Work Sharp Sharpening System - Manual (Page 17)

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
plates and four grits that come
standard with the Work Sharp
before the grit is adhered to
the glass plates. The standard
grits are P120, P400, P1000
and MicroMesh 3600. This is
a really good range of grits
and will handle most needs.
As we saw earlier, you can
also buy additional glass plates and many
different grits so can custom tailor the grit
selection to how you like to work. I prefer
to work with three glass plates plus the
leather strop plate. That gives me seven
grit surfaces plus the leather strop to se-
lect from while doing the sharpening on
the solid glass plates.
We will look at the
slotted plates in a
minute.
Seven grit surfaces
give me a coarser
P80 grit to more
quickly rough in an
ugly chisel like the
one on the previous
page. It also lets me
add an intermediate
P220 grit to use be-
tween the P120 and
the P400, plus a Mi-
croMesh 6000 to use
just before the final
polish on the leather
strop wheel.
Those selections are
shown in the upper photo. You can start
with the standard two plate set up and get
very good results. If you want, you can
add the other glass plate and/or the
leather strop plate to round out your
setup.