Yep, I've known about belt grinders and always figured that's where I would end up. Admittedly, the Work Sharp is not the biggest, most powerful belt grinder on the market. It is widely available and seems to have a pretty good marketing campaign and support program. I figured for the money this would be a good enough platform to recommend for the average knife guy. The unit is pretty foolproof, yet versatile enough to be used for more than just sharpening knives.

My point is this little unit is out of the box effective and does as good a job or, in most cases better, at sharpening as any of the myriad other sharpening systems I've tried.

For the more experienced, I would agree that you could do better investing in something more robust. I am sure that eventually I will probably upgrade as my proficiency improves. This was a good way to get introduced to using a belt sharpener for the first time. I can build on positive experiences.

Let me put this another way. I let my wife use it to sharpen a couple of my Hinkels, and she did a good job. This is the first time she's ever sharpened any knife. She's a Klutz (as voted on by her senior class in high school, I have it on record).