Thread: Best knife sharpening system?

Wicked Edge and Scary Sharp are great if you are only doing a vee bevel edge. If your knife is truly convex ground, a sharpening jig will only be able to put a micro bevel on it.
I had one of the earlier versions of the Scary where you had to unclamp to flip the blade and it was a pain in the arse so I sold it.
Part of the reason for selling was that I also discovered the mousepad method, although adapted a little. This works excellent for convex grinds like the Bark Rivers. For a beginner, its a very simple and effective sharpening method.
However, I really wanted to learn to use stones to hand sharpen, and ended up buying some Japanese water stones which I now use 95% if the time. With a good strop and some 800 grit compound, you can get away with a 400/1000 combination stone for the majority of sharpening needs. My Chosera water stones (now called Naniwa Professional Stone) range from 400 to 8000 grit. It just take practice which builds your confidence, and with confidence you will get better edges.

I also have a tormek type machine which I use for the kitchen knives since they get abused by my wife and often need reprofiling to remove gapped edges as opposed to just honing the edge. Its fast and can remove a lot of material in a very short time. Way less tiresome than trying to reprofile by hand on good German steel.

I also have a linisher, and saw a video the other night where a knife maker showed how he sharpened his knives for sale on the linisher. I tried it on one of my knives and OMG is it a quick way to get a shaving sharp knife with a couple of strokes on the strop.