Getting the Most out of the Work Sharp Sharpening SystemText and Photos by Jerry WorkOne of the great benefits from having my studio and small gallery

Now let’s examine the machine in more detail.Here is the machine without the glass plate or the abrasive mounted. A simple thumb screw attaches the g

Note that the surface of the tool rest and heat sink (also called the “sharpening port” in company literature) is also cov-ered with a pressure sensit

long, long time. No planned obsoles-cence here.The side close-ups on this page show how the lower tool rest angles are estab-lished by a tooth and no

Now let’s look at the fence in more detail.There are three parts to the fence: the outer fixed side (red arrow,) the inner fixed side (green arrow,) an

screw) which forms the right-most sup-port for the tool rest pivot rod. The rotat-ing lever is located on the right side of the Work Sharp and shown

Using the Work SharpHere is a collection of hand cutting tools, probably a lot like those in your shop or studio. I use two sets of standard chisels,

Before we do that, let’s start with an old beat up construction chisel that has not been sharpened with Work Sharp be-fore. It has been badly abused

Before using the Work Sharp for the first time, you need to affix the grits you want to use to the glass plates. The photo below shows the two glass pl

Putting the grit on the plate is simple. Just peel off the clear backing, align the abrasive with the center hole, and roll it on out as is shown in

The photo right shows how the grit on the second side will obscure the num-bers so marking the grit number on the face will be a handy reference.The p

They are the ones who talk about a near Zen-like experience from getting their tools “scary sharp,” and they seem to be willing to go to any end or sp

The first step is to set the proper bevel angle. Put your thumb on the lower tool rest and pull up on the bar to index the tool rest to the angle desi

With the back nice and flat (but far from polished at this point) adjust the fence to properly align the sides of the chisel but loose enough that you

If you are using the standard four grit se-quence on two glass plates (instead of the seven grit sequence on three plates and the leather strop plate

side and the leather strop material on the other.By working both the bevel and the back on the MM6000, followed by buffing on the leather loaded with t

These side by side photos tell their own story. The only difficulty is trying to pho-tograph the newly formed polished bevel, back, and cutting edge.

Before we move on, there are a couple of things to note. First, re-member that in this se-quence we used a four plate, seven grit se-quence instead o

Taking the wire edge off as you go en-hances the quality of the cutting edge. Working the back with every other grit in the sequence along with const

Lathe tools are difficult for most to sharpen since they often have curved or compound bevel surfaces. Sharpening is most often done on a rotating sto

This photo shows the slotted plate and slotted abrasive. They are the same 150mm in diameter as the glass plates and mount the same way. The differe

Be sure to mount the abrasive with the slots aligned with slots in the plate so you can see clearly the cutting edge while you work. Some will find it

my toes so didn’t ever appreciate the need to adjust for the cutting angle differ-ences as well.Most of the devices I used in the past tried to overco

spinning, it is very easy to see through to the bevel on your cutting tool. On the original version of the sharpening center rolling cart that I buil

Note how the original rough top cutting edge is now very smooth and much, much sharper. Test cuts on the lathe be-fore and after confirmed what a big

left by the grinding wheel. Before and after cutting tests on the lathe again con-firmed just how much better this tool cut with just this light P400

SummaryIn this manual we have seen how the Work Sharp system makes it easy to es-tablish and maintain perfectly flat, repeat-able bevel angles on all y

Appendix 1 - The Sharpening Center Throughout this manual we have talked about and shown the Work Sharp sitting on a shop made roll-ing cart I call a

run a small orbital sander with a synthetic woven abrasive (similar to 3M pads) across the surface in a cross pattern. That imparts a nice look and r

Appendix 2 - What Comes in the Box?The Work Sharp comes very nicely pack-aged with everything you need right in the box to do an outstanding job of sh

type grit cleaning block, and a good fac-tory manual. Everything you need to get started...right out of the box.

somewhere else in my studio where I could contain the oil or water mess, store all those jigs and fixtures, and where I could reread the instruction ma

So, how does this thing work?The Work Sharp machine rotates a 150mm diameter (6”), 10mm thick tem-pered glass plate in a horizontal plane. Pressure s

quarter inch or so for about a second or two and repeat these motions to the point that you remove all the scratch marks left by the previous, coarser

ting edge by shaping and honing the di-agonal face. If you ever did need to rees-tablish the flat on the top edge, that can be done by placing that ed

This is a very accurate way to establish and reestablish such odd angles as well as shapes like a fingernail gouge, for ex-ample. In this photo the sl

There is one final wheel available and that is the leather strop wheel. This is a glass plate with leather bonded to one face. It can be used leather