Beltswap Pro for the Work Sharp Ken Onion Mk. 2

hello everyone Nate here with SimplySharp and today I’m excited because somebody sent me a gift uh chip Walters uh saw one of my videos on YouTube and he sent me this guy so this is a uh angle guide that is meant to be uh a replacement for the new um can from Work Sharp so he’s seen one of my previous videos where what I did uh to this poor guy right here is I made this by just grinding down the existing safety guard that’s on there um you know when I first got this thing I I really liked it but I just had really hard time getting the belts on and especially off quickly um which is really important to me at a farmers market like I use I like to just use one machine go through my belt progressions I carry another machine with me just as a backup I know a lot of you like to have just you know one machine set up for each uh of your belt progressions but you know we just like to go with one and just swap the belts on and off and uh the original Ken Onion with the blade grinding attachment was really fast at doing that um my understanding is there were some safety concerns that really kind of required that they made this guard that really kind of covers uh the majority of the opening where the belt is which I get I understand um but thankfully we have people like chip out there that are really smart really talented and make these cool little after part uh aftermarket gizmos um so he sent this to me uh wanted me to give it a try and get uh give him some feedback so I’m excited to do that today all right so Chip calls this thing the belt swap Pro which I think is a really clever name um and I’m probably going to mess this up I apologize chip but uh looks like your company is called Al to it um and you know first of off I’m really just kind of impressed that number one really uh nice simple set of instructions you know in my head when somebody says hey I’m going to send you a 3D printed part for a knife sharpener I’m not thinking it’s going to be this well presented and and set up but like this is really cool nice super clear instructions um this is really nice you know he’s just got a good little whatever you call these things but you know nice piece of cardboard got the screws that we’re going to need stuck in there um so far really super impressed with what chip is doing um so I’m pretty excited to try this out now um I do have happen to have some spare brand new Ken Onions in the Box um the reason I have those is because I’m a knife sharpener so I just buy more sharpeners and things than I need uh actually the real reason is I’ve got these so as I onboard new sharpeners um I can I can give them equipment um but I have my original one here from from Ken um numbered part of the very first ones ever ever purchased um so we’re actually going to hang on to that one we’re going to put that guy away we’re not going to use him today um but got got a brand new Ken Onion Mark I out here but this is what we’re working with so this is the guard that comes on it um and again I understand why it has to be here um but it’s kind of a pain in the butt and the challenge let me I’ll use this belt the challenge is really this so to get the belt on it’s not really all that terrible you kind of come in from down below get it on and there we go you’ve got your belt on now this is the hard part so I detention it and now like cuz it’s just you got to finagle it a little bit and believe me that was easier than it normally is cuz what happens is it gets hung up in here and in here and if the tracking is a little bit off when you put especially a rougher belt on it actually makes some little grooves in this guard and then every time you try to get this belt off it gets caught in there so it’s just not great if you need to do fast belt swaps but again I understand why they had to do it and thankfully we got chip so what we’re going to do is uh go ahead and take this guy off put this guy on and then we’re going to give it a try uh what I am going to just do is uh right now this guy is right at about 25° so I’m just going to make sure uh I’m assuming chip is based on just his packaging alone has done a really great job dialing in everything um but let’s just make sure we’re going to still be at 25 degrees there um and yeah let’s get started so apparently we only have to take two screws out it looks like they are this guy and this guy so let’s see what do we have in there do we have a screw we do all right so this guy comes off uh I need to make sure I hang on to that um and I’m going to put these back in here for now because um I am confident that I’m going to like chips thing here but you never know and I’m going to need this Plus in the same for the same reason I have all of my old and worn belts seems like sharpeners have an Affliction to just hoarding things related to sharpening so we’re going to hang on to this guy all right so let me put that over there okay so now to install this yep so he does make a caution here about not overtightening that makes a lot of sense um you know I’m not sure what we’re screwing into here I’m assuming it’s it’s I think he said it’s actually carbon fiber or some um something something like that but uh seems pretty solid but you never know right so we’re not going to overtighten anything uh so we’re just going to put so there is this little Notch right here that goes with that so we’re going to make sure that that gets in there and just right off the bat it looks like we’re pretty dang close to that 25° we at looks like we might just be a smidge off I I was just a bit under 25 uh and now we’re at 26 but it’s pretty close so I’m not going to be upset about that okay and and actually um after I tightened that down that has moved up a little bit so it’s uh maybe at 252 um you know it’s slightly different than what’s on the um the guide for the work chart but I can’t imagine that’s actually going to be any sort of a functional uh problem at all so what we want to do is let’s just go ahead and okay can’t even get the there we go um let’s get you on this the other thing about work trap they switch the way they latch these on all right so there we go let’s get you on here so that’s so you know interestingly he had a a video I think another person did to review this I’ve always grabbed thatat knob and done this he’s saying do it like this so that might be better um all right cool uh um so far so good let just power you up real quick chip I think that’s pretty brilliant um it looks a lot better it actually provides a lot more real estate than my uh little job that I did here um so he’s got quite a bit more real estate down in here um I do kind of like uh yeah I think it it’s just sturdier feeling um I like it uh so end of the day for me you could absolutely do what I did you could look at my other video I just ground this thing down I actually um uh cut it up with a Dremel and then I used the uh the um Mark 1 blade grinding attachment to stand some edges down and and finish it off a bit but uh all right well thank you for watching that hopefully you found it interesting um I was pretty excited not only because it’s fun to uh to play with these things but this was the first thing somebody sent me to try out as a result of watching one of my videos that was just kind of cool and exciting and um a lot of fun if you want me to try anything out I would love to get more free stuff to try out that’d be pretty cool um or if you just have questions about something that you haven’t seen yet if I have it or if I can buy it why not I’ll make a cool little video about it um but if you are somebody that is um concerned about getting belts on and off the Ken Onion Mark I quickly then I would highly recommend reaching out and getting one of these um it’s just easier better uh looks a lot better than the janky job I did uh grinding the existing guard down so highly recommend it thank you chip for letting me part of your journey with this thing and and sending me one of these to review um I’m going to leave this on the sharpener because this is going to go to one of my new sharpeners that’s going to be starting with us soon so if you’re watching this you’re going to get this guy uh speaking of which if you are interested in sharpening and maybe the uh efforts and energy to start up a whole new business are more than you’re up for right now maybe it’s just a side gig and you want a little extra income or uh you were like me and you wanted something uh not computer related to do you wanted a extraction from your day job um give me a call I have what I call my business inab box solution where I take care of all the business infrastructure all you have to do is show up and sharpen um the only requirements that you do a great job sharpening people’s knes but more importantly that you have a great customer experience uh so I want everyone to be completely wowed with us so that they tell all their friends family members neighbors everyone and so you get more business that way uh if that interests you at all maybe we can talk and do business together uh you can email me at Nate simplysharpatl.com or or you can call me at 404 969-5411