>>1334653As someone who generally uses a very high end set angle set up, I disagree partially.
Background; I've been using a Wicked Edge for 5 years, upgrading it up to mostly gen 3 parts, so we're talking like $1,500 of equipment.
While a set angle system allows for extremely high quality results with comparatively less practice... I say that because there is still a surprisingly long learning curve, 5 years in and I'm still improving my work flow... With a massive amount of practice and discipline, there are many who can get just as good results free hand. But that is indeed a labor of love to get that good at free hand sharpening, I am no where near there.
More so; once one gets to this level of free hand and has a good set of stones, free hand is faster, because it takes some time to mount and angle a knife in a set angle set up. With free hand, as long as your stones are set up, you can move faster, and take material faster as well, because in general free hand stones are 4" wide, and most set angle systems are not that wide. My Wicked Edge only has 1"ish wide stones.
But I would argue the Set angle causes less fatigue and focus. So if I had 10 knives to sharpen, I could do them much faster on a set angle.
