All About Pocket Knives

I see these all the time on tv. It will give you the same angle on both sides of the blade . Are these good or will they ruin the knife ? Thanks for your input .

Only one I have used removes a lot of steel from the blade .I think it's somewhere in the house at the back of a draw.Looks good on TV when they run a already sharpen knife through the sharpener.

Grant

Grinders are bad enough in unskilled hands but these things, in my opinion, are worse than grinders.
They are very hard on blade edges.
If you get confident with stones you will always have a sharp knife.

NO!! NO!!! NO!!! Garbage!!! John

Thanks for all the info I appreciate it .

I'm not exactly sure what type of sharpener you're asking about. If it's one of the electric knife sharpeners, never, never, ever use one on a good knife. I've seen countless knife blades that have been ruined by them.

If, on the other hand you're talking about one of these sharpeners shown below, they're pretty harmless and actually do a pretty fair job of touching up a blade if it's not too dull.

philco wrote:I'm not exactly sure what type of sharpener you're asking about. If it's one of the electric knife sharpeners, never, never, ever use one on a good knife. I've seen countless knife blades that have been ruined by them.

If, on the other hand you're talking about one of these sharpeners shown below, they're pretty harmless and actually do a pretty fair job of touching up a blade if it's not too dull.

I have used both the carbide V sharpeners and the ceramic.
The ceramic Vs are OK for a flexible blade like a fish fillet knife but I avoid the carbide V sharpeners if I care at all about the knife! I might use it in an old machete that I really didn't care about but NOT on a good knife.

The reason I say this is because I have seen knives where people use those carbide V sharpeners exclusively.
They do make the blade sharper, but they have a tendency to chatter when they are drawn down the length of the blade.
I sharpened a knife at the cutlery store one time that looked like it was a serrated blade, however it was a fine edge blade but the person had used a carbide V sharpener on it for several times. The carbide V had dug into the blade, then released, then dug in again, etc. down the length of the blade. The result was a very uneven series of serrations down the length of the blade. The more the person used that carbide sharpener the worse the blade got until they brought me the knife to remove the all the serrations created by the carbide sharpener. I had to remove about 1/8" of the width of the blade to get rid of the gouges in the blade.

That is why I avoid the carbide V sharpeners.

I use a Smith's like Phil posted the picture of, sometimes on an already fairly sharp knife. I ONLY USE the Ceramic side.

I only use it on kitchen knives etc. I would never drag a good folder or fixed blade through the thing

Cutty wrote:I only use it on kitchen knives etc. I would never drag a good folder or fixed blade through the thing

BINGO! Let's be open about this. Most households in this country (using my own small circle of friends, relatives and acquaintances as a yardstick) have crappy and usually cheap kitchen knives. My own kitchen knives run the gamut from cheap to mediocre (Chicago Cutlery) to pretty nice though not the best of the best (Wusthof and Shun). It's my opinion that it doesn't matter what you use on kitchen knives you bought in a set on sale at Walmart for $39.98 as long as they're sharper than when you began. OKAY. NOT THE GRINDER.

I have several knife sharpening systems all the way from a Bear two sided stone I bought at the local hardware store in about 1968 for $2.95, through a carbide ring sharpener I bought at a yard sale for a quarter up through three power sharpeners (the latest is a Work Sharp) and a Lansky system.

The Lansky is for my pocket knives. End of story.

The Shun kitchen knives go back to KAI Kershaw for sharpening. Period.

The Wusthofs and my Mundial slicer, I sent off some years ago and paid through the nose but they came back as sharp as the Shun knives.

The rest of my kitchen knives and those of my friends and relatives get sharpened with the Work Sharp (I don't know a single solitary soul, other than myself, who has any "good" kitchen knives). If I need a quick touchup on my cheap/average kitchen knives I use the Smiths you see below.

Yep.....
Lansky for folders.
Work Sharp Ken Onion for good kitchen and fixed blades.
Smiths, ceramic side only, for a quick touch up on cheaper kitchen knives.( after putting a good edge on with the work sharp, usually).

I have a couple of the Lansky pull-throughs. I bought the blade medic because of the diamond tapered rod for serrated blades.

You'll be glad to hear that I don't use the pull-throughs to sharpen good knives. I basically only use them for knives with a bad edge, kind of for reprofiling the edge. Once I get a good working edge on the blade, I switch to ceramic rods. So I do think the pull-throughs can serve a purpose in rare cases. I definitely wouldn't recommend using them for regular sharpening purposes.

But if it's a cheap knife that you bought at Walmart, go nuts! You can always buy another one.

I used pull-throughs as a kid. Haven't since.

Now I have a large smooth black stone (inherited it, don't know what it's made out of) for large knives, an orange small Norton for chip fixing and for tough jobs like chips and knives that won't get a good edge, a Smith's Arkansas stone for regular sharpening, and a large coarse Lansky stone I use for sharpening axes. I have inherited a few knives, and a Buck 110 was trashed from using some kind of powered sharpening rig or a grinder, still useable, but the edge is a misshapen wreck!

You know what, I think I'd like to change my opinion. My buddy brought me a cheap knife from his tackle box. It was in pretty good shape, except for the nicks in the blade's edge. I have an India stone that I've been meaning to start using. So I put the stone to work. I'm not an expert by any means. I have very little experience sharpening "freehand." But the stone did such a good job on this knife! I'm really impressed. Now I'm thinking pull-through sharpeners are completely useless.

I use the Smith one's like Phil showed for some touch up.