Hey everyone, David C. Andersen here coming at you from the KnifeCenter.
I've got some exciting news today because we've got a new product introduction from
our friends at work sharp.
I got my buddy Josh here to tell us all about it.
And this is the new, a new iteration of The worksharp in my mind kind of the signature
product, the knife and tool sharpener mark to.
And Josh is here to tell us about it.
How are you, sir?
Hey, I'm doing well.
I'm excited about this one, I think this is gonna be a big, a big hit for us for our brand,
and hopefully something that your audience really cares about, or is excited about as
well?
I think so.
I mean, the original knife and tool sharpener that you guys did.
That's that's kind of how you guys made your name, or it's what puts you guys on the map.
Obviously, you guys do a ton of different sharpening products out there today.
They're things I like to recommend a lot.
But that doesn't mean that I still don't love the original.
And you've just improved it for 2021 essentially.
Indeed, yeah, the original knife and tool sharpener came out something like this is
before my time but something like 2009 2010 so it's been 10 years on the market and there's
been small changes here and there upgrades efficiencies.
It was time for us to overhaul and listen to some feedback and deliver a better product
that really is an evolution of of the workshop knife and tool sharpener that made our brand
what it is and not reinventing the wheel.
This is something that was good and like you said it's still a great sharpener out there.
A lot of people use it.
And and I'm excited to show you what we brought.
That's that's new and exciting.
Well, let's get right into it then.
Awesome extra step.
If you if you haven't seen this, it still looks very similar to the original knife and
tool sharpener.
workshop pioneered flexible belt sharpening for a consumer use.
And this was inspired by looking at knife makers and understanding how they make and
sharpen knives.
These belts very similar to the belts that we use.
In fact, one of the partnerships we have and have developed over the years is with knifemaker
Ken Onion.
If you're familiar with work sharp, you'd be familiar that we have a couple of products
in collaboration with Ken and we use a very similar belt assortment using the Norton and
the nor x family of belts to deliver the same type of edge sharpening that is done in custom
shops in manufacturing shops.
And now scaled down into half inch by 12 inch or three quarter inch or even one by 18 inch
belts.
Something that can fit inside of a on a table in an apartment if that's your lifestyle.
Yeah, I've always said that's a great point or a great selling point of V's is you get
those professional type of results in something that's going to fit in a kitchen drawer.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is yeah brings it down so that you don't have to have a two by 72 in your shop to feel
like you can get the same edge as you can on a knife that comes right out of the factory.
On the on the original knife and tool sharpener.
It offers two different angles, a 20 and a 25 degree guide.
those are those are Perseid.
So 40 and a 50 degree inclusive edge.
On the mark two sharpener, we deliver that same angle selection in one single guide option
with a toggle switch to adjust the angle, so there's less parts and you can get you
can change over faster from one to another.
One of the other features that we heard that was really a favorite from the Ken Onion edition
was a front edge guide.
And so this is a place where you rest your knife on a guide as you draw it through the
sharpener, allowing for a lot of control and stability, maintaining the angle even when
there's just the very tip of your knife left touching the guide.
This gives you that consistency all the way through the way the belts not going to kind
of pull the blade away from you.
Exactly Yeah, something that was you know with practice and those of us who use these
a lot was not an issue but for somebody who is developing the skill, that's definitely
a learning hurdle to overcome.
On the original knife and tool sharpener.
There's there's a variable switch from either a pulse on or an always on, that allows for
grinding applications for sharpening larger tools.
On this sharpener, we just have a trigger that's on and off similar to a cordless drill.
When it's on it's on.
If you release the trigger, it's off there's no there's no HOLD ON position.
But we didn't introduce two different speeds.
And so there's a low speed for sharpening and there's a high speed for grinding applications.
The same belts are used on the mark two sharpener as they are on the original sharpener.
There's a an extra course this green belt
For for sharpening or for grinding, excuse me, this may be used on on hatchets and axes
maybe lawnmower blades that need a fair amount of work.
If there's chips in them, you're not recommend it for knives.
Maybe if your machete has a huge chunk taken out of it, then that's an opportunity where
there's going to be a lot of steel steel removal.
But for knives, I would start with the course 120 grit belt.
This is going to remove material quickly and set that edge I would expect only maybe two
to three passes per side for knives that are dull to be to have an address stored if the
knife is fairly sharp, but it's your first time sharpening on this sharpener, then maybe
only one pass is needed, you're going to establish the new convex edge shape, and then progress
down to the belt that I have on here now, which is the 6000 grip.
And this is really a ribbon belt sharpener.
It's a micro mesh, it's really really flexible and and forms really well to the shape of
the blade.
And very, very high grit.
Like I said 6000 grit, it's kind of like power stropping
this is about that I leave on the sharpener and I bring my knives back and just touch
them up on that removes very very little material mostly just straightening up any any burrs
and polishing the edge.
I one of the things that makes the knife and tool sharpener go so much farther beyond just
the knife sharpener is in the name.
It's a tool sharpener as well.
So I mentioned that it sharpens, hatchets, axes, lawnmower blades.
Very simple, easy to use.
And in reality, I find myself using the original for that almost almost more than I sharpen
knives with it, you know, and I'm blessed to work at work sharp.
So I've got a handful of sharpeners you could imagine and and have different ways of sharpening
it at different times, usually during zoom meetings on my desk on the field sharp.
But so is that something where you might use that 50 degree angle?
Specifically or are actually a kind of a corollary question I had is that edge angle unit removable
as well, if someone wanted to do some freehand work?
Yeah, that's, that's right where I'm getting so I jumped in front of you, I'm sorry, then
indeed, the this front edge guide flips down and gets out of the way and locks into place.
And then the guide slides up.
to open up this belt cassette on its own.
There's a trigger here on the back, that allows this to rotate and lock into a few different
positions.
Allowing you to grind and bring the sharpener to the job.
So you can clamp an axe or a mower blade into the vise on the workbench.
And then you've got this flexible belt that wraps right around the edge of the blade and
sharpens really well you get a high degree of control, it feels just like any other power
tool in your hand.
And, and it's very easy to use in that sense, great.
If you want you can also use this and bring your knife, you know, to the belt and and
you're gonna eyeball it.
But you can if you're comfortable with that, that's definitely something you can do we
wanted to offer access to the belt so that you can get the right so you can get your
your tool to the edge Sure, I mean that's something so you can get your your edge to
the to the tool right now I'm definitely very familiar with that from the the Ken Onion
unit I've used for a number of years before before I upgraded myself to a dual two by
48 setup but you know I'm I'm a nerd like that.
But I would actually freehand on the the Canon unit on Ken Onion unit just like that with
the the edge angle taken off.
And you know, again getting back to you know people are going to use it a little bit differently
maybe than you thought I would come in on one side freehand and then I would actually
reverse the knife and keep it on that same side so the abrasive was going away from the
edge.
It's good to have those options.
Abs Yeah, absolutely.
This is
you know, and this not to get into it too much but I find so many different options
for this tool.
Like this is a weird one and I'll throw it out there but I heard the other day from someone
in customer service that they heard someone trims their dog's nails with the abrasive
on on here.
You know they set one of the course belts and they're you know, the flexible belt around
it is that
you know, I have not tried that but perhaps it is a decent option.
You can imagine that there's plenty of plenty of possibilities.
One of the things I didn't mention is that does sharpen scissors.
So there's a 65 degree guide right here how cool that that always stays on there whether
or not the the guide is on or not.
And
it actually has a magnet built
into it as well.
So it holds the scissor arm in position as you run it across the belt, I recommend always
using this fine micro mesh belt and not using the course belt with scissors usually don't
need to remove a lot of material, you're just trying to stand up that edge so that you've
got a really sharp, it's not quite a 90, obviously, it's a 65.
So whatever that is a 65 and a 30, or 25
gets you right about two to a 90 and great, great bypass cutting can happen at that angle.
Very cool.
I'm really excited by it.
I say that a lot.
But I've got a, I've got a big soft spot in my heart for these built based systems.
I've put them to good use over the years.
I like the improvements on this original which will be you know, taking the place of the
base unit that's out there, or has been out there historically.
I especially like the addition of the extra speed options, that's a great little thing.
How did the the high about the same as where the old unit was?
Or do you go like a little bit on either side of where the original was?
Yeah, so the high the highest right about where the old one was.
It's really interesting, as we were doing some early testing, we had the the high speed
and we gave it to people.
And just because there's two speeds, we were wondering, you know, where do people come
in and test this and, you know, in an era of, yeah, well, we use a lot of a lot of in
home testing and actually got real people's hands on people who would use the original
or people who maybe this was their first knife sharper.
And we really wanted to get the opinions and the perspective of all customers.
And when they started and then they were on the high setting, they kind of backed up like
whoa, this is really fast.
And the interesting piece to us was that that's the that's the speed we were running on the
original.
And, and so maybe it was coming in a little fast.
And one of the pieces that we that was very intentional about that is that this is a very
quick way to sharpen knives and something that I hear I hear a lot about in industrial
kitchens, they'll use a tool like this, or in butcher shops or sportsmen who are in the
middle of a, you know, maybe they've got a they've got a deer that they're butchering
and breaking down in the garage.
And they're doing a lot of a lot of protein prep and boning work.
And they got to, they got to sharpen really quick and get back to it, they don't have
time to be sitting down at the you know, in a wet stone or some other traditional sharpening
methods.
And so the speed was really a performance function that delivered a quick result.
And and now we come back to this and as people have I think the whole knife community has
evolved a little bit and understanding of edge maintenance and sharpening and, and so
we thought, Okay, what we can do now is educate on why why it could be a slower process and
steel and slow down the steel removal, and allow for a little bit more understanding
and control rather than just get in, get out, get the job done.
So that the lower speed slows it down a little bit.
And we recommend that for sharpening knives, the high speed is right about where it was
on the original it which is great for sharpening tools and grinding applications.
Very cool.
I am like I said, I'm excited.
I am too and I think it's going to do very well.
For us as a business.
I hope it's a tool that the knife community, the sportsman community, the DIY community
finds really useful.
It meets a niche that i think i think we found the first time and this is something that
we hope to provide even more value.
Well, I'm really, I'm really thrilled that you guys are offering that that slower speed
on on the less expensive unit than the standard Ken Onion, that was kind of something I know
it's a bit more expensive.
But I used to push people towards that unit over the base unit because you had that slower
speed.
So to get that at the lower price of this unit is a great not quite as low as the unit
it's replacing.
But I think when you adjusted for inflation, actually this might actually be cheaper than
when you first introduced the unit over 10 years ago.
What can you tell us about the price?
Yeah, indeed.
So the original knife and tool sharpener that is that is phasing out is street prices.
69.
The retail was 89.
And this is jumping up $10 on each of those.
So it's going to be $79 a street value and $99 MSRP.
Yeah, that I think it's I think it's totally worth it.
You know, you you mentioned inflation that price had held for the last 10 years.
This is somewhere that I think will we're committed to delivering value in the sharpening
space both in the features that we deliver and in the price points that that hits.
That's a cornerstone for us as a brand and a company and we want to continue to deliver
that value.
Speaking of I did forget one quick point that might be worth
That $10 increase all on its own.
We decided to align the guides with a small piece of leather.
And we did this because we heard from customers that there would get blade dust or accumulation,
either abrasive accumulation or, or steel accumulation on that hard plastic face.
And on that hard plastic face, when it came in contact with your knife, specifically a
knife that might have a coating or a high polish, there was a possibility for scratching,
we always recommend to keep your machine clean, but we know that the reality of you know using
and hardworking everyday people who are going to be quickly trying to get an edge back on
their knives, that takes a backseat.
So the leather guides will provide a very soft touch for your knife, we still recommend
keeping it clean, obviously, there could be accumulation of debris in the leather as well,
but probably not going to affect the knife face nearly as much.
I mean, that's what I like about what you guys do now and and for the last several years
is you're you're thinking about those little details you're coming out with with truly
new products in the sharpening sphere.
And, and thinking about how they're going to be used and building them that way.
Rather than just putting out a new thing.
Like you always have that attention to detail that I appreciate.
It's it's really fun to be a part of a company that you know, probably the the coolest position
in our company as the brand manager position and the guy you'll see if you ever go to a
trade show, if you ever got a blade show or something like that, you'll see Kyle Crawford
who his job is to represent the voice of the customer back to us at work sharp so it's
his job to be to be living this to be doing it.
He's a knife nerd enthusiastic, he's an auto mechanic geek, you know, rebuilding his his
Mercedes or dropping a diesel engine and, and what he does is, is is make sure that
he understands who the person is who's using our tools.
And then he works with our engineering team to say that's not good enough, the person
coming to this doesn't have that level of understanding or, or they do have this level
of understanding give them added features that allow them to customize the knife on
their own or usually and in a case like this, we offer a little bit of both.
Obviously, we leave you belt access at different points to either come in and do some custom
work to grind on your own to dream with your mind what you could do with a detailed grinder
or getting Get out Get a sharp knife really fast and get back to work.
I love it.
Well unless you got anything else.
I think that about covers things.
That's it this will be on shelves in stores and at the KnifeCenter April 1 you guys might
have pre orders ahead of that.
That's our hope I hope I'm hoping for those of you watching this video by the time we
post this we will have a link for pre order down in the description section.
If not, we'll just point you to the workshop page where you can see all the other cool
stuff and pay attention to our socials but really excited to be helping debut this model
I think you haven't held it in my hands yet but all signs point to good things I think
we'll get you one right away.
So you can you can get some hands on do a review whatever you want to do, but I'm excited
for for you to get it and and for customers.
I'm excited to hear the feedback and and hopefully we get a great valuable tool in your hands.
Awesome.
Josh, thank you so much.
People watching at home.
Thank you as well.
We'll see you all next time.
See you later.