How to use the Ken Onion Work sharp outdoor sharpener with blade grinding attachment. watch part 2 for my good & bad review on the ken onion worksharp • KEN ONION WORK SHARP G...
Lol. Dude's like "F that comprehensive and detailed manual that comes with the sharpener, I'm just gonna drag this knife through it and make a video about it."
Wtf this dude sharpens knifes and talks about knives for a living obviously a experienced person. Has their own way of doing the instructions that say don’t start the belt then place he blade is for people to not fuck their shit up too bad but some one who knows what they’re doing don’t need do that
I have the Ken Onion version with the blade grinder and it does wonders for my all my Bark Rivers (convexed fixed blades). I definitely practiced on some cheaper knives first, but it's really straightforward to learn how to use and I can't argue with the results.
The video in their Amazon page shows that you're only supposed to pull the tip until it's half way across the belt so you don't get a rounded tip. It also says that the low speed is for knives only and the high speed is for tools only. I know someone pointed out in the second video the thing about not getting rounded tips like I said earlier. Thanks for the review, I was on the fence before I watched your 2 videos on this, and now I just ordered one. Keep up the good work!
For folding knives and most fixed blades I prefer a fixed angled system, even after using this for a very long time now, I mostly use it for grinding, large fixed blades, or repairing damage, it does make quick work out of Sharpening, although the edges will never compare to a fixed angle system or freehand
Today I sharpened approximately 20 knives for my Mom’s friend, I was expecting around 6-7 but they bought about 20 which were never sharpened. It took a while but when I was done all 20 blades were very sharp. I really like using the blade grinding system. My Mom’s friend was very happy. I am giving serious thought to getting Tormek T-8 along with the knife and tool guides. I would have to practice with it before offering knife and tool sharpening services. But the Tormek is rated for commercial use. Once experienced with it than I could charge for knife sharpening services provided that I get properly licensed. Glad I have lots of belts for the Ken Onion Blade grinding system. I was able to remove the chips in the edge of one of the blades which had lots of chips and made blade smooth and sharp, Typically I sharpen 4 to 7 at a time. This amount I did today is not normal,
Yes its definitely fast, and works great especially on knives like kitchen knives, i do prefer freehanding my own edges, i find they look better and are a bit sharper, or a fixed angled guided sharpening system edge, over a belt edge but for kitchen knives or certain fixed blades it works great
Today using the Ken onion blade grinder attachment, I sharpen my best friend’s kichen knives and after how sharp he saw I made them, he brought his hunting knives out and I sharpened all his hunting knives to 22.5 degrees very sharp edge. Only one blade I have to finish doing for him it’s the top part of the Kershaw diver knife top part in front of the saw blade part of Kershaw divers knife. Bottom edge is prefect. Top front straight edge requires more work to get edge to 22.5 degrees. I finished all knives with cloth stropping belt and cloth polishing belt, The knives cut very clean after that. I enjoyed that time with my true best friend. My Friend’s work bench was perfect height that I could stand without bending my back.
Thats awesome!! Its great putting an edge on a knife, most people dont know what a sharp knife is aside from the edge from a factory, and thats usually gone on the first day, if people new the difference from using dull to sharp they would never use a dull knife
Of ALL installation/setup/review videos I have watched so far and I have watched plenty, this one is by far the best. So easy to understand. Thank you.
great video. Love your channel! I make a few knives but always struggle with putting a clean secondary bevel (first new cutting edge) on my knives with stones. Do you think this would work for that? Thanks
@@NeevesKnives no doubt. If you set it up at the right viewing height, it appears to be easy to keep the knife flat and at the same time have a good view so as to keep the edge perpendicular to the belt at all times. Like when u were sharpening the kukri - you were keeping it nice and flat.
On my original worksharp I was told that your supposed to start it once the knife Is set & then pull it thru & stop it when the tip gets half way thru the belt. I cant remember if it was on the instructions or I watched one of their videos but i was having issues rounding the tips & it solved it. Wish I would've spent more & got the Ken onion.
Using the blade grinder attachment, are you minimizing the convex blade angle (at 23:42......) by placing the blade edge on top of the belt roller closest to you? Can you start grinding at the tip and move towards the heel to stop blade point rounding?
I'm pretty sure the manual tells you to not pull the knife all the way across the belt like that you're supposed to stop it manually with the tip in the middle of the belt so you don't grind It Off
😆 i had to move the system a little because you were messing up my angle, thanks for watching it so far into the video sounds like you made it to the end, pt2 is up and is my opinion on the system, but its hella long, but the beginning is the good and bad parts and then i compare edges
Just ordered one. Coming from just using a spydeco sharpmaker. I am looking forward to speeding up my sharpening time of the harder steels, and the edge angle adj range will be super helpful.
If your wanting an extremely good system from work sharp try there precision guided system, you can get incredible edges and they just came out with an upgraded system, also you can get amazing aftermarket parts to really bring it to another level
@@NeevesKnives I have one similar in function to that, the edge pro apex. I can never get an even edge angle near the tip. with knives that have a good amount of belly. I am hoping this belt drive sharpener will work better for my amateur sharpening skills. I wish spyderco would make a sharpmaker with an insert so you could get different edge angles besides just the 20 or 15 per side options. That with their diamond stones would make sharpening a lot easier.
@@paulthomas8986 using a belt at the tip IMO if tear trickier than a fixed system, the trick with a fixed system is to use the center of the stone, in many cases the top takes longer than the rest of the edge because there more steel because it’s thicker at least in most cases
here is a caution for any device like this. I come to this from Gem carving and polishing which is much more involved but the thing that is similar is the use of various grits and the problem with how many people do this is they carry grit from a course paper to the next finer sandpaper (or whatever) when the knife is not cleaned well. It takes very little grit from, say a 600grit stone or sandpaper to contaminate a 1000grit sandpaper. Although it's not so terribly important, continued failure to clean the knife between grits will eventually make the higher, finer grit much less effective.
Yes definitely practice a bit, and you will quickly get good in my follow up video i address the things i was doing wrong, and the edges are way better, your supposed to stop before pulling all the way out
I’ve had this system a long time, been using the grinder attachment a couple years. I was putting razor sharp edges on knives but lately it seems like I’m losing my sharpening mojo. I can’t put my finger on the problem. I’m thinking I might try like a 23 def angle instead of 20 and see if I can get better results. I dunno.
Help: I have used this grinder attachment and follow the instruction to the T and once I get past the 220 belt the edge does not even shave arm hair I don’t know what it is I’m doing wrong 😑
Hell id be loving the anonymous fella who gifted all of them to the channel and I think by him gifting them to the channel that means all of us so maybe a give away with one of them and not only to patreons would be absolutely amazing to pass on his kindness and make somebody's dreams come true as many people will likely never even hold much less own some of these $1k+ knives and some guy remaining anonymous just gives an entire collection of them away damn near lol blows my mind
Been using this system a couple few years. It’s fast for profiling new knives and kitchen, fillet and other working knives. I don’t use it for the most part on quality EDC knives with the exception of initial profiling or working out a chip then I go to the Precision Adjust. I’m miffed at WS for bundling their additional Precision Adjust grits with a bunch of crap I don’t need. Because of this I might go to another rod adjust type system. Hope they are listening to their consumers?
@@GG-ml3vr …. There are a few things that can be done to achieve a flatter, less convex grind. When grinding move your edge close to the roller where there is less flex in the belt than in the middle. Belt flex is caused by pressure, so applying the least amount of pressure produces the flattest grind. Also, Worksharp used to sell (not certain they still do) a set of stiffer belts? At the end of the day the machine won’t produce a totally flat grind. That’s not what it was engineered to do. The system produces a convex grind which is very durable and sharp. Hope this helps….
I use a cheap silverline power file and an angle grinder for taking meat off blades i e profiling, I must say I am a bit disappointed with the ken onion I wasted 300 pounds sterling on it, having that said I can see it would be ok for the novice who cant use flat stones
Is it okay to do it with the edge facing toward you instead of away from you. I did a few knives last week for the first time and just watching the videos again I'm realizing I did it the opposite way of most everyone's videos😅
I thought about getting one of these for my big fixed blades and axes . I have quite a few 7-12 inch knives and convex edges on many of them. I doubt I would want to do my folders on it, or at least not my good ones, but knives like my BK-7 would be a breeze to do on this system. Much quicker and easier than the old school method. Sharpening a 10 inch blade on a 6 inch long stone can be a pain in the ass.
Bit late to the video but an additional piece of hardware i like to add is the Foredom variable speed foot pedal. Max out the speed and when i get to the tip slow down the motor
Ken Onion alone is perfect for pocket knives, outdoor fixed blade knees....etc but not for kitchen knives. I don t want to put a convex edge on kitchen knives. For those latter, the grinder attachment device is perfect though!
been waiting for this vid. I'm always down for new belt grinders, One of my favorite benchtop tools if not my no,1 fave. But I'm not gunna lie to someone I consider my homie, I was cringing a lot in this vid, and really don't know what I was feeling (I'm not good at explaining that) other than maybe anxiety/nervous/suspense/fear/, I had to skip to the other attachment and thought it maybe handy, then started to winse again, lol, maybe I'm a puss. I still think it'd be handy if it wasnt almost 200 bucks, but many many grinder are much more. Thx, I look forward to your next vid on this.
Hi from England, I got one of these after spending hundreds on different stones. I do think its a bit mickey mouse, the leather strop and compound is useless and I dont know about in the USA but the belts are very expensive here, plus I can only buy a set of 5 all different grits. I want a set of course belts, the way I got round it is using my powerfile belts which are only half inch wide but are 18 inch length, so not ideal. I think if you can master stones you can get better edges + sharpen your scandi blades correctly. Thanks for your videos you are a good teacher
On first attachment one side cuts toward the edge ,the other away is there a difference or chance of grabbing? Second attachment looks safer , especially when stropping
The feeling I got when you dulled that blade at 23:00 was almost like watching someone get kicked in the balls. I could feel the pain but couldn't look away.
Grinder attachment, you will be thankful honestly I don't even use it without the grinder attachment and you will quickly get the hang of it with better results
Wth the cloth stropping belts I am now honing my kitchen knives weekly with the green chromium oxide honing compound seeing how long I can go before when the kitchen knives will needed to be actually sharpened.
Thats very smart, most people dont do that and its so important, you will keep your knives so much sharper for so much longer just make sure you rinse off because it can cause cancer, my favorite compound is the white
Yeah i learned that and i didnt stop my belt in the second video but i did stop pulling the blade all the way out wich works great my edges are way better now
You did not use that little yellow angle on the other side of the grinder I am interested in knowing if you can sharpen a knife using that or something similar.
I always liked the idea of this but the speed it sharpened scares me. If it can sharpen that quick it can really mess a knife up quickly. At least that has been my perception.
Yeah you can turn it down , and ofcours you can mess something up if your not careful but thats with anything, you definitely want to practice with a few knives first
I own this exact system, minus the edge grinder attachment. By the trigger there's a little wheel you can rotate to adjust the speed. I always use the slowest setting. There's also a cardboard pamphlet that recommends the spin rate on the belt. Most are listed slow-medium, a few are listed as slow only. None of them recommend high speed or even medium for that matter. I just followed the guide and have never ruined any of my edges on this worksharp. It's not as precise as stones but it would save time on any edges that need a lot of resharpening if used in tandem with stones.
Question: could you use the flat, vertical part of the grinder to sharpen a knife to a flat grind instead of convex? Do you think pressing a blade against is would wear our the flat piece of plastic backing?
The more tight you make the best the flatwr the bevel, so there's ways to get the bevel flatter, but if you want a flat bevel I would just go with a fixed angle system like the work sharp precision sharpener
For your expensive pocket knives would you trust this sharpener (or trust yourself) or is it safer to send them back to the manufacturer? I'm not concerned about kitchen knives so much, just don't want to screw up my other blades.
My setup is complete, but I still wonder how accurate the angle can be maintained when the blade is transferred from the stand/platform to the belt. Not realistic to think that you could keep it that fixed without some degree of fluxuation. This kind of precision can't be achieved without locking it in.
I guess with the belt rotating counterclockwise, this sharpener forever puts an end to the eternal debate of edge-leading or edge-trailing, eh? Right side of the blade is always going to be edge-trailing and left side will always be edge-leading. Interesting…
Is there any way to use this attachment and AVOID convex edges? Does it come with some sort of platen, or is convex the only possible option? I'm looking for some sort of tabletop belt system but convex is a no-go. Thanks!
I would recommend using the finest belts for ceramic, the coarse grts won't work and with make for a harder time, with ceramic you want really fine grt, usually you want to use fine diamonds thats what I recommend most.
With the first sharpener u said to pull blade straight thru at the same level yet ur hand moved up at the end of each pass. Which is correct? Also u didn’t explain which speed settings to choose & why. The last thing is cutting paper before & after each sharping would have really showed the different. Thanks for another good vid!
I showed cutting paper with some of the knives, and i should have explained the speeds better, i prefer a lower speed to keep the temperature down, the faster the hotter, unless im doing something very thick that needs a bit more steel removal then i will turn it up a bit, also i am making a follow up video about it today, i had to edit and cut it down and i think i did do all that and cut it out because the video would have been an hour, but i appreciate your constructive criticism
you have to move your arm up at the end in order to follow the curve of the belly up to the tip, same as if you were free handing, you need to life your elbow up to follow the belly up to the tip. If you don't, the grind at the tip will be way off from the rest of the grind.
It definitely has its place I would use it for machetes and lawnmower blades but there is no way I would put my expensive knives in there to be sharpened too much metal dust everywhere and a lot of potential for scratching the side of your blade and definitely round in your tip off
Thats why i think the attachment is important, also i was doing it wrong and addressed it in the 2nd video, and it stops the tips from rounding, but after you get used to the attachment you can get some decent edges
@@NeevesKnives Handheld and static belt sanders usually have a flat steel plate that the belt rests upon (platen), to ensure a flat finish. I'd have thought that would be beneficial here, too. Perhaps the flexing of the belt when pressure is applied reduces the aggressiveness of the cut intentionally. I'm a wood machinist though, not a metal machinist! Thank you for your content. I've really been enjoying it!
How come when you were sharpening the knives you did not, at anytime, keep it on one side until you created a burr, then change sides and create a burr before beginning alternating sides. That step is to truly set the profile correctly, but I did not see you doing it. Why? Thanks
I'm a professional sharpener so I know when and what I'm looking for in a burr, I don't remember all the details of this video, but I can assure you that I made my burr correctly, even though I'm a freehander understanding the burr and how it's created or when it's ready is still the same, I have an entire play list teaching knife Sharpening, I also offer a Sharpening service
@@NeevesKnives thanks for you response but IMHO when you do a video it is to be for education. If someone is trying to learn, you can cause them confusion. I don’t doubt your experience, just saying if you choose to do it different than by the book it would be best to make a clear statement in the beginning of the video. Thanks
@@rottiejakeluke you don't have to do one side fully before flipping you can work both sides at the same time. It's about watching your grit pattern, I've got an entire Sharpening play list teaching about Sharpening
Sure looks like it'll work for most basic knives. If you want a really sharp edge though, I just don't think this is the way. It's going to murder your heat treatment at the very tip
Yes and im definitely going to do another long term video i did a second one to this one that talks about some of my mistakes but hopefully the next video i do will do it better justice
I got one of these and hardly ever use it because the replacement belts are way over priced. I use my Lansky sharpener most of the time it does a better job just takes a little longer.
As you pull your hand out you are turning the blade and not holding the angle. Watch the vídeo abs you will see. You said you are holding the angle but you are not, specially when comming tô the tip.
Great video. Thank you. I DO Appreciate what you have done. I found it too long for what I needed to know. We are not all newbies.. ___ ___ Suggestion ONLY: 1. Video for young “20 to 40 year olds” less chat more demonstration without so much dialogue. 2. The vid you made for older, slow .. mature people who need it over explained so they can follow .. slow. _ Two different videos for different markets/ genres/ cognitive challenged Jerry’s .
I know this video is old but once the tip is in the middle of the belt stop the belt, It will avoid rounding the tip from pulling it all the way through and slow the belt when learning, believe me I learned the hard way 🤦
bad boys! I'm just now watching this and I don't think you caught on to the whole stop with your tip on the center of the belt thing and then you can actually keep a tip on your knives lol
@@NeevesKnives yeah I saw that after I posted this... Pretty cool of worksharp to send this stuff out for you to demo and just have another means of putting a decent edge on blades quite quickly especially that blade grinder attachment! I could see that thing being very useful but man I too love the tranquility of hand sharpening an edge and I challenge you to take your M4 Gayle Bradley to a very high polish and you will see what this steel is really made of as it just gets sharper and sharper as you go and it never looses it's bite or stickiness!
Nice Video. But Stop pulling when the Tip of the Knife is in the middle of the Belt for dont round up the Tip. And put the Knife on the guides, when the sharpener dont run and start it, if the blade sit in the right position.
There is no better system out there. There are much less expensive aftermarket belts that go super fine to blade shaping grit too and 1/2 the price. I'll go head to head with anybody with stones with mine. I also use a leather strop with compound after going super fine.
Yal know you buy a 1x30 belt sander for less than $100 an then just get some belts, the pros use a 1x72 belt sander but you cant the 1x30 belts in the fine grits, just sayin
Neeves u F ed up that tip on crkt!!!!!! U actually cooked it sideways when u got to the tip. This is why people just need to watch your shapreing vids go old school.
