When I started hacking at the tree-meat I asked a friend about picking up the right waterstones to sharpen my chisels, he said he'd started with a double-sided oilstone, graduated to waterstones & freehand, bought a jig, got involved with diamonds and strops before eventually realising it's all a huge pain in the arse unless you have very abundant time/are an obsessive and invested in a Tormek powered water whetstone. My friend suggested I'd do the same but looking at the price of Tormeks and the alternatives I thought otherwise.

 

I was wrong.

 

Faced with hours sorting out my main chisels and plane-blades (I've been bashing a lot of oak) I bit the bullet and bought a Sorby Pro Edge. In short, to anyone stuck in sisyphean sharpening limbo and considering a similar purchase - go for it. In less than an hour I'd brought my four most used chisels to mirror, shaver sharpness, restored several battered second-hand acquisitions to near-perfection and honed some garden shears to a level where just glancing at them removed your eyebrows. 

 

It is very good kit.

One of my first jobs as a toolmaking apprentice was to operate the drill and cutter grinding machine.  I took great satisfaction in using it.

I hate sharpening chisels and usually just go and buy a cheap replacement.

Spill the beans. How much was it?

http://www.toolpost.co.uk/pages/Grinding_Systems/Other_Sharpening/Sorby_Jigs/sorby_jigs.html

?

Yep, that much.