As much as I have enjoyed the therapeutic qualities of sharpening my knives on a good ole Arkansas stone with some honing oil, time does not allow for extended therapy sessions anymore. I have found an alternative worthy of a review here. The Warthog Vsharp Xtreme Edge
Warthog sharpener
This thing really impressed me with its efficiency and ease of use. With just a little bit of adjustment to accommodate the size (small pocket knives to large fixed blade hunting knives) and type of blade (flat grind or hollow grind) you can quickly get a razor edge. The blade is sharpened on both sides at the same time by simply drawing the blade through bars as if you are cutting a tomato. The blade guide keeps the blade correctly orientated to the stones and adjustable springs hold constant spring tension against the edge for consistent angle and metal removal. The angle of the stones or steels can be adjusted from 17, 20, 25, 30 degrees simply by snapping the top end out of the bracket and indexing the bottom of the stone on the appropriate angle. The Warthog makes quick work of getting a great edge on my daily carry Benchmade and my Ka-Bar TDi as well as my fixed blade hunting knives. The nicest thing about this sharpener is that it has considerably reduced my time to sharpen the kitchen knives that I have been informed by the better half that sharpening knives is “the man job”. The kit comes with rods that have a 320 grit medium course stone on one side of the sharpening bars and a steel on the other side for that fine polished edge. Additional stones in a 600 grit fine and 1000 grit super fine can be ordered from the website. I believe I paid about $75 for the Vsharp Xtreme Edge sharpener at the hunting show. For hogging a bunch of metal and squaring away an edge that has seen some abuse I still use my Lansky sharpening system as it is more efficient at removing larger amounts of metal, then I clean it up wiht the Warthog. Hopefully this helps with the knife sharpening chores.
Warthog sharpener
This thing really impressed me with its efficiency and ease of use. With just a little bit of adjustment to accommodate the size (small pocket knives to large fixed blade hunting knives) and type of blade (flat grind or hollow grind) you can quickly get a razor edge. The blade is sharpened on both sides at the same time by simply drawing the blade through bars as if you are cutting a tomato. The blade guide keeps the blade correctly orientated to the stones and adjustable springs hold constant spring tension against the edge for consistent angle and metal removal. The angle of the stones or steels can be adjusted from 17, 20, 25, 30 degrees simply by snapping the top end out of the bracket and indexing the bottom of the stone on the appropriate angle. The Warthog makes quick work of getting a great edge on my daily carry Benchmade and my Ka-Bar TDi as well as my fixed blade hunting knives. The nicest thing about this sharpener is that it has considerably reduced my time to sharpen the kitchen knives that I have been informed by the better half that sharpening knives is “the man job”. The kit comes with rods that have a 320 grit medium course stone on one side of the sharpening bars and a steel on the other side for that fine polished edge. Additional stones in a 600 grit fine and 1000 grit super fine can be ordered from the website. I believe I paid about $75 for the Vsharp Xtreme Edge sharpener at the hunting show. For hogging a bunch of metal and squaring away an edge that has seen some abuse I still use my Lansky sharpening system as it is more efficient at removing larger amounts of metal, then I clean it up wiht the Warthog. Hopefully this helps with the knife sharpening chores.
