WÜSTHOF Knife Sharpener

So let me start off buy saying I’m classically trained in culinary arts and have twenty years experience. That being said I want to say I believe most if not all electric knife sharpeners are expensive trash that take way more material off than necessary. A whetstone and/or a diamond coat and ceramic steel with a honing steel to remove any burrs on the edge is the best way to sharpen a knife. The latter method can be used to effectively sharpen a serrated knife as well depending on the size of the serrations and the diameter of the steel but I digress. I bought this to see how effective it would be compared to using a whetstone for a straight edge blade. To my surprise pretty close. I don’t know how anyone could be so fail with this in the one star reviews. Epic stupidity perhaps is the only plausible reason, so let me state some things that I think are seemingly obvious. 1) You can’t use this to sharpen a Damascus steel knife (like shun or yakushi) you’ll ruin the pattern and the bevel angle is going to be different. I’d recommend using knives like global or wusthof for this sharpener. 2) Hold the knife straight, the angle is set for you you, take care to keep it perpendicular to the sharpener during the stroke. 3) Apply a light, even, firm degree of force just slightly more pressure than the weight of the knife applies itself. Remember you’re removing steel and the more pressure you apply the more steel you’re removing, a light pressure will give a better edge just enough to keep the pressure firm and even during your stroke. More lighter strokes will be more effective than a few forceful ones (which could damage your blade). 4) Drawn the knife toward you from the back toward the tip not back and forth. 5) No matter what type of sharpener you use, you should use a honing steel after and between sharpenings; and watch some videos if you don’t know how to use one. —If you use it as directed it will give you a great sharp edge very near to the original edge. Holding it at the wrong angle using a sawing method with too much pressure will almost certainly damage your knife and I guarantee you that any of the “experts” who say it damaged their knifes are not experts at all. Just FYI I’m not getting any kickbacks from Wusthof so this is a completely unbiased review. Like any product it needs to be used correctly. This one is fairly easy to use and very effective without having a learning curve that other methods have. Even knowing how to use other methods I use this far more often. Maintain your edges, your knives will last you a lot longer and don’t EVER use the blade of the knife in place of a bench scraper across a cutting board. I see people doing that and I cringe, it’s the quickest way to destroy your edge.

Super ergonomic design makes it easy to use. It did a great job on knives that hadn't been sharpened in 20 years - it took a long time, but we got there.

Bought this for my husband and he was impressed by how well it worked for him. The knife was much sharper after using it.

Handy well engineered handle while sharpening

Probably good enough to maintain knives that are already sharpened, but not terribly effective on knives that are already dull. The point of the pull through sharpener is to be more convenient over stones. If I have to pass a knife through hundreds of times, am I still gaining convenience over stones? I hate sharpening knives. I really wanted to like this product and I really wish there was some easier way to sharpen knives.

Now, my four star review might have more to do with the "professional" sharpening we had done to our Wustofs a couple of years ago (they came back barely, if any sharper than before they were touched) than it does with this sharpener's ability. It's entirely possible that the guy who did the sharpening didn't bother to look at the blade angle Wustof uses and went with an angle more common to lesser cutlery. It seems that most people simply pass their knives through a half-dozen times or so to get a great edge: I passed our knives through 15-20 times and saw only moderate improvement. I suspect that if I keep working them, they'll continue to improve, but want to do a little more reading first, as I don't want to screw up an expensive set of knives. We also have an old set (from the 60s) of Gerber Legendary Blades that were produced with an almost identical blade angle as the Wustofs, and they took a fantastic edge in only a few passes - another reason I think the "pro" buggered the Wustofs.

I was getting ready to buy two knife sets for my kids and saw this sharpener, Decided to buy it first and sharpen my cheap knives which I've sharpened to a great edge using other sharpeners before. Sharpened the first one and noticed a huge gouge out of it. Tried to correct it but realized that the chunk was so large, it would literally take 1/16 off of my blade edge to fix it. Maybe, just maybe I did something wrong. Sharpened another knife...similar result. I guess I'm a gluttony for punishment because I picked two more knives without a defect at all, then sharpened them and BOOM!!! Ruined knives. Now, I'll need to buy new knives for myself as well. DO NOT BUY THIS!!! DON'T! DON'T! DON'T! Now I can't trust dropping $1,400 on knives by the same manufacturer if they can't make a decent sharpener.

Excellent features for coarse and fine sharpening.