Guided sharpening systems.

I've had a smiths sharpener for probably 15 years. A few years ago I bought a work sharp because everyone said it was supposed to be good.

I've never had the greatest luck with either. The clamps are garbage. Where are you supposed to clamp the blade? ​​​I'm not a mathemagician, but basic trigonometry would suggest the further away from the guide, the shallower the angle is. I'm sure that explains why all my blades are uneven AF from the belly to the heel.

I know I need to learn how to free hand sharpen. I've never been any good at it. The only thing I can do is color the edge of the blade with a marker and adjust my angle until the stone is taking all the marker away. It still requires i secure the knife somehow and work with the sharpening stone above the blade so I can see what I'm doing.

I've gotten to the point that I can forgo the marker and eyeball the grain in the blade left by the sharpening stone ​​to see if I'm at the correct angle.

Is there some trick to clamping these blades? What if you're working on a longer blade? ​​I was contemplating buying a nicer bench mounted guided sharpening system but now I'm not so sure. ​​​

Right now I'm just trying to repair a damaged edge on my kabar. It was like that from the factory. I've been working on it by hand and it's taking for-eh-vur. I brought out my old guided systems thinking it would help speed things up. ​