For over 20 years, I've been using the Razor Edge stones. They've been great. A few years ago, I saw a guy sharpening knives on a machine at a gun show. I stood back and watched and everyone seemed to be pleased with his work. My buddy had his pocket knife sharpened and so I gave in and had my already sharp pocket knife sharpened by him as well. I wanted to see what kind of edge this machine put on it and how well it held up. I initially scoffed at the idea that this machine could put as good of an edge on a knife as I could with my Razor Edge stones. But it did and it did it a lot quicker than I could by hand.
The next gun show I bought one of these machines and still use it today (the price has really went up over the years!). I still use my Razor Edge stones to touch up my blades but now that I make knives, the Sharp Shop Machine (
here's their website) makes getting an edge on a knife simple and quick. They're basically a 1x30 vertical belt grinder with a low speed motor. For most knives, I use the 20 degree holder but for Camp knives and such, I may go as high as 30 degrees. Just depends on what the knife will be used for.
I start out with a 120 blaze and then go to 500 or 600 for the next step after raising the burr. With the guides, you put the initial 20 degree bevel on with the 120 until the burr shows up. Then the next slot in the guide deck increases the angle just a little and you run passes with the finer grit until sharp. The final step is using a felt belt with Green chrome for hair popping sharp edge. I can start to cut in the initial bevel on a finished knife with an edge of 30 thousandths and finish with a shaving sharp edge in total of about 5 minutes on this machine.