Recommendation? Knife sharpener for occasional home use

J

jamesbond

Joined
Aug 12, 2017
Messages
10
Hello,

This is James, happy holidays to all of you.

Does anyone know if this is a good/decent knife sharpener for occasional home use?

Edgecraft Chef'sChoice 15 XV Trizor Professional Electric Knife Sharpener

https://home.woot.com/offers/chefsc...n=CJ&cjevent=42d3683de6a511e880ce00070a1c0e0e

This is for sale on $80. It will be used occasionally to sharpen knives used at home to cut fruit, vegetables, meat. The knifes are pretty medium to low end, nothing fancy, just those purchased at the big box stores.

Cheerios,
James
 
Electric sharpeners such as those will destroy the edge and remove excessive amounts of metal. A Worksharp KO is the more preferred electric sharpening method for simplicity.
 
A 'V-crock' sharpening setup, such as from Lansky (TurnBox), Spyderco (Sharpmaker), etc., with a pair of included diamond rods especially, would likely be all anyone would need for the occasional sharpening of simple kitchen knives. I'd avoid any powered sharpeners for such jobs, as they'd be overkill and would take a lot more steel than necessary. Home-use kitchen duty on fruits, veggies and simple meat slicing puts very little wear on knife edges (assuming use on a cutting board of poly, for example), even on 'soft' stainless blades. So any sort of powered grinding gear for upkeep is going to eat up the blade a lot faster than is necessary.

I suggest the diamond rods (usually around ~ 400 - 600 grit or so) with a V-crock setup, because they can be used to set a good, crisp, new edge on such knives initially, which likely wouldn't need to be done again for perhaps a year or more, maybe longer. Once that's done, simple touch-ups at a very light touch on finer ceramic rods included with the sets could keep them cutting for a very long time. If the edge is touched up with maybe 5 passes or less per side on the ceramic rods, say once or twice per week, that'd likely be all the upkeep needed.

Upkeep of simple, occasional-use kitchen knives at home is easy. No need to get too complicated or too overpowered in doing it. I'd avoid use of glass or bamboo cutting boards, as either can damage or wear fine knife edges pretty fast. Glass is too hard and will roll, chip or flatten the edge, and bamboo has a lot of silica content, which is very abrasive against knife edges. Poly boards are my favorite for such knives, as they won't damage even 'cheap' stainless knives with thin edges.

FWIW, my kitchen knives are all of the variety mentioned in the OP, from Chicago Cutlery, Farberware, Victorinox and even no-name stuff found for maybe $5 - $10 at the grocery store. I've thinned the edges on all of them to anywhere between 25° - 30° inclusive, sometimes lower. Even they hold up well for such use on a poly cutting board.
 
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Obsessed with Edges said:
A 'V-crock' sharpening setup, such as from Lansky (TurnBox), Spyderco (Sharpmaker), etc., with a pair of included diamond rods especially, ........
Click to expand...

Thank you David... Just read your post and bought the lansky turnbox one from amazon here for $16.99 but looking back at the listing it seems like both sets of included rods are ceramic. Which diamond ones would you buy to add to the set?
Thanks

Edit: Just found the "Lansky TB 2D2C" set for few bucks more with 2 diamond and 2 ceramic. Is this the one you were referring to?
 
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Equipped4life said:
Thank you David... Just read your post and bought the lansky turnbox one from amazon here for $16.99 but looking back at the listing it seems like both sets of included rods are ceramic. Which diamond ones would you buy to add to the set?
Thanks

Edit: Just found the "Lansky TB 2D2C" set for few bucks more with 2 diamond and 2 ceramic. Is this the one you were referring to?
Click to expand...

That would be at least one of the tools I was referring to. :thumbsup:

The diamond rods make complete resetting of the edge very quick & easy. That task would take a lot longer with just ceramic rods, and would also be prone to other problems coming with that, like errors brought by fatigue, more burring issues, having to frequently clean the rods to keep them cutting, etc.
 
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