How To Buy A Knife Sharpener
For this guide, we focused on manual and electric sharpeners that use abrasives to put a sharp edge on knives. Our past tests showed the best of them to be safe and easy to use, capable of creating a truly excellent edge, and effective on knives of multiple sizes and styles.
how to buy a knife sharpener
Easy to use: Multiple factors affect how simple or difficult a sharpener is to use. Electric models have a powerful motor that sharpens knives quickly and without straining. Manual and electric sharpeners both have built-in guides to help you orient and keep the knife at the correct angle. Later in our testing, another factor revealed itself: the quality, or lack thereof, of a detailed instruction manual.
Note that ceramic hones need occasional cleaning to remove knife metal particles that build up on their surface (they form a gray layer). Melamine foam sponges (like the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser or its equivalent) or mild abrasives, like Bon Ami or Bar Keepers Friend, will work well.
We looked at but did not test the Kai Electric Sharpener, a sharpener purpose-built for Shun knives, after a representative told us that the company strongly recommends that Shun owners send their knives back to the company for (free) resharpening instead.
The well-reviewed McGowan Diamondstone Electric Knife Sharpener put a very nice edge on a test knife. It also threw off an alarming amount of dust, indicating that its grinding wheels were rapidly wearing down. That and the lightweight motor made us skeptical of its long-term performance, despite good reviews and a limited three-year warranty.
There are a ton of different sharpeners available on the market. While all of them will sharpen your knives, some of them will do it more quickly and efficiently. Which one is the right one for you? Take a peek at our knife sharpener buying guide, where we break down the details between the different knife sharpeners to help you find the best kind for your kitchen.
Often called oilstones or Japanese waterstones, whetstones are gritty, rectangular stones use water or oil to activate the sharpening surface. Some people prefer the synthetic surface of the Japanese waterstones (myself included) while others prefer the natural stone used for oilstones. They both work by sharpening the existing edge on your knife instead of carving out a new one. To use these stones, you need to hold your knife at the correct angle as you run it down the stone. It can take several passes over the stone before your knife is completely sharp.
These are designed to make the sharpening process quite simple. They are portable sharpeners that are quite limited in terms of how many slots they actually have. They are often preferred by cooking professionals because they are super easy to manipulate (and these are people that really know their way around working with kitchen utensils). The design of a handheld sharpener will either require you to drive the knife through the slot (if the sharpener is placed on a flat surface) or have the sharpener held in your hand and slide down the length of the blade.
These are considered to be the old-fashioned way of sharpening a knife. These stones are generally made from one of three materials: silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, and Novaculite. These stones often go by the names Crystolon, India, and Arkansas. Crystolon and India are man-made stones, while Arkansas are natural stones. Each of these three types is suitable for a specific purpose: Crystolon is good for initial coarse sharpening, India is more suitable for fine sharpening, while Arkansas stones have different grit variations.
Since there are so many different types of knife sharpeners available on the market, determining which ones are the best is a matter of analyzing their strengths and weakness and determining what it is that YOU need. For instance, electric sharpeners are fast and easy to use, but they are more expensive and have a higher noise output. Sharpening stones can help you sharpen blades to perfection, but it can be difficult to master the correct sharpening technique.
Hunting knives are a very particular category in itself, with blades that have to be stronger compared to those that one usually needs in the kitchen. This sharpening tool has a tapered round rod with diamond coating that allows you to sharpen both serrated and regular blades. You have a carbide slot and a ceramic stone one, so that you can get the best and sharp blades every time. Both the stones are reversible and replaceable. There is also a lanyard hole so that you can carry the sharpener with you on your trip without even misplacing it.
Here we have yet another product from Work Sharp, this time in the shape of a combo knife sharpener. It is designed to create convex edges that actually make precise cuts on your kitchen knives. It is designed to be a long-lasting tool that comes with abrasive belts and a ceramic hone, but also a honing guide to make it easier for you to learn how to properly sharpen and fine-tune your knives. The tool works with a bunch of different blades and can even be used to sharpen serrated knives.
A knife is arguably the most important tool in the kitchen, but it's essential that the blade is sharp. When blunt, you have less control and are more likely to see the knife slide off the food, thereby making cooking a more hazardous process.
You've acquired a chef's knife, you're using it almost daily to make tasty dinners for the family, and it's stored in a nice knife rack or a magnet for safekeeping. So why stop there? Keeping that knife's edge fine will make cooking not only safer but, let's face it, much more fun. Whether you've spent 150 on a high-end knife or under a tenner on a dinky paring knife, keeping it sharp is crucial.
Why, then, do so many of us shy away from the task? To put it bluntly, it's because it's a rather daunting process for the beginner. Your image of knife sharpening may consist of a hyper-masculine chef slashing away violently at a steel rod (we're looking at you, Gordon). Conversely, you might have seen cooks meticulously and methodically stroking their blade up and down a Japanese waterstone with more intricate attention to detail than a Flemish landscape painting.
That said, Timpson believes waterstones are "absolutely" the best method. "They can be quite tricky, but it's not rocket science." They also benefit from the fact that they can be used on just about any knife, which can't be said of pull-through sharpeners.
Thankfully, you don't have to buy two separate stones. Richard Warner, a knife maker at Blenheim Forge in southeast London, recommended to me the very affordable King Kds 1000/6000 block, a combination waterstone that should sate your knife sharpening needs for under 40. And it'll take years before the block wears out.
You might not need to spend hundreds of pounds to get the best knife sharpener, but you do need to know what you're doing. Warner gave me a crash course in the technique. As a newbie to this method, it took a while to get used to (especially since Warner handed me a knife that had never previously been sharpened) but after half an hour's practice and a little encouragement, I got the hang of it. Here's what I learned...
Now the fun begins. Grip the knife in your dominant hand, holding it at a 45 angle across the stone with the edge facing yourself and the knife's heel pointing towards your belly (as seen in the picture below). "The hardest thing," Warner explains, "is getting your angles right."
The toughest angle to master is the angle at which you'll sharpen the edge of the knife. For a Japanese knife, that should be around 12-15 degrees. Before you reach for the protractor, a good test is to get roughly half an index finger's gap between the spine of the knife and the stone (see above). Remember to remove your finger before you start sharpening. For a Western-style knife, you want an angle of about 20, so raise it ever-so-slightly higher.
Removing the burr is fairly simple. You'll need a leather strop or block (this sort of thing), which is designed to catch the metal fibres from the knife. You could do it with a fibrous tea towel or some newspaper if you like, but I'd suggest going with leather to begin with. The motion is fairly similar to sharpening. Draw the knife over the leather, going away from the edge at roughly the same angle as when you sharpened.
Once the burr is removed, it's time to test the sharpness with paper. Hold a piece of newspaper at about 45, with a bit of tension, and slash lightly with each point of the blade. If it cuts through easily, your knife's sharp. Warner speedily lacerated his newspaper, but I of course struggled. There is an element of technique involved, he reassured me.
Now it's time to polish. This is when you'll swap over from the coarse grit to the finer grit (make sure this side is wet, too). I found the knife still had a bit of grime on it, so I gave it a wipe clean beforehand. The motion is exactly the same as with sharpening, but you can apply slightly less pressure, and limit to roughly 30 strokes on each side.
Pull-through sharpeners are a lot easier to use, but according to most knife connoisseurs, they're not ideal for every type of knife. On a brittle, thin, Japanese blade, you're liable to chipping. There are specifically designed Japanese wheel sharpeners that are pretty straightforward.
These knife sharpeners are incredibly easy to use, and having used one on my old-school Sabatier knives for years, I can report that they quickly turn a blunt knife sharp, and as of yet those knives are in perfectly good nick. These are best avoided with Japanese knives or brittle ice-hardened blades, however.
The concept is fairly simple. There are two V-shaped rotating steels, which you pull the knife through towards yourself, from the heel to the tip. I find that maybe 10 swipes is enough to leave my blades as sharp as when they arrived. 041b061a72