Got a Work Sharp and used it to sharpen my longsword - hopefully this might be helpful to someone looking for sharpening advice.

I’ve been sharpening my own knives by hand for a while now, successfully enough to shave with them, but really haven’t had any luck with my sword. It felt too different from a knife on the stone. I tried using Japanese stones, an Edge Pro clone, using those stones by hand (which worked better than the rest), and eventually was even so frustrated that I got an Accu Sharp after seeing it suggested on YouTube and it not only didn’t make the sword sharp, it completely ruined my edge profile. That wasn’t a huge issue, I thought as I justified it to myself before using it, being that the blade didn’t come with a good profile and was essentially blunt after I got it.

So with that background, today I got a Work Sharp. The standard one, not the Ken Onion. I’ll try to be a succinct as possible here but let me start by saying that my longsword is now incredibly sharp with a nice appleseed edge profile. I’ve never used a belt sharpening device or a grinder or anything like that and I have little experience with power tools. It comes with edge alignment guides but they are meant for knives. I took of the one that came on it, a 40 degree guide, because it was too small to even get the sword to the belt with it on. I put on instead the 50 degree guide because there was enough room for the sword with that one. This is also meant for a knife so using the guard wouldn’t work as intended and I only used it to rest the blade against to ensure I was pulling straight.

It worked to reprofile the edge but when I was done it still wasn’t sharp and the actual edge didn’t have the geometry I wanted. So I took off the guard, secured the sword with a clamp and freehanded it, moving the worksharp over the blade rather than the opposite.

This worked extremely well. I am used to adjusting my sharpening angle with knives so having total control with no guard worked very well and in under 10 minutes I now have an extremely sharp sword. I feel confident that I could sharpen a blunt fairly easily now too.

I was hesitant to go the belt route because of my inexperience with lower tools and I wish I did it earlier now. For other people who might be led here through google, I hope this helps. I did a lot of searching for info and I am hoping that someone in the future who is in the shoes I was in finds it.

Now for the down sides. A slack belt grinder, as usually is recommended, would be more efficient and more exact. Harbor Freight has one for 10-15 dollars cheaper than a work sharp. However, this is smaller and I live in a small condo with neighbors so the smaller and quieter worksharp made more sense to me. If I had not had experience sharpening knives I might have had an issue with the angle when freehanding it and a guide on a slack belt sander would certainly be more foolproof.

The blueing on my blade looks very sloppy now. I don’t care because this is not a wall hanger, it’s a practice sword but the clean, dark blade is obviously it uniform anymore. This was due to my original efforts with the angle guide and it marked up the bluing in multiple places. If I had started freehanding it this wouldn’t have happened so if you do that too then your blade should come out without this issue, but if you do want to try to use the guide then be prepared for some scuffs.

The belts are small and not intended for swords. They will not last very long but replacements are not expensive and with proper use I expect to get several sharpenings out of each belt (comes with 2 of each). Unfortunately because of me learning as I went, I definitely put more wear on the belts than I should have but from now on they should last significantly longer.

So, all in all I recommend it. If you have a shop or more space then a slack belt sander will probably make more sense. For a small, portable and pretty quiet solution though, this thing is killer to get a good and sharp convex edge. Hope this was helpful to someone and if you have any questions please let me know.