Work Sharp Benchtop Woodworking Tool Sharpener

Have been looking for a machine to sharpen chisels for a while. Many options of slow rotating grinding wheels out there, but most are too expensive to justify. Sharpeing per hand to initially set up chisels on the other hand is VERY time consuming. The Work Sharp 3000 is in the perfect sweet spot between price, performance and efficiency and I am very happy with the results and sharpness of the chisels. Very easy to set the machine up, very good results and extremely fast and easy to re-sharpen a chisel once it has been base set up and ground.Three areas could be improved on:1) width of the front sharpening port; as it only allows for 2 inch width, one cannot sharpen plane blades that typically are wider than 2 inches;2) Very difficult to read the angle of the sharpening port, particularly if the machine is in use and there are shavings in the viewing window. Wish the numbers/angles would be better visible by coloring the raised numbers;3) previous models of this Sharpener had an accessory which was a platform one could snap onto the machine to use as a base to sharpen wider objects (see point 1). That is no longer availble for this version of the machine. That is a shame. One can build one, but then would have to modify some bolts and fasterners on the machine to put the platform in place. At time of writing (Aug 2024) this accessory is not availble.Other than that, a wonderful machine. Quick, easy and produces outstanding results and shart chisels. Absolutely recommend this product.

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.

This is a long review if you just want the short version skip to the end I go in to probably more detail then anyone ever needed.The product:From the reviews and videos I saw online I gathered that what you're buying is a redesign of the original product. Many people talk about there being a ton of accessories for different tasks and from what I gather and have seen the company just include them in the new system which is nice!The good:-This system utilizes the scary scary sand paper sharpening system which will get blades extremly sharp. You can achieve the same level with oil, whet and plain sand paper this is just much much faster.-The bed that the blades go in have 4-5 positive registers all at the different common sharpening angles so it's super easy to stick blades in and get a consistent grind across the edge. If you have done primarily hand sharpening like I have it will almost feel to easy.-Most plane blades and most chisles will be perfectly suited for the bed, and fit nicely against the wheel.The meh:-this critism I have is really specific and probably doesn't apply to most people. But I bought this mainly to help ease grinding and sharpening of my plane blades especially my cast steel ones. Cast steel is really only found in wooden planes but to get a good consistent grind is a challenge generally due to the size of the blade. Unfortunately this is also the case with this tool it will struggle with wider blades in the bed forcing you to essentially free hand it on top of the disk creating an un even grind.-this tool also struggles with joinery plane blades especially tongue and groove blades. Due to the tool being a circle it will always ever so slightly skew the blade even at its flatest points. On plane blades this isn't an issue the skew is so light that it's barely perceptible and that skew might be an issue just with my set up. However because there are 2 blades in the tongue part of the pair the wheel the smaller part of the blade will ware more than the larger. Now I say this with a large caveat these blades are 100+years old it could easily be the blades themselves and nothing to do with the tool it's self.All in all this is a fantastic tool that will speed up sharpening by a considerable amount I was able to do what would normally take days in an hour. This is a fantastic system and a well running machine.