I am looking for a knife sharpener for home use that controls the angle of the abrasive surface to the blade. I have a honing ceramic stone but you have to eyeball the angle and have to have a fair amount of skill to get good results. I am looking for something that is a little more foolproof. I have a Chef’s Choice electric sharpener and it does make knives sharp but it uses an orbital motion against the blade and if you look at the blade under magnification it just looks chewed up, and I suspect it removes too much material. I would like something that will give me results reasonably comparable to a professional sharpener but I don’t want to invest in hundreds of dollars of equipment that needs dedicated space to operate.
This sharpener has an adjustable angle, which I need for both Shun Japanese-style knives and for European knives like Sabatier and Wüstof. It has three grades of grit, which is probably fine for most uses. It appears to work by clamping the blade then using a pivoting bar or rod to hone the blade. (There are photos but no video.)
Here is my question. As the rod pivots, the direction of the stroke relative to the blade changes. At the center of the blade, where the rod is perpendicular to the blade edge, the stroke is parallel to the blade edge. As the rod moves along the blade the stroke changes to approach a right angle (although it never actually gets that far–I am using “approach” in the mathematical sense).
Is this an effective sharpening method? I would think the most effective method would move the sharpening surface at right angles to the blade at all points along the blade.
Compared to a Chef’s Choice electric, almost anything is an improvement. This looks to be a less expensive sharpener that works similarly to an Edge Pro sharpener, with the same benefits and liabilities. If you use it consistently, you’ll probably be happy with it, and the fact that the angle changes along the length of the blade will not be an issue. If, OTOH, the angle of the blade MUST be consistent from heel to tip, this would not be the sharpener for you. My only concern is what they call “medium grit (600)” is, IMO, actually pretty coarse. In my mind, medium grit is somewhere around 1000-1200, but as an old boss of mine might have said, that’s threading hairs.
Every blade under magnification looks like the Himalayas. That’s how they cut. Same as saws; coarse for rough cutting, more teeth/inch for finer cuts.
A hone does not sharpen a blade. It straightens out the bends from when you slice/cut foods.
The Chef’s Choice models are highly rated. The Professional at around $140 has won a number of comparisons. It is not the best choice for the more tapered Japanese style blades. See Food & Wine; BestKitchenPicks; Buyers guide…etc.
There’s a top rated KnifiMix for $69.
You can get a Smiths or Accusharp manual sharpener for under $20. Use often an the results are fine.
To be clear, what I am talking about here is not the bevel angle, although I have to think about the geometry of that. Now that you mention it, it seems that the bevel angle would change slightly along the length of the blade.
I am thinking of the direction of the stroke with respect to the blade edge. Top view:
TBH, with the amount of effort you’re putting into this analysis, I think you’d be happiest with the results of a whetstone (or two or three whetstones) and some practice. I’m not trying to be a smartass about it, but a practiced stroke can give you results far superior than any other sharpening system of which I’m aware. The only downside of whetstones is that it does take some practice, but it’s very satisfying to do, and only takes a few minutes per knife once you get it down. I kind of zen-out when I’m sharpening my knives, and let muscle memory take over. When I’m done, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. It’s not the satisfaction you get from hard work, because as I said, it’s pretty easy once you learn how. Rather, it’s the satisfaction of having done something well that many (most?) people can’t be bothered to do.
I’m not a fan of electric sharpeners. Those spinning stones take off a LOT of material, and substantially reduce the life of a knife. Not only that, but the ones I’ve seen (three different brands/models) don’t allow the full length of the blade to be sharpened, so every time you put the knife through it, you’re slowly recontouring the blade. My mom ruined several of her knives when she acquired an electric knife sharpener. It took her about five years, but she transformed three good Japanese knives into crap, whose blades could best be described as having reverse rocker.
IANA expert. But I’ve been hand-sharpening my set of good Henckels for about 40 years now. Haven’t wrecked one yet.
Any of the v-shaped hand sharpeners will do an adequate job of supporting the blade at a good enough angle. Certainly with greater precision than using a flat stone freehand.
Don’t fetishize this process. The outcome doesn’t benefit from the angst.
Wow, time flies. When I composed this thread it showed me related threads but not my own from a few years ago. I had forgotten about that. And I still haven’t found the ideal solution….
Still happy with it. It’s honestly the only thing that has worked for me which may say more about me than the other sharpening systems but my inept ass found it to be foolproof.
True enough. When I was still doing woodworking, I only used stones to sharpen my plane blades, and they were like razors. The advantage to sharpening that sort of blade is that you can buy a blade holder that keeps it at the proper angle, whereas with knives, it’s pretty much an eyeball thing.
Some of the whetstones on Amazon claim to come with an edge guide, though I’m not sure how well they work. I’m thinking of getting one of the cheaper whetstones as I’m not happy with the Henckels pull-through sharpener. It seemed like a good idea with coarse and fine slots for both regular and Japanese knife angles. The only problem is that it doesn’t actually sharpen – at least, not well. I get better results with my honing steel.
ETA: This is what I’m looking at, which comes with an angle guide, if anyone has any opinions. I think one typically uses oil with whetstones; this one you’re just supposed to thoroughly soak in water instead, and when done, let it air dry.
The best thing for resetting an edge is an Accu-sharp. It will regrind your blade in just a few strokes. It removes a lot of material, so you don’t want to use it very often, but if you’re resetting the blade, it works pretty well.
I’ve never used those angle guides, and I suspect they may be good for learning the correct angle, but a PITA to use on a regular basis.
You can use either oil or water on a whetstone, but once you use oil, you’ll have to use oil every time after that. And oil can be messy. Water does nearly as good a job (the role of either liquid is to keep things lubricated and slough off the bits), but it’s a LOT neater.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m going to order the whetstone, because I have some lovely Henckels pro knives that I’d like to keep as sharp as possible and, ironically, the Henckels pull-through sharpener just isn’t very effective. Also ironically, Wusthof – another company renowned for the quality of their knives – makes an identical sharpener (or rather, rebrands the same one in a different colour) which I’m sure is identically ineffective!
Given my experience with how well the good old-fashioned honing steel works, I’m sold on good old-fashioned solutions to knife sharpening. So there’s a whetstone in my future!
One other word of advice: Go to a thrift store and spend a dollar or two on a used knife. Practice on that. You don’t want to learn on and possibly ruin a big buck Henckels or Shun!
Thanks, I appreciate the good advice! I have various crappy knives that I can use to practice on, and when I do finally subject one of my good Henckels to it, I’ll be conservatively gentle with it.
I have a similar one with 400/1000/3000/6000 stones – it might be the 13 in 1 version in your link, although the honing leather is different. I’m very happy with the stones and holder.
As @ricepad says, the angle guide is useful when learning, but it’s impractical for regular use. I used it initially and quit after a few times. Once you get the feel for it, I don’t think it’s helpful.
I never figured out how the honing guide was supposed to work. It has sat unused.
