion Edition for 129 Dollars – Currently on Sale for $118
The chief difference between the two being that the Ken Onion edition handles knife angles from 15-30 degrees and is 100% integrated. It also has some added features like a blade guide and I prefer the way the belts are removed. So while the caller bought the base model I opted to buy the upgraded model.
When the unit arrived, considering Patrick Roherman’s comments on the Work Sharp that you can read here, I decided to start our with a “junk knife”, a discolored old plastic handled Mora in the back of the drawer seemed to suffice. It did have a faint remainder of an edge but had been well abused. I started with the coarsest (sharpening belt), chose a 20 degree angle and went to work, 5 minutes including two belt switches to finer grain belts and my knife was arm hair shaving sharp.
From there I touched up a few of my everyday kitchen knives using the fine belt, very quick a pass or two and nice and sharp. Time for a real test I thought. We have a small cheap Santoku Knife that was not just dull, the edge was gone. My wife kept abusing it and I just never fixed it. So I dropped down the the coarsest belt they give you, one for “sharpening tools and fixing knives”. There was literally no edge at all, and lots of dings and nicks in the steel. Figured a 18 degree angle would work, dialed it in, and went to work.
Total job took me about 15 minutes (going really slow to learn the tool) but in the end, once again I had a bare patch of skin on my forearm as proof the tool works and works well.
Again I invite you to read Patrick’s comments on this tool both pro and con. I will point out one of his cons that the belts are “proprietary and expensive”, should be taken with a lump of salt. Patrick is a pro who sharpens thousands upon thousands of knives, the belts are 10 bucks a set on prime and would sharpen a LOT of knives for the homesteader before needing replacement. And I think Patrick’s final comment sums it up perfectly, “If I didn’t have the equipment I have I would probably consider purchasing one myself.”
I do want to point out that my fast results may be partly because I both do know how to manually sharpen and do have some machining experience. You may want to pick up some true crappy junk to practice on. One thing Patrick said about it is that the short belts can over heat faster. I agree but you get the hang of it pretty fast and it is variable speed so that helps you learn slowly as well.
My advice is if you want sharp knives and don’t want to rely on a pro to sharpen them for you, get one of these and learn to use it. I know a guy that sharpens knives at a Farmers Market for 5 bucks a knife for small knives and 10 for larger ones. When you do the math it doesn’t take long for a tool like this to pay for itself.
And personally I see the extra money for the Ken Onion Edition (Ken is an award winning custom knife maker by the way), well worth the extra cost. No extra parts to loose, easier belt changes, more flexibility, and sharpens more tools than the base model. That said if you just want something for your kitchen and carry knives, the Basic One will likely make you happy too and not stretch your budget.
Again though, I do want to caution PLEASE if you get one, spend some time using cheapo practice knives with it before putting your expensive blades into it. And I would go ahead and pick up a second set of belts right away too. The cheapest practice knives I can recommend to practice with are something I think everyone should have a bunch of anyway, and you should not get these on Amazon, get them from a dirt cheap company called BudK.
The knife is a mora clone called the wahoo killer, these are used by every fishing guide I know in South Florida. To these guys time is money so when one gets to dull to cut bait they toss it out and buy a new one. At 3 bucks a piece they are a good value and frankly you won’t care if you screw one up.
Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com
P.S. – Since I ran this item the first time in 2016 over 200 members of this audience purchased one of these tools. I have heard back from ONE and only ONE who had a problem, where a part broke.
They contacted Work Sharp who promptly apologized about the part, said just throw it away and immediately sent them a brand new one. I am now absolutely sold on this product and more so the company that stands behind it.
I have been looking at one of these. I saw it first on late night TV, and you know how that stuff always looks cool at 2 am. The local hardware store is selling them and for a while they had a demo set up at the gun counter. About every guy that walked by pulled out their EDC knife and tried it out. I may have to get one now.
I’ve owned a Work Sharp sharpener for several years now. And, I love it. One day a month I go through and sharpen all of the knives and scissors in the house. It’s also great for sharpening things like mower blades, shovels, and other outdoor equipment.
I have been using the smaller/cheaper model (Work Sharp WSKTS Knife and Tool Sharpener) for over a year now. I’m liking it a lot, for most of my cutting tools. Work slow and on fine knives so you don’t remove too much or change the cutting angle.
Jack, I’ve. been using the base model for a couple of years now. Most of what I use it for is to sharpen garden tools ( machete, lawn mower blades) but do use them on the wife’s kitchen knives (she really is abusive to them) . No complaints. Works well.
I’ve got one and will be bringing it to the Barter Blanket in October if anyone is interested!
I have the standard version. When I bought it failed very quickly (first 20 minutes of use, the motor died) I contacted the company and they replaced it in short order with another complete kit and let me keep the extra belts. The unit sharpens knives and scissors great. One thing I have not mastered yet is the tip of the knife. I don’t end up with a good pointy tip. It gets rounded off. I should watch the videos probably!
As you finish you do have to free hand that last bit of the tip a bit, it takes some practice and some concentration.
This would work best for stamped knives. Forged knives, like the one in the picture, have a bolster. The bolster is the thick metal between the blade and handle. Anyway, on a knife meant to contact the cutting board, like the chef knife in the picture, it will remove metal in front of the bolster. Over time it will remove enough metal so that the bolster contacts the cutting board before the back of the blade so you can’t slice all the way through the food.
I don’t think that makes any sense at all given you control what you remove and where you remove it from.
If you put a forged chef knife with a bolster in it and it starts sharpening a fraction of an inch ahead of the bolster, eventually the bolster will click on the cutting board before the back of blade hits in a rocking motion. I think it would work great for stamped knives or any knife that doesn’t need to contact a cutting board like paring, boning, filleting knives, etc. Anyway, I really enjoy your show and great variety of guests you interview. Thanks for your service!
Well first again you control where you do or do not start sharpening. You are just not making ANY sense here. I get what you are saying but it doesn’t matter and would apply to ANY method of sharpening.
Yes, it would apply to any method of sharpening. What I was ineffectively trying to say was if you have a prized forged chef knife and are lucky enough to have a competent local sharpener I would pay him the $5, and sharpen ALL of my other knives on this.
I would also like to thank you for the influence you’ve had on me the last few years. I listened to you talk about soul sucking jobs and the freedom of having your own business. Also, your shows on start up businesses. You helped encourage me to start a, you guessed it,…..a Knife Sharpening business! I’ve been at it about a year and its giving me some income, but not enough to quit my RN job of 30 years. I’m not worried about this little machine hurting my business, I know the world is a big place. I just didn’t want the people in our community thinking one device could do everything. When people bring me bolstered knives to sharpen that have a “reverse bow” from a pull through device I charge extra because it’s not just a sharpening, but a repair with more metal to remove, thus more of my time.
Thanks for all you do.
Kevin in central PA.
This looks awesome. Could this be used safely on Japanese knives with high Rockwell score? 61+?
Bit late here but my Ken Onion does an excellent job on my Japanese-made Shun knives (https://shun.kaiusaltd.com/), which are between 60-62 Rockwell depending on the knife. The Ken Onion is the only thing I trust to sharpen them, outside of having the factory sharpen them.
Jack, do you think this tool could be used in a European home, with a different grid voltage (220V @ 50 Hz)? I could’nt find this information on the manufacturer’s web page.
it runs on 110 so you need a voltage converter
These are nice sharpeners and I would definitely take Jacks suggestion and practice on a cheap knife to start. I made the mistake of using a decent, but still cheap, Spyderco knife one of my first times. The results were a nice rounded tip because I wasn’t practiced on the technique yet.
Keep in mind this will give you a slight convex to your edge. For most of you knives it won’t matter, I definitely wouldn’t put your higher end knives through one of these.
For more control I’d really look at the KME sharpener with diamond stones. It’s going to take you at least 5 times longer but you can really dial in your edge angle and sharpness.