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I've ruined a good bunch of half-decent edges by trying to work on them. Forget it - I can afford to pay someone to sharpen them for me. I've wasted too many hours trying to figure it out.

Although I haven't met him personally, by all accounts the WEPS inventor, Clay Allison, seems to be a great guy. He's very active over at KnifeForums.com and is very responsive to customer input. I'm not sure what I think of the clamping system- held edge up it looks like it would be really easy to cut yourself. And I wonder how it holds knives that have lots of funky angles and false bevels. But I chat frequently with several very satisfied WEPS owners so I imagine it must work pretty well. And now most of my favorite synthetic stones are being offered for the WEPS thru CKtG and Jende, LLC.

Certainly for routine maintenance it's hard to beat the Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpmaker. It's simple and easy to use yet very effective. The main issues are the lack of different rods and lack of a rod coarse enough to easily change a bevel angle or grind out chips. But for knives that don't get abused it will do the trick.

The Lansky and Gatco sharpeners will work pretty well and are pretty easy to use, too, but they're a bit cumbersome on longer knives.

Doesn't Spyderco offer some diamond rods suitable for regrinding bevels for the Sharpmaker? Pricey, of course.......

For my knives, I use one of these sharpeners which does a decent job for my needs. Also the sharpener is small enough (2-5/8" wide x 2-1/2" tall) to fit into almost any kit. These sharpeners retail for around $7.00 but are often on sale locally for about 1/2 that price.

He's good. If anything happened to the girl who does my sharpening I'd hire him.

I have the skill, I just don't like doing it. That's time I could spend working on another blade.

Teslinhiker, I have the sharpener, but can't knives that sharp with it. What's the trick?

The carbide side of that sharpener is pretty dreadful. It will produce and edge that will cut but it removes tons of metal shavings. It's like burning your clothes when they get dirty instead of washing them- serious overkill!

For people that just want sharp edges without a lot of messing around, I enthusiastically recommend the Edgemaker Pro. They're about $10 each shipped, and for most purposes just the Yellow is enough. At most, $20 for the top 3 out of the available 4 grits will keep you cutting for a long time. They use coated rods that utilize leverage to help cut, yet they're not overly aggressive. I've seen knives sharpened with nothing but the EMP for 15 years and they're sharp and in good shape.

They are great for people who otherwise don't sharpen their knives, or cheap axe.