Shopsmith Forums

I was cruising the Woodcraft website and was intrigued by the WorkSharp 3000 system they are advertising. Has anyone out there have any experience with either it or a similar item?

BPR

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Unfortunately the 3000 is awfully pricey; and the 2000 only does one bevel angle and won't handle the larger plane irons. (IMO 25 degrees is too shallow for a plane).

I got one from my substantially better half for Christmas. I had casually mentioned many months ago that it looked intriguing, which was followed several weeks later by a very frustrating sharpening session. She took notes and filed them away for future use. Suffice to say, I was extremely happy Christmas morning.
I did what all men do: I took it to the shop to try it out. The manual is well written with simple to follow instructions. Assembly, what little there is, is quite easy. Learning to use it took me all of five minutes. Why, oh why, hadn't this thing been invented sooner? I know there are those out there that swear by their Tormeks, but I could never justify spending $400-$500 on a complete set-up. So, I plodded along for years with grinders and sharpening stones.
The Worksharp is made for woodworking tools, don't plan on being able to sharpen lawnmower blades or scissors with it. I was able to sharpen a four chisel set, a block plane iron, and a smoothing plane iron, before I had to change the sanding discs. I'm always skeptical when an advertisement says "this tool is guaranteed to get your tools razor sharp!" Yeah. Right. Well, the Worksharp does, and then some. Next sharpening project: lathe chisels. Gotta wait for it to warm up a bit more in the shop, though.

Good to have you back, eric. We haven't heard from you for at least two or three months (at least it seems that long).

Hey, Dusty! It's good to be back. I suffered from a case of "forum burnout". I'm a member on several woodworking forums: OWWM, Lumberjocks, SS, SSUG, Woodcentral, etc. Plus a couple of non-WW forums: Enfield Rifle Collectors and Classic Camp Stoves (I kinda went nuts on Classic Camp Stoves, I've got 8 or 9 now, looking for more). So, I just decided to hang back and lurk. I'm feeling better now. Lots of meds, rest, DVR New Yankee Workshop, etc. has me feeling right as rain!!:D

I noticed the price is $199.99 at Woodcraft. I am interested whether or not I can sharpen knives on it, plus wood scrapers and gouges for turning.

BPR

Knives as in "pocket" or knives as in jointer or planer? It's not designed to sharpen either. Nor scrapers. However, it's well designed for lathe gouges, skews, thumbnails, etc. I use the Veritas scraper burnisher/file kit for my scrapers. Love the set-up, good deal, too.

I went to the local Woodcraft and they put on a short demo for me. Yes, it can do knives, both pocket and jointer, as well as kitchen knives. I was impressed with what it could do with stainless steel blades. They also took an old bench chisel and a scraper, complete with nicks in the edge and restored it in a relatively short amount of time to a mirrorlike finish. I was favorably impressed, to say the least.

BPR

Hmmm... I stand corrected. Sharpening knives, etc. is not explained at all in the manual. I need to investigate further. I can attest to getting the mirror like finish and razor sharp edge on my chisels and plane irons. I definitely vouch for this system.