MACHINE SHARPENING hand tools

Quickly shape and hone your edges

- Ken Burton

No matter what type of woodwork you do—furniture making, turning, carving, and so on—sharp tools are an absolute necessity for good work. And there are several motor-driven machines available that promise to help you with this critical task. I rounded up six of the more popular systems and put them through their paces to see how fast and easy they are to use, how good a job they do, and what kinds of tools they are capable of handling. I worked with bench chisels and plane irons to shape and flatten the backs before honing the surfaces to a polished edge. For turning and carving tools, I sharpened flat chisels, skews, scrapers, gouges, and veiners. I also peeked at what accessories are available to sharpen some non-woodworking tools. I found that four of the six systems have much to offer all kinds of woodworkers, while the other two are more suited to specialized use. Read on to see which of these tools might be the machine for your shop.

Work Sharp 3000

The Work Sharp is a horizontal disc sharpener that utilizes glass plates faced with pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) abrasives. The machine comes with two plates, so you can work through four grits, flipping or switching the plates as needed. Work Sharp sells the abrasives, but any 5 PSA sanding discs will work. The plate’s downward-facing side shapes and hones the bevel of chisels and plane irons up to 2 wide. An adjustable ramp guides the tool at standard preset angles, or you can determine your own. Setting a micro-bevel (a small, steeper bevel at the cutting edge) is as easy as resetting the ramp to a steeper pitch.