Benchmade Tool Sharpening Ability?

[ArabianKnight]

Recently purchased a Benchmade Folding Torx & Screwdriver Tool Kit w/ Knife Sharpener was curious about the practicality of the sharpeners on there. Any experiences with this and its ability to sharpen up dull knives, just how sharp can it get?

 

[gadgetgeek]

Those type of pull though sharpeners will sharpen a knife. That said, they leave behind a ragged edge, which don't tend to last as long under some conditions. One of the reasons they are popular in some circles is that while they don't give a fantastic edge, almost anyone can easily put a serviceable edge on nearly anything.
Because they tend to remove lots of metal compared to other methods, some are concerned about longevity, but I wouldn't factor that in unless you are doing industrial level cutting, such as butchering.

Personally I don't like them, over time blades start to get a recurve from them (at least thats what I've seen in industrial kitchen knives run through carbide sharpeners) As I said with the edge longevity, they leave a wire-edge, which can be great for somethings (often why they are shown cutting tomatoes on ads) but break off quickly on harder things.

There are lots of people that use them, and there isn't anything wrong with that. Different strokes as they say.

 

[Bob6794]

Those carbide pull through sharpeners are capable of wrecking quite a bit of havoc on a blade. I received one as a gift (carbide pull through, not same one you have) a month or two ago and wanted to see how bad it really was and used it on my practice knife that I sharpen with. It removed as much if not a little bit more metal in a few swipes on my Victorinox paring knife compared to what I did to it with all the times I practiced on it which is a lot considering it has been sharpened for several hours, at least 10 blade reprofiles, etc. And what I was left with was a pretty poor edge that needed to be touched up on a stone to be remotely decent.

Tried it on a cheap vic classic knockoff made by schrade (new made in china junk, this knife is actually junk not just bashing the new schrade or knife origin) and a few swipes on that and it removed a lot of metal again. Enough that in a few swipes of light pressure that you could visibly see where the knife was sharpened as it couldn't reach a small part of the closest to the handle so that still had a lot more metal than the sharpened part. And I am not talking about the bevel, the actual blade width was noticeably different as it removed that much metal.

It's pretty much a large consensus on the forums to not use those pull throughs for the reasons listed between what I mentioned and gadgetgeek. A sharpening stone, guided setup, paper wheels, etc are all better alternatives.