Pull Through Sharpeners

I use these on machetes, shovels, axes and garden hoes, they beat a file I think. Sometimes on some of the junk drawer kitchen knives, never on anything good.
 
Interesting! I'd rather a grinder of some kind though. The pull through sounds like a slow way of getting that done if you have grinders available, but I could see it at least improving the edge on those tools in a pinch.
 
David Mary said:
Interesting! I'd rather a grinder of some kind though. The pull through sounds like a slow way of getting that done if you have grinders available, but I could see it at least improving the edge on those tools in a pinch.
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It ain't fast but if you do it often enough it's not too bad. It works better on machetes and hoes than shovels and axes for sure but anything already decent can be touched up fairly quickly with one and they're easy to carry in a back pocket.
 
Ourorboros said:
I wish you luck in saving people from bad hardware store grinders.
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Don't forget restaurant knife supply stores that use electric double wheel pull through sharpeners. They are the worst.

There is a place like that in the town I just moved away from.... and they actually brag that their sharpening system is the only one Henckels approves of. Which, if it is true, seems to kind of lend credence to the "consume their knives and make them buy more" theory.
 
David Mary said:
Don't forget restaurant knife supply stores that use electric double wheel pull through sharpeners. They are the worst.

There is a place like that in the town I just moved away from.... and they actually brag that their sharpening system is the only one Henckels approves of. Which, if it is true, seems to kind of lend credence to the "consume their knives and make them buy more" theory.
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That is horrifying. I don't expect places to pull out waterstones, but that is a nightmare.
 
I'll probably get flamed for this, and I guess that's fine. I reckon that if you stick your neck out, and your head gets cut-off, so be it. I only wanted to get involved because I've always been intrigued by the absolute hatred for the pull-throughs, and really just wanted to add my own $0.02. Hopefully, my post will be benign enough that y'all will be able to see that I'm not trying to troll or be an antagonist, and that it only represents the opinion of one person.


That being posted, I think that any sharpening system can damage a knife if used incorrectly. For instance, I've heard a few horror stories about the Work Sharp and things "going a bit too far". I've also actually seen damage caused by a guided system. Heck, just last night, I mentioned about how I marred a Higo knife pretty well with the diamond rods of a Spyderco Sharpmaker.

With that in mind, I think that a lotta' folks equate pressure, noise, and resistance to "sharpness" when it comes to the pull-throughs. And, why shouldn't they? They ham-fist the heck out of their pull-throughs and are ironically rewarded with a pretty sharp blade...not realizing that they just removed .005" or .010" of metal, and have done so every time they used it. Within a few years, their "survival" knife looks like a filet knife.


I have quite a few 1095 "field"-type knives that have only ever been sharpened with an AccuSharp. Maybe I was the only one who read the "very light to no pressure" thing in the instructions. Maybe I had a better mental visual of what carbide "blades" could do to a knife. Who knows? However, my personal experience has been that, once the sharpener "trains" the edge to the pre-set angles, the sharpener shows no resistance and makes next to no noise when used gingerly. From my experiences, it glides effortlessly along the edge and simply restores the established micro-bevel.

As I posted, an AccuSharp rode in my truck bag/box with many of my knives for years, and was (*and is) the only sharpener that a few of my knives have ever seen. Have I mic'ed them to see how much metal I've removed? No. However, I can say that they look no different than many of the same knife models that I still have in boxes. For me, the AccuSharp was a very convenient tool when I was all alone in some remote place, or when space or weight was a consideration.

I wanted to add, I believe AccuSharp recommends 10-12 light passes along the blade. From my own personal usage, I've never seen the need for that. Personally, three light passes from the belly to the tip, and three light passes along the entire length of the blade, and I'm up and rolling again. And, when I post "light", I mean only using my thumb to keep the sharpener at a 90* angle and not really applying pressure.


Again, this is only the opinion of one person. (*Me)

"To each his own", "Your mileage may vary", "Yada, yada, yada", etc.
 
Alone said:
I marred a Higo knife pretty well with the diamond rods of a Spyderco Sharpmaker.
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I ordered those recently and straight away I was shocked at how coarse they are. They feel like 120 grit sandpaper and they chew up your edge nastily even with a feather light touch. I can imagine you could do some serious damage with them if you weren't careful.
 
Guy McVer said:
I ordered those recently and straight away I was shocked at how coarse they are. They feel like 120 grit sandpaper and they chew up your edge nastily even with a feather light touch. I can imagine you could do some serious damage with them if you weren't careful.
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Might really help to break them in a bit by running some metal over them for a while. It works with diamond plates.
 
Years ago, I tried one of these pull through sharpeners on a cheap knife (that I had previously broken the tip on). After one or two pulls, it was obvious that the sharpener could do harm to the blade, so out of curiosity, I kept going. 🤣 Not too many pulls later, the blade shape was pretty much ruined, and I tossed the cheap knife in the trash.

So no, I'm not a fan.
 
I use a pull through sharpener only to begin sharpening a knife. On kitchen and more simple steel pocket knives, I use them to begin the process only. Next step is usually fairly coarse sandpaper double side taped to a board.
 
In my recent exploration of various sharpening methods, I bought a pull-through. A Wusthof, I think. (I'm at the office, so don't have it handy to look at.) My impression was that while it will make a knife moderately sharp, it will sure enough scrape a bunch of steel off the blade. I've got a few kitchen knives I'm willing to use it on, if I need an edge pretty quickly. TBH, though, it's not that much faster than freehanding, as long as my blades aren't too bad off. It is a lot faster than me and my Hapstone, but it also doesn't do nearly as nice a job.
 
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