Tag Archives: Ken Onion

Using my KO Worksharp With Third Party Belts to Sharpen My Three Favorite Flipper Knives – A Hogue X5, ZT 350 and Kershaw Knockout

As I have written about in the past, I have a Ken Onion Worksharp (KOW) knife sharpener. Folks, I have used the heck out of that little thing and it is still cranking. For example, I used it one time to put the edges on five khukuris from scratch. They were antiques and I used my belt sander to remove the beat up edges and then the little KOW to profile and put the final edges on them. I can’t begin to guess how many khukuris, folders and fixed blade knives have been sharpened on this unit.

At any rate, the one thing about the KOW is the cost and selection of the little 3/4″ wide x 12″ belts that it uses. Worksharp does sell kits with belts in them but its pricey. Happily, as the popularity of the KOW has increased, a number of makers have appeared. I’ve had very good luck with Econaway Abrasives and Red Label Abrasives to name two of them.

What makes a belt good? I really look at two things – does the belt stay together and does the grit stay on or seem to flake off. I have no means of knowing whether a given declared grit is what I actually get – for example, the vendor says it’s 400 grit but is it really? All I can do is go by feel.

Leather Belt

I added a new step in my sharpening – I added a leather belt this year so I could use rouge on the belt for a grit of close to 10,000 for the final edge. I opted for a belt from Pro Sharpening Supplies. It comes with a small packet of white rouge polishing compound.

Sharpening My Three Favorite Flippers

Okay, I needed to sharpen my three favorite assisted opening “flipper” pocket knives. My #1 favorite is my 3.5″ Hogue X5. The other two tie for second place at this point – my ZT 350 and my Kershaw Knock Out.

If I had thought about it, I would have put them in order of being my favorite. Purely by coincidence they are in order of age – the Knockout I bought near Christmas 2018, the Hogue was Father’s Day 2018 and the ZT 350 was purchased in 2015.
Guys, I love that Wharncliffe blade profile on the Hogue. You can use it to scrape stuff as you have a flat edge.

It had been ages since the ZT350 was properly sharpened, the Hogue needed a touchup and my new Kershaw Knockout did not have as fine of an edge on it as I wanted. The ZT was part of what motivated me to buy the KOW years ago – The ZT uses S30V steel which is very hard and takes forever to sharpen by hand. I had been using a Spyderco Sharpmaker to that point and decided it was time to buy a better sharpener. The KOW has a wider 3/4″ belt and a bigger motor than it’s predecessor, the basic Worksharp unit. I’ve never regretted the purchase.

The KOW is adjustable so I use this brass guage made by Richard Kell in England to determine what to set the KOW at. The blades were 15 degrees or less with the Hogue pretty much being right at 15. The other two, I’m not sure. They were more accute than the gauge supported.

A Richard Kell blade angle gauge.

Belt Details

I bet everyone has their secret formulas for sharpening blades and odds are they all work. Since these were all touchups, I started with a 320 grit belt. See, I don’t want to take off any more than I have to so I’d rather start with as fine of a grit as possible.

GritMakerPasses/SideSets
320Econaway32
600Econaway31
800Red Label31
1200Econaway31
5000Red Label31
10,000Pro Sharpening32

Comments on the Leather Belt

Okay, it through parts of loose leather everywhere when it first started just like when you start a new cloth wheel on a buffer. It did stop after a bit. By the way, safety note – you should always wear safety glasses and a dust mask regardless – this just reminds you of the need.

The second comment is that it did not stay centered on the wheels of the KOW and traveled to the left when looking down from the top towards the front edge. It did not seem to harm anything but the whole point is that it really should have stayed centered on the wheels. No harm done and since I will not use it a ton, I am not going to worry about it.

Photo of the belt up on the left edge of the front lower wheel. Note all the junk on the mat. Good reminder to wear eye protection and a dust mask *always*.

Lesson learned for me, dial back the speed on the KOW from the get go when doing the leather belt.

Sharpening Results

All three knives are wickedly sharp now. I’m very pleased with the results.

Cleaning and Lubrication Comment

Whenever I sharpen a flipper, I blow out the insides with compressed air and then lubricate them. My preferred lubricant is Teflon/PTFE. Because it dries after application, it does not attract and hold dirt. Thus, I applied it to all three knives like I normally do.

It’s common for things to feel gritty until the fluid evaporates but the Hogue didn’t get better, it got worse. I’m not sure what Hogue uses to lube their knives but the solvent in the Dupont spray must have cleaned it off and the dry Teflon wasn’t enough. Conversely, the ZT 350 and Kershaw Compound worked great. It’s not unusual to see something work with one mechanism but not another so it was time for plan B.

Okay, plan B. I started using Super Lube this year on firearms and really like it. Basically, Super Lube is a synthetic lubricant that includes tiny PTFE particles in it. So, I applied it with a pen dispenser and it works great. Way, way better.

Final Result

The knives are all very sharp and they are flipping smoothly. Time to keep using them 🙂 I hope you found this helpful.


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The Gerber Golok Machete is Pretty Wicked and Surprisingly Hefty!!

Ok, so I wind up clearing brush pretty regularly.  Usually its pine, vines, scrub oak and junk like that.  Back in June 2014, I bought a Ken Onion designed Half-A-Chance machete (CRKT K920KKP) from CRKT that has served me well (click here for my review).  On my last trip to clear brush this past fall, I accidentally left the Half-A-Chance at home and had to get a replacement machete.  Thankfully SMKW was on the way so I stopped in and tried out a bunch of different ones in terms of heft and balance.  When I got to the Gerber Golok, I was really surprised.  It’s surprisingly thick and that mass makes a big difference when taking out saplings so I bought it and used it to clear the small stuff.

It seems like an opportune time to compare the two and share my thoughts.  In the next photo, the top is the Half-A-Chance and the bottom is the Golok.

What really surprised me was that the thickness of the Golok’s blade.  Why Gerber doesn’t make a big deal about this, I don’t know because there are fans of knives with big blades.  The blade is 12″ long and made from MN65 steel, which is a spring steel that is roughly equivalent to 1065 steel, which is fairly common in machetes.  The blade comes in at 0.2566″ when I mike it and weighs 1 pound 10.8oz (26.8 oz). That is a lot of steel!  It’s like you are moving the design from being a classical machete more towards a chopper with that kind of width.  When I was hitting some dried oak and ash, the Half-A-Chance bit deeper than the Golok and I think it reflects the relatively thin blade of the Ken Onion design that mikes at 0.1147″ which is less than half the Golok.  The Half-A-Chance also weighs 20.3oz.

The blade on the left is Half-A-Chance and the right is the Golok on a piece of dried ash.

You can definitely see the the thicker Golok blade right away.  It’s the top blade on the left photo and the bottom blade on the right photo:

Just a closer view of the Half-A-Chance on top vs. the Golok on the bottom.  The Half-A-Chance’s handle is more ergonomic but the rubber coated Golok isn’t too bad.

The Half-A-Chance’s sheath is fancier while the Golok is simple and to the point.

Folks, in the end, the Golok is a chopper.  It’s heavy but too thick for the traditional fast slices you are doing with a machete.  I’d recommend the Half-a-Chance for thin stuff like vines and stuff under 3/8″ ballpark and the Golok for thicker vegetation where you need to chop but you are also starting to cross over into where a heavy khukuri or hatchet might serve you better.

While clearing the lot I did put a nick in the Golok and used my Work Sharp Ken Onion edition sharpener to take it right out when I got back to my shop. [Click here for my post on the KO sharpener.]

Bottom line, the Half-A-Chance machete is still my favorite and the first one I would grab to clear brush but the Golok is a keeper also because I like its mass and balance.  It’s a lot of blade for the money and I do like big blades.  You ought to take a look when you get some time or even pick one or both machetes up from Amazon.


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Review of the Excellent Ken Onion Edition Work Sharp


If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com . Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.