Chef's Choice Sharpener

[Jason_G]

Picked up a Chef's Choice "Edge Select 120" model yesterday. Not real cheap, $139 at Bed, Bath, and Be Miserable, but I had a 20% off coupon, so that helped. I had been eyeballing these for a while, and wondering whether they were junk or not. Well, so far I really like it. I have about $700 worth of Henckels, Wusthofs, and other kitchen cutlery that all needed to be sharpened pretty badly. I had been putting off hand sharpening them and using my cheap cutlery instead. Well, I was able to sharpen all those knives in less than an hour, which is close to the amount of time I would've spent on just one or two chef's knives using whetstones by hand.

I will say, it does have its limitations. For instance, I could've gotten a slightly more polished edge by hand, and also, you cannot select the bevel angle you cut.

That being said it will get you an edge that will pop hair, so nothing to scoff at there, and even if you plan on doing the final honing by hand, this thing will make a beautifully uniform burr along the entire length of the knife much quicker than you can do by hand (usually just 1-2 swipes on either side). It did better than I honestly expected it to.

I don't know how long the diamond stones will last, but I would think they'd be good for quite a while. That's yet to be seen, but so far I am really impressed. I would say that if you can sharpen by hand, and only have a few knives, it probably wouldn't be worth it to buy one of these, but if you have a hard time sharpening with a whetstone, or just have a boatload of knives that you always seem to be sharpening (like me), I think this might be a good investment.

Just wanted to give a head's up in case anyone was looking for a decent sharpener.

Jason

 

[MikeJackmin]

I have one and like it. I've found that there are a few tricks to using it well.

Carefully keeping the flat of the blade against the guide is part of it; not letting the tip stray up or down is another; maintaining a gentle, steady downward pressure is the third. The most important thing is to draw the blade through slowly, about an inch a second, just like the instructions say.

Most of us could do a better job by hand, of course, but if you want a fast, easy way to maintain regular working knives, I don't know a better method.

 

[22-rimfire]

They take a lot of metal off, but I use one on my less expensive kitchen or utility blades. I sharpened a machete with one and was pleased. I have always disliked sharpening machetes and most are cheap.

Read the directions. Don't let the blade sit still; keep it moving slowly.