When it comes to maintaining your knives, it’s important to keep a good edge on your blades. This is especially true if/when you’re carrying a knife in your EDC.
There are a few different sharpening systems on the market to help you maintain a razor-sharp edge on your knife; ranging from sharpening stones, electric sharpeners, pull-through sharpeners, to even the bottom of an old coffee mug.
The use of sharpening stones is considered the best method for sharpening your knives as it provides a consistent, durable edge on your blade – when used correctly. Unfortunately, sharpening on a stone can be a bit… complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Electric sharpeners are great, but they sometimes damage your blade, and the bottom of an old coffee mug is, at best, a last ditch, emergency method.
Thankfully, the folks at Warthog Knife Sharpeners put together a sharpening system that even total novices can use! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Warthog V-Sharp Classic II!
Features
- ✅ Adjustable Blade Guide
- ✅ Non-slip silicone base
- ✅ Removable 325grit Diamond Rods x2
- ✅ Honing Steels
- ✅ 3 Adjustable angles
Pros
- ✅ Removable, replaceable diamond rods
- ✅ Adjustable blade guide
- ✅ Adjustable angles
- ✅ Non-slip base
- ✅ Easy to use.
- ✅ Sharpens knives quickly.
Cons
- ❌ Rods can be difficult to unclip.
- ❌ Rods may also wear out quickly.
- ❌ Blade guide isn’t marked with the angles and so adjustment does need a bit of guesswork and practice.
- ❌ The pieces that hold the rods in place are made of plastic and aren’t particularly durable.
- ❌ The edge isn’t as good as what you’d get using a stone.
- ❌ The additional sharpening rods are sold separately, and provide an added cost if you’re in need of a higher grit.
How to Use the VSharp Classic II
The VSharp Classic II is a pull-through sharpener which means you literally pull the cutting edge of the blade between two diamond rods. This removes a layer of steel and puts a fresh edge in place. With that said, what’s the procedure for working with this particular system?
Pre-Sharpening
The pre-sharpening procedure is crucial, this is where you make sure that you get the best edge. It’s a simple case of selecting the grit you want to use and setting the angles on both the rods and the blade guide.
The default rods are 325 grit, which is great for putting a good, sharp edge on your blade. You can also get 270, 600, and 1000 grit rods for a finer edge.
There are also 3 angles for the rods, 20, 25, and 30 degrees. The blade guide can be adjusted according to the angles of the rods by simply turning the knob on the top of the sharpener.
Sharpening and Honing
Keeping the blade flat against the blade guide, put the cutting edge of the blade between the sharpening rods and pull it through. As you pull it through, it should be moving downward so you can get the full edge on each pass.
Give it a quick paper cutting test after a few passes and see how it does then un-clip and turn the rods around so that the honing steels are in front.
Repeat the process on the honing steels.
A Good System for Beginners
If the Warthog VSharp Classic II were a book, it would be: ‘Knife Sharpening for Dummies’ and the title would be fairly accurate.
This is a good system for beginners who have little or no experience sharpening knives. It’s easy to use and if you need to replace the stones they are easily detached from the rest of the system.
That said, there are a few problems with it, the stones wear down quickly which means you’d have to buy new ones often. The frame that holds the stones is made of plastic which can break easily, and the blade guide isn’t marked with the angles like the rods are making adjustment 50% skill and 50% guesswork.
As far as my personal experiences with the VSharp go, I think it’s a great system. It has its flaws but at the end of the day I can put a good edge on my knife without having to panic about whether I’m doing it right. It does take a bit of practice to get used to it, but once you’ve got it, you won’t have a problem.
In closing, I hope you enjoyed the article and found it informative. Let me know what you guys think of the VSharp Classic II, I’d love to know some of your experiences. As always, thanks for reading and stay sharp!
Greg spent much of his younger years camping and hiking. Greg grew up on a small farm with lots of livestock such as cows, horses and chickens. He’s good with a bow and arrow, is a huge knife enthusiast, and has a blackbelt in Taekwondo.