[x SF med]

Well... my wife won a miniature knife at a show a couple of years ago... beautiful piece of work... I was challenged by her (and a large Oregon Logger, and a Machinist) to sharpen all 4 blades on the knife. the good/bad thing was the steel was very mild, although the blades just had stamped and polished edges. (folded the knife is 1.25" long, and the blades are about the same length, cutting edges about 1" long)

Using the Norton 2-sided stone, and techniques from the abovementioned logger, and a guy named Goddard... the mild steel actually cut paper after I hand cut the edge and sharpened it out (stone work only, no grinding nor files).

Thanks to our large and friendly tree killer/knife designer - I've gained a respect for freehand sharpening, and for some of the assisted kits - I prefer freehand, as therapy and a challenge. I guess if I wanted really fast, i'd get the edge pro. Time and practive have made free hand pretty quick though - depending on how badly the edge has been beaten up. Plus, a few of my small folding knives (think Ken Onion designs) have multiple blade curves, those are really tough to set on a system.