Why so much hate for pull sharpeners?

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https://imgur.com/GK59Qsi

If this much metal is removed from a single pull, imagine what 5 or 10 does, multiply that by however many times you use it a week or month. The blade life will be drastically reduced. If you don't have the blade perfectly square you are not really getting it sharp as you are now sharpening at a different angle and actually removing the apex that was formed.

Add onto that if you watch carefully just as it zooms in you can see damage on the pull through. That only gets worse over time and makes the edge even worse.
 
I started a thread on this a while ago, tried the Victorinox sharpener with horrifying results. Long slivers of steel ripped out of the bevel. Got the knife moderately sharp, but with a lot of damage to my edge. If you search for it, I included pictures.

For me, never again. I can sharpen on a coarse stone in very little time with better sharpness and no edge damage.
 
JayDeep said:
I don't think it is, but I do think that's is high maintenance, which was my entire point. Difficulty was never a question. Time consuming and displeasurable is my issue with it.
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Reality is, sharpening by hand on stones does take some time to learn and get the feel for it. And initially setting good edge geometry takes some time on most factory blades. Though ordinarily, that only needs to be done ONCE.

But once that's done, the upkeep to keep an edge keen can be done just as quickly, and with much better results, than the time spent scraping a new edge onto a blade with a pull-through. An edge that's well-set initially becomes much easier to maintain in very sharp condition with only a minute or less spent on it, using a stone by hand. And the edge produced will work better and last much longer.

The means by which the carbide scraper pull-throughs work can be emulated by pulling a piece of paper cardstock, like an index card, through the 'V' formed by an open pair of scissors. You can see how the scissors' crossed edges will grab, pinch and tear the edge of the card as it's pulled through. Much the same happens to a thin steel edge being drawn through the 'V' formed between the carbide scrapers in the pull-through. In every pinch of the fine edge, the steel will be weakened and even torn, leaving a 'sharp-ish' apex that's already damaged & fragile from the start, before it ever gets used. So those edges don't last long before they'll fold and/or tear away in use. The much too frequent 'resharpenings' made necessary by that will essentially render moot any perceived time savings in using the device. The life of the blade's edge and the usable life of the knife itself will be shortened as well, due to all of that unnecessary damage being done by the sharpener itself.

As pointed out earlier, the round rod-type ceramic inserts in some pull-throughs won't severely damage the steel at the edge, like the crossed carbide scrapers can do. But they still have severe limitations, one of which is the imprecise nature of angle control & consistency with many successive passes through the device. Because the angle varies as held by hand with each pass through the device, a different portion of the bevels will be making contact on each side on each pass. And worse, with the angle tilting slightly off of perfect vertical each time, a bevel's upper portion gets contact on one side, and the apex of the edge itself will be contacting the inserts at a different angle from the other side, on each pass. So, the bevels get rounder and the apex gets rounder, all at the same time, to the point where there's no real 'apex' to the edge left at all. That's what makes getting an edge even close to sharp on these devices very challenging - and in reality, much more difficult than just doing the sharpening on a stone by hand.
 
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Pull through sharpeners will ruin a blade in short order. They really suck! And I never saw one finish to the point, they leave a little nib to one side. Using a stone or diamond plate with practice is the best way to sharpen and your blade will last a lot longer and will be much sharper.
 
I've used them and I don't like them. One issue is the little ceramic inserts have a small contact area that loads fast and are hard to clean well. Another is you can't really do anything with it other then put a so-so edge on a knife, fixing chips or thinning you'll need something else. It's better then nothing but there are better choices imo for an easy to use home sharpener, ceramic 'V' crock sticks for instance.
 
I have mini croc sticks from Lansky, you can take them off to clean them, but I rarely do this. They are like the yellow ones in the image below.
I use them all the time on my kitchen knives to touch them up, and they don't seem to damage my knives. I usually pull through the V in the middle at the start. It's the most aggressive way to use this, and I use a firm stroke, but not using all of my body weight on it. After initial passes in the center, I only use the sides to sharpen one side at a time. Works for me. If I need to re-profile, or take out dings, it's with a diamond or corundum stone.
C-CLIP_Combo-tP2.jpg

My advice, take one of your users, and start free hand sharpening with it. What is the worst that can happen? You can't really "ruin" the edge. If it is not as sharp as you want, it just means you get more practice. I never did anything I could not fix. You only get better at something by doing it, and the more, the better.
 
Are you being sarcastic? While I generally like the Project Farm comparisons, this one isn't their best work, for several reasons:

1. The BESS scores he's citing should be increased by 20% in order to reference the BESS chart. That's per the manufacturer, because he's using the pre-strung blanks instead of the media holder;

2. The BESS chart itself is of questionable value. It states that new, high-end cutlery scores in the 250-350 range. In my experience, high-end kitchen knives are usually 150-200 from the factory. The average of the 50-or-so pocket knives I've tested is right around 200;

3. If you consider a typical factory edge to be "razor sharp," as I often see them described ... you don't know what a really sharp knife is. The cheap, pull-through sharpener scored 348g BESS (adding 20%), which I consider well past the point of needing sharpening. When I sharpen kitchen knives they come in at 50-80 BESS;

4. He didn't match the factory angle with the sharpeners that allow you to match the factory angle ... or indeed seem to pay much attention to the edge angle at all.
 
dogstar said:
I have mini croc sticks from Lansky, you can take them off to clean them, but I rarely do this. They are like the yellow ones in the image below.
I use them all the time on my kitchen knives to touch them up, and they don't seem to damage my knives. I usually pull through the V in the middle at the start. It's the most aggressive way to use this, and I use a firm stroke, but not using all of my body weight on it. After initial passes in the center, I only use the sides to sharpen one side at a time. Works for me. If I need to re-profile, or take out dings, it's with a diamond or corundum stone.
C-CLIP_Combo-tP2.jpg

My advice, take one of your users, and start free hand sharpening with it. What is the worst that can happen? You can't really "ruin" the edge. If it is not as sharp as you want, it just means you get more practice. I never did anything I could not fix. You only get better at something by doing it, and the more, the better.
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I gifted an idahone to a family member, I liked the longer rods and thought they were ideal for large kitchen knives, i think they were 9" long if I recall right. I got to try it out a bit on a visit and thought it was a good setup. Nice long strokes and easy to use, good for someone who has no interest in a bench stone.
 
JayDeep said:
So essentially I'm right to stick with generic pull through sharpeners. Thanks for confirming that. 👍
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This video doesn't tell the whole story.

Initial sharpness is one thing. Using the knife is another. A pull through not only removes too much steel, you will have to continually use the pull through way more often, as the edge will crumble, further exasperating the shortened lifespan of the knife.
 
I understand your lack of desire to take more time sharpening by learning to use benchstones, and your not liking how long a clamp style sharpening takes to set up and use, unfortunately it's just the name of the game. However I think you have a really good alternative to your pull-through in front of you with, what I believe is a Spyderco Sharpmaker. Personally I use a combination of a KME and a Sharpmaker for my sharpening and edge maintenance needs. As long as your knife's edge is below 20 degrees per side, which I think will be the case for you with your current method, the Sharpmaker is an awesome piece of gear. You hold it just like you hold yours now, straight up and down with the spine facing up, and "take slices off the stones" like someone said above. It's really a great setup, I can touch up an edge in under 10 swipes usually if I stay on top of it. Check yours out. And if you find that it's not taking steel off fast enough for you, you can get diamond rods.
 
LimpCroissant said:
I understand your lack of desire to take more time sharpening by learning to use benchstones, and your not liking how long a clamp style sharpening takes to set up and use, unfortunately it's just the name of the game. However I think you have a really good alternative to your pull-through in front of you with, what I believe is a Spyderco Sharpmaker. Personally I use a combination of a KME and a Sharpmaker for my sharpening and edge maintenance needs. As long as your knife's edge is below 20 degrees per side, which I think will be the case for you with your current method, the Sharpmaker is an awesome piece of gear. You hold it just like you hold yours now, straight up and down with the spine facing up, and "take slices off the stones" like someone said above. It's really a great setup, I can touch up an edge in under 10 swipes usually if I stay on top of it. Check yours out. And if you find that it's not taking steel off fast enough for you, you can get diamond rods.
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Fair enough. Yes Sharpmaker sounds right. I read many good things about it as an overall solid choice so I bought it. Buying things isn't my problem. My disposable income is very large. It's the time and effort that bothers me. I value my time to an extreme degree that most do not or cannot understand. I'm thinking I'll try taking my knives to a local Cabelas as first attempt. I like going there weekly to buy ammo for my supply anyway.
 
JayDeep said:
Fair enough. Yes Sharpmaker sounds right. I read many good things about it as an overall solid choice so I bought it. Buying things isn't my problem. My disposable income is very large. It's the time and effort that bothers me. I value my time to an extreme degree that most do not or cannot understand. I'm thinking I'll try taking my knives to a local Cabelas as first attempt. I like going there weekly to buy ammo for my supply anyway.
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I'm trying to think of a good knife store you could take them to to get sharpened. I was raised near the same area, but across the river. There's a spot called Hawthorne Cutlery in Portland that I used to love to visit. I haven't been there in years, but they had all kinds of nice knives like Chris Reeve, Microtechs, Benchmades, Spydercos, ZTs, and a good amount of customs. I know that they sharpened knives, but I never had them do one of mine. I'm not sure how good they are, but the guy there is a serious knife guy so I'd imagine he'd take it pretty seriously. There's an absolutely insanely nice knife store here in Seattle that the owner actually sharpens every knife by hand on japanese waterstones, very impressive. Hopefully you'll find something like that there.
 
Another good rule of thumb is that if you're not going to learn how to get a good edge manually, don't buy an expensive knife unless you can treat it like a consumable, because you'll never see a meaningful advantage out of it compared to a cheap one (of good fundamental design, but pedestrian materials) unless you bother with learning proper care of it. You would be better served using a knife of simple steel but good starting geometry and using a good quality motorized drag-through instead. This will often take off more material than manual sharpening and so will wear away at the blade faster, but will put an actual good edge on the knife quickly and easily at the expense of longevity. When the blade wears too much, get a new one.
 
AntDog said:
Sharpening a knife is High maintenance? Remind me to never be in front of you in traffic…

This must be an IL record.
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Oh yeah, I don't do traffic well at all. And i don't wait for anyway ever. There are always options. No restaurant is worth waiting for. No bar. No anything, ever. Time is literally the most valuable thing we have.
 
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FortyTwoBlades said:
Another good rule of thumb is that if you're not going to learn how to get a good edge manually, don't buy an expensive knife unless you can treat it like a consumable, because you'll never see a meaningful advantage out of it compared to a cheap one (of good fundamental design, but pedestrian materials) unless you bother with learning proper care of it. You would be better served using a knife of simple steel but good starting geometry and using a good quality motorized drag-through instead. This will often take off more material than manual sharpening and so will wear away at the blade faster, but will put an actual good edge on the knife quickly and easily at the expense of longevity. When the blade wears too much, get a new one.
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Not helpful at all, but a valid point and opinion regardless. Unfortunately you don't realize how large of a disposable income I have. So just assume money is of literally zero concern. I just want something very easy, always. My free time is what's limited, not my budget. I prefer to keep what I have and like, but can easily replace if need be.

I'm just looking for the best possible solution for me.
 
JayDeep said:
Not helpful at all, but a valid point and opinion regardless. Unfortunately you don't realize how large of a disposable income I have. So just assume money is of literally zero concern. I just want something very easy, always. My free time is what's limited, not my budget. I prefer to keep what I have and like, but can easily replace if need be.

I'm just looking for the best possible solution for me.
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I literally said "don't buy an expensive knife unless you can treat it like a consumable" specifically so you can just run it through a good quality motorized drag-through. So I fail to see how it was unhelpful. If money is no object, literally buy at whatever price point you are comfortable treating like most folks would treat a common box cutter, and just run it through the finest slot that will be sufficient to touch up your blade as needed. It will wear out faster than with manual sharpening, but is a drag through sharpener that actually puts a good edge on knives, just at the sacrifice of blade longevity.
 
JayDeep said:
Not helpful at all, but a valid point and opinion regardless. Unfortunately you don't realize how large of a disposable income I have. So just assume money is of literally zero concern. I just want something very easy, always. My free time is what's limited, not my budget. I prefer to keep what I have and like, but can easily replace if need be.

I'm just looking for the best possible solution for me.
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www.themanual.com

This Diamond-Encrusted Knife Is Super Sharp But Costs $150,000 - The Manual

The Platinum Mamba is ridiculous, but we can't look away.
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Use until dull, throw it in the trash, buy another. Problem solved.
 
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