I'm retired now, and for decades have been resigned to living with dull knives. Most people are in the same boat. We're not professional chefs or veteran outdoorsmen, so we have not invested years in learning how to use whetstones, strops, and other hocus-pocus to keep our blades sharp. The various low-end electric sharpeners we have bought over time have given disappointing results and so are not a valid alternative to a whetstone. Until this!
A couple of weeks ago, while slicing an onion with my dull Henckels chef's knife, I badly gashed my thumb. Deep enough to require stitches, but I avoided a trip to Emergency by some careful bandaging. That accident galvanized me into taking action to sharpen my knives. A dull knife is one of the most dangerous things to have in any kitchen or workshop.
I ordered at $29 whetstone kit from Amazon and when it came in spent hours going through the documentation and watching YouTube videos, learning how to sharpen knives on a whetstone. I viewed YouTube videos by six different experts and though all seemed legitimate they totally contradicted each other in nearly all the numerous details involved in getting an edge on a blade! I spent hours trying to get an edge on my chef's knife, without success. Now I know that my whetstone's dual-sided grain (1000 and 6000) was not rough enough to transform my knife's completely rounded blade back to having an edge. All that time wasted.
I researched electric sharpeners carefully and came upon this Work Sharp product. Its Amazon's Choice badge and huge number of positive reviews convinced me to throw another $70 at my dull-knife dilemma. It arrived promptly and its packaging was impressively professional. It was gratifying to find out this is an American designed and manufactured product, on the market for many years, with nearly a million of these sharpeners sold.
The product documentation was very good as well, especially their YouTube tutorials. If you're shopping and undecided, I recommend you watch some of them to familiarize yourself with this product's approach to sharpening. In a nutshell, it uses flexible abrasive bands instead of a powered rotating stone to impart an edge. Guides that clip onto the unit ensure your blade (knife or scissors) contacts the rotating band at exactly the right angle.
The product arrived with the correct band and guide in place for sharpening a chef's knife. All I had to do was plug it in. (But first I read the entire owner's manual -- it's brief but contains important information.) One final time I viewed the tutorial YouTube video of the sharpener being used on a chef's knife, and then I fired it up and made some passes with an old, hopelessly dull kitchen knife I had consigned to a drawer. Within 10 minutes that blade was sharp enough to shave the hair off my forearm! Twenty-four hours later all the knives and scissors in my household were sharp and my whetstone kit was packaged up for return it its maker, who had promised a money-back guarantee if not satisfied.
This Work Sharp sharpener is a proven product, manufactured and refined over many years. It is expressly designed for use by non-experts. The main challenge of a whetstone is keeping a consistent angle where the blade meets the stone, and the Work Sharp product makes this a fool-proof action by providing guides specific to the type of blade you are sharpening. By first familiarizing myself with the product and carefully following the instructions, I was able to produce dramatic results on my very first try. And it followed through for the rest of my knives and scissors.
This is a small, light-duty sharpener, rated for no more than 20 minutes' use over an hour. It is not intended for a professional environment like a restaurant kitchen or a workshop. Work Sharp make other models for heavier-duty usage. But for the average person's kitchen, where the knives are few and used once or twice a day, the company's basic product is more than adequate. It's built to last, mostly metal, and its compact size makes it easy to store and grab when needed. Once your knives have an edge, they need only a couple of pulls through the sharpener to maintain it. No need for a strop or a steel. And that is music to my ears!
Looking back on my adventures with knife sharpening, I can see where I was sidetracked by the mythology around the whetstone. For centuries this was the sharpening solution of professional chefs, hunters, and craftsmen. In Japan, whetstone sharpening is practically a cult and whetstones can cost hundreds of dollars. But compact electric band sharpeners like this one have made the whetstone obsolete.
We non-experts have no problem applying technology to the challenge of sharpening, but for the professionals it is heresy. They have invested countless hours in learning and applying the whetstone method, and as a result are expert in its application and a bonded to it as part of their skill set. And that is why whetstones persist. But for the rest of us, the whetstone sharpening process is an ordeal that is no longer required, thanks to products like this one.
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Sharpen All Your Knives & Tools
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| Ken Onion Edition | Combo Knife Sharpener | |
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| Customer Reviews |
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2,189
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| Price | — | $59.95 |
| Angle(s) | Adjustable 15° - 30° | 25° |
| Abrasives | 3/4 x 12" Abrasive Belts - P120 Extra-Coarse, X65 Coarse, X22 Medium, X4 Fine, 6000 Extra-Fine | 1/2 x 12" Abrasive Belts, Fine Tapered Ceramic Rod |
| Sharpens | Knives, Serrations, Edge Tools, Gut Hooks, Scissors | Knives, Serrations |
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This Item  WORK SHARP Work Sharp Knife & Tool Sharpener | Recommendations  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | Currently unavailable. | $59.95 | $89.95 | $169.95 | $249.95 | $249.99 |
| Delivery | — | Get it as soon as Sunday, Jan 12 | Get it as soon as Sunday, Jan 12 | Get it as soon as Sunday, Jan 5 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, Jan 7 | Get it as soon as Sunday, Jan 5 |
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| Sold By | — | Atlas Seller | Atlas Seller | Atlas Seller | Atlas Seller | Atlas Seller |
| material | Synthetic | Plastic, Steel, Neoprene, Acrylic, Ceramic | Stainless Steel | Stainless Steel | Stainless Steel | Steel |
| grit type | Coarse,Fine,Medium | Coarse | Coarse,Fine,Medium | Fine | Extra Fine | Fine |
| weight | 1.9 pounds | 215 grams | 0.07 pounds | 2 pounds | 2.11 pounds | — |
Knives are good as new... No better
I've owned a great set of Japanese style kitchen knives by Wolfgang puck that have been great for the last 11 years. Been able to use a basic handheld sharpener to keep them sharp for the last decade. Only recently even with sharpening they just wouldn't weren't cutting like they used to. I was ready to replace them but thought maybe the sharpener was the problem. In my research...er YouTube, I came across the Worksharp and was flooded with so many reviews about it. Some were by knife nerds who for some reason are trying to sharpen their knives for purposes us normal people have no idea about so I ignored those guys and ordered it.The instructions were easy to follow. I went to work on all of my kitchen knives and all I can say is WOW... I don't ever remember my knives being this sharp. And yes, I tried the paper cut test and they all slice paper like it was butter... AmazingI agree with others that there is some techniques involved and remembering to keep the knife straight, pull slowly were things you just have to remember. Anyway, in about 30 minutes I had sharpened about all of my kitchen knives a total of seven. That set includes a cleaver that is now razor sharp. So here are my peeves1.Obviously after a few passes, the belt tensioner gets a little hot to the touch, so switching between belts either requires a cool down period or some slightly singed figertips2.As some have mentioned the belts are color coded but this isn't all that clear. The red coarse belt is more brownish and labeling is inconsistent. The purple fine belt looks grey, not rocket science but again not clear.3. I would have really appreciated a case for this even if it cost a little more. This doesn't exactly store well because of its shape and since it's mostly plastic, I wouldn't out this in my tool box.. even if I had the room. I see there's one on Amazon, I'll probably get that oneI sharpened my pocket knives as well and I don't think I would use the fine belt to hone them again. I prefer a more rigid edge for cutting fishing line and bait, not necessarily a smooth edge for slicing. Overall, I'm very well pleased with this unit
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- Donald A. MorrisReviewed in Canada on February 4, 2023
Best knife sharpener I have ever had
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