M.Power SS1 Sharpening System Review

[Frank Hagan]

First, I'll say that I can't sharpen a thing. I'm horrible at the Scary Sharp system, even with a $28 jig, $40 worth of sandpaper with 8 different grits, and some very expensive absolutely flat granite (well, OK, the granite was for the house, but at those prices, I kept all the offcuts!) I have never been able to make an edge sharp enough to cut hair off the back of my hands, as attested to by the hairy nature of my hands. Its the main reason I won't go to woodworking shows ... all those nice fellas in their plaid shirts with patches of hair shaved off their hands and arms put me to shame.

And I have a collection of oil stones, water stones, and other oddities ... such as an el-cheapo hollow grinder with a 2" wheel my father used to use. And I'm no good at any of it.

The jig certainly looks nice, with the base, blue aluminum extrusion that gives you 25 and 30 degree angles, three diamond stones and a little instruction booklet. I suspect this would be great for someone tired of the excellent results they get from Scary Sharp, because it does have a few advantages.

The stones are held in by magnets, and it works surprisingly well. The jig fits by sliding in dovetail keyways. There is even a larger base of diamond grit that is intended for you to flatten the backs of the chisels or irons (see the next message for my take on this feature). The main advantage over a rolling jig and the Scary Sharp method is that you can quickly jam another chisel or plane iron in the jig, move the blue aluminum extrusion back and forth, and wear away some of that expensive tool steel. No fiddling with a rolling jig, and measuring how far the cutting edge protrudes.

There is a very small learning curve to keep the tool jammed up against the sliding aluminum extrusion holding the stone, and keeping that extrusion with slight tension toward the non-tool side of the dove tail keyway (there's a bit of slop they warn you about). And the diamond stones do grind away the steel faster than sandpaper. And, like I said, I think touching up an edge will probably be faster with this system than with a rolling jig.

For that reason, I'll probably keep it. Its at least as horrible as my rolling jig and sandpaper. But it fails at flattening the backs of things, so I'll keep my piece of granite handy. And I guess I will never reach the holy grail of being able to cut a hair off the back of my hand with a tool that I have sharpened.

[Frank Hagan]

The diamond stone built into the M.Power PSS1 base is really too fine to do any serious flattening of a chisel back or plane iron. The first picture shows an iron with magic marker on the back, and then, 30 minutes later, how the edge is still black along the right side. After working on this for a while, I noted a kind of swirl pattern and an uneven feeling in the diamond grit on the plate, so I don't know if there's a quality issue here, or if the base simply isn't flat enough to do the job. I ended up with my piece of granite and sandpaper to flatten the back of the iron.

Once that was done, the cutting edge on this hollow ground plane iron was quickly abraded away by the coarse stone, and then polished a bit by the medium stone, and then got almost nearly sharp with the fine stone. As I have said, there may be some operator error here, as I can't sharpen anything. But I can see that keeping an edge sharp with this system will be a bit faster than with Scary Sharp. But only a bit.

I can't really recommend this tool. If you are like me, and can't really get things sharp with a jig and the required assortment of sandpaper, then I don't think this jig will help you. If you can use Scary Sharp, I'm not sure there's a reason to change unless you want the convenience of not having to mount the tool into the rolling jig.

I think I'll save my pennies for a Tormek or, if I can find it, an industrial 5 HP 3 phase Mega Sharpener system with Turbo Boost. Or a sharpening service. Or I'll learn to sharpen like my dad could; I swear he could sharpen a chisel against a curb and get it sharper than I can get an edge with all the expensive jigs and supplies I buy!