Best Knife sharpener??

I'll assume you're looking for some sort of sharpening system and not stones, as stones are easy to find on the cheap. Though it may seem expensive to some, the Spyderco Sharpmaker is, in my opinion, the best fixed angle sharpener for the money at around $50. You only get to choose from 15 and 20 dps, but those are sufficient for most users. The one major problem with it is that the stones that it come with are not very coarse. This makes it great for just touching up an edge, but not so great if you need to totally reprofile. You can pick up additional diamond rods separately, but this adds to the cost.

Alternatively, what I've been using for the last few months is a Ken Onion work sharp. It's a power sharpener with variable angles and speeds. It lets you make quick work of reprofiling even the hardest steels, and lets you set the angle however you like it. It is, however, somewhat expensive (I paid around $120), and the belts don't last forever.
 
I have stones, diamond stones, and leather strops. Most often I use a Smith's angle guided system. But depending on the knife and blade grind, I use the bench stones as well. I always finish up with a leather strop and usually end up with a very serviceable edge. Every now and then a knife throws me for a loop.

The best thing of course is to learn how to free hand with a bench stone, but the guided systems are great for a quick touch up and help with holding a consistent edge. Guess you'll have to pick something up and give it a try. I tried several systems before finding what works for me.

I have never tried the Sharpmaker, but I have heard great things about it.

I use a different setup for each knife based on its properties. My kitchen knives, Victorinox, Leatherman, and Moras all sharpen up easily free hand on a medium or Arkansas stone. Most of my folders are much harder steels and the diamond stones and angle guided setup helps as they take a lot more work to touch up.
 
The sharpmaker is an amazing system and pretty foolproof for the most part. I highly highly recommend it
 
I own waterstones and oil-stones, but my most-used sharpener is a DMT Aligner Deluxe kit with Extra-coarse (black 220 grit, I purchased this separately), coarse (blue 325 grit), fine (red 600 grit), and Extra-fine (green 1200 grit) hones. The deluxe kit also includes a diamong-rod for serrations. It cost me ~$60 altogether. I use the angle-guide when I want to quickly reset a bevel, otherwise I just free-hand with the holder. The angle guide doesn't do 15-dps very well on narrow blades but it gets close. Free-handing with the hones isn't as easy as with the DMT Dua-Folds (double-sided hones) which can be purchased in a similar 4-hone kit with angle-guide for ~$60. These are compact, light-weight, versatile, provide a plethora of grits (you could easily rebevel an edge with these), are easy to clean (I keep a small toothbrush with the kit) and easy to use. If I had the cash, I'd start over with a couple of Dua-folds in those same 4 grits. I use the kit to sharpen axes, scythes, knives, and straight-razors. To finish convex, I also made my own strop that gets loaded with green compound, but it's not usually used for anything but the razors.

This is a compact set-up. The hones are ~1" wide x 4" long so strokes are many and short for larger blades, and recurves require a lot of work with the rod (DMT used to offer an aligner hone specifically for them, but i can't find one anymore). I may soon purchase a Buck FlipStik Ultra simply for the rounded hone (which provides 3 grits in an even lighter and more compact kit for ~$25). However the curved flip-stik makes less contact with the bevel than a wider flat hone so it is more difficult to free-hand an even bevel. That said, you're more likely to have it on you wherever you may travel. DMT offers shorter, wider credit-card size flexible sharpeners as well for easy travel.

Worksharp offers the "Field Sharpener" with extra-coarse and coarse diamond plates of reasonable size (they call the "coarse" and "fine" but the grit is quite low and cuts deep), also offers a ceramic-rod in 2 grits to give the edge a nicer finish, and a strop than can be loaded with compound to remove burrs. There is enough surface length on these for a decent stroke. There is also a short taper-edge ceramic rod for serrations. ~$30

The Sharpmaker is a crok-stik set-up well designed for high versatility, can handle plain edges or serrations, can use the angle-guide or free-hand the rods, etc. I just wish it offered more grits as-is. You can get a similar set-up from "Smith" brand sharpeners for a lot less but with a bit less versatility.

If you want to spend more, DMT offers some nice double-sided full-size diamond-plates, there are a plethora of SiC and waterstone hones available from various manufacturers, pricey angle-guide systems from KME and WE, the WS Belt-grinder (a portable version of the $30 Harbor-Freight belt grinder ;) ), etc.

Most of my stuff comes from sharpeningsupplies.com, leevalleytools, ebay, or here on the gear-exchange.
 
IMO, paper wheels w/ a bench grinder. You'll get a mirror polished edge in under 5 minutes.
However, if you're not comfortable (or knowledgable) with using a bench grinder, don't even think about buying it.

The sharpmaker is great...for touch ups. I usually reprofile to 30 DI with paper wheels and touchup on the 40 DI part of the sharpmaker as needed.
 
amg137 said:
I'll assume you're looking for some sort of sharpening system and not stones, as stones are easy to find on the cheap. Though it may seem expensive to some, the Spyderco Sharpmaker is, in my opinion, the best fixed angle sharpener for the money at around $50. You only get to choose from 15 and 20 dps, but those are sufficient for most users. The one major problem with it is that the stones that it come with are not very coarse. This makes it great for just touching up an edge, but not so great if you need to totally reprofile. You can pick up additional diamond rods separately, but this adds to the cost..
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yes i am! i have seen the sharp maker, but i haven't heard great reviews about it, ill try it out though. thanks!
 
1-The Spyderco sharpener is the best one of it's type.
2- Ken Onion Work Sharp does a terrific job for about $80 more.

Last year I went to a restaurant auction and they had a Hook Eye belt sharpener that I picked up for $97. It's the bomb but they're $500 new.
 
People are forgetting to mention the lansky guided sharpener, I have had one for years, not a single problem except the plastic on the Hones does not like penetrating oil( I goofed). But lansky replaced the whole kit. If you get one get the older model, the new one with the rubber on the jaw is junk!
 
DPS, degrees per side.

Best knife sharpener is practice, best is probably a custom built edge pro or wicked edge type device for V grinds.
 
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