What do you use on your Work Sharp?

[James Spillman]

I figure this is the right forum for this question since the folks here are all about sharpening. I'd like to know what people use on their Work Sharp. Do you stick with their sandpaper or use diamond discs? If you use diamond discs,what brand have you tried? Also, what about honing using the Work Sharp? Thanks.

[Mike Henderson]

I use a diamond plate and then finish on a 8000 water stone. So I put the primary bevel on with the WorkSharp and then a microbevel with the waterstone. This approach is much faster than changing plates and gives an excellent edge. You can see more details of my approach here (http://www.mikes-woodwork.com/SharpeningChisels.htm).

I buy my diamond plates from eBay or Amazon. Haven't found a lot of difference in them.

Mike

[John C Cox]

Up till last week - I only used their standard disks. I have gone through several packs now - as they do wear out.... Kinda expensive for Norton A275 6" PSA disks.. But those are good quality disks and they have the centers already punched.

Last week - I ran out of coarse disks and decided to go on the hunt to see what I could come up with locally....

Turns out that 6" PSA AlOx sanding disks are sold at most hardware stores. These have no center hole - so you have to punch your own. Price wise - they run about 25% of Worksharp disks. Grit consistency wise - I am not sure.. But for the coarse grinding disks it probably doesn't matter too much.

I will probably try to find some Norton A275 6" PSA disks in the finer grits and see how those work... I will just have to cut my own center holes...

[Jim Koepke]

Mike,

Your server must be out of service at the moment. Your link wouldn't open for me. (it came back with a server couldn't be found message.)

My powered sharpening unit, a Veritas Mk-11, has some similarities to the Worksharp system. Mostly now it is used for the coarser grits and then the work is finished on stones.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Up till last week - I only used their standard disks. I have gone through several packs now - as they do wear out.... Kinda expensive for Norton A275 6" PSA disks.. But those are good quality disks and they have the centers already punched.

Last week - I ran out of coarse disks and decided to go on the hunt to see what I could come up with locally....

Turns out that 6" PSA AlOx sanding disks are sold at most hardware stores. These have no center hole - so you have to punch your own. Price wise - they run about 25% of Worksharp disks. Grit consistency wise - I am not sure.. But for the coarse grinding disks it probably doesn't matter too much.

I will probably try to find some Norton A275 6" PSA disks in the finer grits and see how those work... I will just have to cut my own center holes...

My luck has been pretty good with these guys:

http://www.supergrit.com/products/products_discs-psa

Not sure if their prices are good for you.

jtk

[Prashun Patel]

I buy $12 diamond lapidary discs on 'bay.
I have them in 150, 250, 500 grit.
I also have a 3000 grit disc. It wears fast. But I charge mine with honing paste and it's fine.

I use mine primarily for establishing bevels. I work above the disc. I just mount the diamond disc to an exiting glass wheel.

Pretty good.

[Stew Hagerty]

I used to have one, but when I did, I used a for-sale sign on it and then bought a Tormek.

I'm SOOO glad I did. I tried everything with the Work Sharp, different types of disks, the platform, different jigs. It was just a regular pain in the butt. It never worked up to what I wanted, it ran through disks like crazy and they were a pain to change, lots of swapping plates back and forth for the different grits.

The Tormek gives me razor sharp edges in a tiny fraction of the time, no disks to buy or change, no plates to swap, and perfect results every time.

Didn't want to hijack or be a Debby downer, I just thought I'd throw it out there.

[Frederick Skelly]

I used to have one, but when I did, I used a for-sale sign on it and then bought a Tormek.

I'm SOOO glad I did. I tried everything with the Work Sharp, different types of disks, the platform, different jigs. It was just a regular pain in the butt. It never worked up to what I wanted, it ran through disks like crazy and they were a pain to change, lots of swapping plates back and forth for the different grits.

The Tormek gives me razor sharp edges in a tiny fraction of the time, no disks to buy or change, no plates to swap, and perfect results every time.

Didn't want to hijack or be a Debby downer, I just thought I'd throw it out there.

I use diamond lapidary disks like others have posted.

Aside: About all I use my Worksharp for now is to flatten the backs of chisels and plane irons. While some folks really love theirs, I'd tend to agree with Stew that it wasn't as useful as I expected, no matter what abrasive I tried. I finally bought a low speed grinder and cbn wheel for setting primary bevels.

Stew, I suspect it takes a mighty long time to set a new bevel angle on a chisel or plane iron on a Tormek. Dang good for sharpening/maintaining the bevel you already have though.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

Your server must be out of service at the moment. Your link wouldn't open for me. (it came back with a server couldn't be found message.)

jtk

I just checked and it's working fine for me. I clicked on the link in my message and it took me to the right place.

Mike

[Ken Fitzgerald]

It worked well for me too, Mike.

[John Schtrumpf]

:D I believe you Jim, Mikes server had "DNS Connectivity Issues" yesterday morning.

https://www.dreamhoststatus.com/pages/incident/575f0f606826303142000510/5aa7f28bfccc4b04d37741f0

[Paul F Franklin]

I use the diamond lapidary disks (amazon) as others have mentioned. But what has helped me the most was making a platform that abuts the disk, in plane with the disk. Then I can use my veritas MKII guide, riding on the platform to hold the tool to be sharpened. Finally, I added a foot switch to control the worksharp. This lets me put the tool in the guide and set the guide on the platform with the edge on the diamond disk before starting the disk by using my foot on the foot switch (freeing both hands to hold the guide in proper alignment.) Then when I have worked up to 3000 grit (the finest diamond disk I have), I switch to an 8000 grit stone (leaving the tool in the guide) for final honing and microbevel. These are not my ideas; pretty sure I picked them up here, but I can get the best sharp I ever have, with the least fiddling, and in the shortest time. I don't use this setup for significant grinding or angle changes; that I do on a grinder.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I use diamond discs found on eBay- made in China. They work fast- I only use the worksharp for setting bevels and fixing nicked edges. I go to the waterstones after that. I do also use the Worksharp for buffing metals using green chromium oxide- like polishing a knife blade. I wet sand the blade first, then polish on the worksharp.

[glenn bradley]

Paper, Diamond Discs and Leather strop. Different ones for different things ;-)

[Jim Koepke]

Sorry for going off topic, but this had to be addressed:


...et's talks about your car. It's screaming "Wash me, please!"

Our car and truck have algae, lichens, dirt and cat paw prints on the theory that thieves are less likely to steal a car they have to wash.

It has worked so far.

jtk

[John C Cox]

So... Next question for my fellow Worksharp-o-philes...

What abrasives do you use and how fine? I was looking for some disks - and I realize I haven't really thought that much about the variety of different grit ratings out there based on the different scales... (Groan, another sharpening rathole..)

For example - the Worksharp Norton P1000 (European scale) is about a 500 grit ANSI - 20 micron... And to me - that seems fairly coarse..

The next step up is their micromesh 6 and 2 micron -That's a huge jump from the 20 micron P1000.... It feels like I need something like a P1500 in there (about halfway between the P1000 and the micromesh...)

[Patrick Chase]

The next step up is their micromesh 6 and 2 micron -That's a huge jump from the 20 micron P1000.... It feels like I need something like a P1500 in there (about halfway between the P1000 and the micromesh...)

20 um to 6 um is only a factor of ~3. That's not a big jump for sharpening IMO.

[Mike Henderson]

So... Next question for my fellow Worksharp-o-philes...

What abrasives do you use and how fine? I was looking for some disks - and I realize I haven't really thought that much about the variety of different grit ratings out there based on the different scales... (Groan, another sharpening rathole..)

For example - the Worksharp Norton P1000 (European scale) is about a 500 grit ANSI - 20 micron... And to me - that seems fairly coarse..

The next step up is their micromesh 6 and 2 micron -That's a huge jump from the 20 micron P1000.... It feels like I need something like a P1500 in there (about halfway between the P1000 and the micromesh...)

You can save yourself a lot of time and effort if you use a coarse grit diamond plate on the WorkSharp to set your primary bevel and then use water stones to finish with a micro-bevel.

There's no need to polish the whole bevel of a chisel - all you need to polish is the about a mm of the edge.

Mike

[Jerry Olexa]

I use a diamond plate and then finish on a 8000 water stone. So I put the primary bevel on with the WorkSharp and then a microbevel with the waterstone. This approach is much faster than changing plates and gives an excellent edge. You can see more details of my approach here (http://www.mikes-woodwork.com/SharpeningChisels.htm).

I buy my diamond plates from eBay or Amazon. Haven't found a lot of difference in them.

Mike

Agree with Mike..advantage of the WS is SPEED, then do your fine sharpening after that.....
I got your pics fine, Mike. Thanks