Chef'sChoice Professional Electric Knife Sharpeners With 100-Percent Diamond Abrasives And Precision Angle Guides For 20-Degree Straight-Edge and Serrated Knives, 3-Stage, White

After reading comments I read the instructions carefully and followed them closely. While I have been gifted a few quality kitchen knives, I could never say I have a collection of fine knives. However, when I grab a knife to slice something, I want it to slice and slice easily. All my knives had gone dull and my previous sharpening abilities didn't help much and/or were too involved for me to want to do. I wanted something that sharpened my knives and was quick and easy. Something I could do or my wife could do without a lot of setup. This sharpener filled the bill perfectly! My super dull knives came out super sharp with very little effort! Sure, I could probably spend more time on the sharpener perfecting a razor sharp edge but cutting quickly and cleanly met my goal and got all my knives back into useful condition. I would recommend this to anybody!

This finally solved my dull knife problems. After many other sharpeners failed to give me a good sharp edge, I finally resolved to buy this one and I’m happy I did. I hate dull knives and this sharpener is so worth the cost.

Where's the 6th star?? This is an EXCEPTIONAL product, worth a PERFECT rating. I am a tough grader, but this thing is just wonderful: 1. It just works, very little skill or time required. 2. No water, no significant maintenance, no mess no fuss. 3. Compact, space efficient 4. FAST (maybe a minute or less per knife) 5. SAFE - - the abrasive wheels are spring-loaded, so you can't easily make a big "ding" in the edge of a blade. My wife loves it, I love it, we're throwing out all of our other miserably ineffective sharpening tools. I have no idea about longevity of the abrasive wheels -- but I suspect, with the spring-loaded design, that they will not suffer premature wear-out (because you can't press the knife into them too hard). Time will tell. Read the instructions well and follow them closely, for the best initial results. But honestly even if you don't you'll get sharp knives. Just draw the blade fairly smoothly through the slot (no pauses). I did notice that the edges produced by this system do not have the razor-sharp "feel" on fingertips that I am accustomed to with hand-sharpening, but they ARE SHARP and they CUT VERY WELL. I attribute this to the dual-bevel structure of the way the 3-stage (really 2-stage) process works. Another thing I was concerned about was getting the blade sharp all the way down to the hilt. No worries, the design of the machine allows the wheels to contact the blade down to within about 1/8" of the hilt. I have a 30x magnifier, which I used to examine the process and nature of the new cutting edge. This is a very useful method to understand what's happening with the sharpener and with your knife blades. I highly recommend a 10x or 20x magnifier (jeweler's loupe), they're cheap and you can really see what's going on with your fine knives. I don't normally rave on and on about any products, but this puppy is a gem and I've never been happier with a purchase.

First off, let me say that this sharpener works very well, and is easy to use. Although there is a little technique to using it to its best advantage, it doesn't require tremendous manual dexterity to accomplish a good sharpening here. The angles are set for you, and the machine does the work. Okay, down to specifics: The Good: This product can recondition a very dull or badly chipped knife quickly. Using the most aggressive sharpening wheel (number one), it cleans up the edge and establishes an initial grind within a handful of pulls per side. For instance, I had an ancient Sabatier cleaver that looked like it'd been used to sack Rome. The edge was tragic. I got it to razor sharpness in about five minutes while chatting with a friend. In addition, if your knife is not so badly beaten, the second and third stations get it back to a really keen sharpness in no time flat. Yes, even if you have a weird blade shape, like my Kershaw Lifter pocket knife, which is a quasi tanto with a recurved primary edge. The noise, while clearly present, is not so bad as to bother anyone outside the room. I wouldn't use it while someone's trying to watch television right by you, but it's not a bench grinder. This sharpener can succeed where others have failed. I had an old Puma folder that I'd tried to sharpen with just about every system known to man. It had typically been sharp, but not razor sharp, after these ministrations. I was hesitant to put a "nice" knife through the Chef's Choice, but I had to grit my teeth and try it. Results? It's sharper than I've managed to get it on any other system (flat diamond hones, ceramic sticks, the Lansky controlled angle system, etc.) Classic Pumas had excellent blade hardness, and so this thing is capable of working on harder steels. The Not so Good: There are two primary drawbacks to this system. The first is that, if the knife goes down to "paring knife" or smaller size, the mechanics of the sharpener are not quite as ideal. For big knives, easy peasy, because they have more material to assure a good angle and a strong interface with the grinders. If the knife is very thin and narrow, you have to be a lot more careful not to put a swale in the edge. With softer steel, or very wide blades, like kitchen knives, you'll sometimes get some superficial scratches. On harder steels and finishes, I have not seen any such issues. Those are the only drawbacks I have found. The Verdict: This is a great sharpener for someone who doesn't want to spend a long time, and wants to get predictable, good results. Can some other systems get the knives sharper, with greater safety for the finish? Sure. They also take a lot more skill and time. There is probably an upper limit to blade thickness (no hatchets or giant survival knives), but your average folding knife and all your kitchen knives will be fine. I would not necessarily recommend this to people who treat their knives like cult objects. For utilitarian or hard use blades, however, I think it is a great system, and the touch-up should be literally a matter of a minute if the edge hasn't been chipped or rolled. For your heirloom quality, turbonium coated knives of the honored ancestors, perhaps a slower, gentler approach might be better.

The three stage strategy works very well. I've used many non-powered techniques over the years with mixed success. Rods, stones, gizmos... Most work fine under limited circumstances, but all fall short in either the time and effort involved or their ability to do a particular stage of the sharpening. I have a mixed bag of knives, ranging from Chef's Choice trizor and Sabatier au carbone to no-name stamped junk. Of course, this sharpener had no problem bringing them back to an extremely fine edge, but the interesting thing to me, was how differently these knives progress through the different stages of the sharpening. This may account for some of the different sounding reviews here. The manual has good tips, read it! I also have a knife that has primarily been used for construction tasks including sheet metal, sheet rock and digging. Needless to say, this knife was a mess. The 1st stage of the sharpener reshaped the edge in no time. Once your knives are in good shape, it takes very little time to touch them up with the last two stages. Stage 3 is for straightening and polishing the blade, and stage 2 is a very light sharpening. Someone else here mentioned using a steel between sharpenings which is always a good idea. It's also a lot quicker/easier to pull out and put away, and for some softer knives, I think I get a somewhat sharper edge. (BTW this is an F. Dick 12" fine oval steel) There was also a comment about not having much success with serrated knives that I have to echo. It can help true an already sharp edge but it can't sharpen a dull serrated blade. Overall, I've had great results. Both in the quality of the edge it produces and the ease of use.

I initially purchased a model 100 from a local Target store. It looked identical to the model 110 that is listed on Amazon's site. After bringing it home and trying it, I discovered that it did not sharpen the knife all the way to the hilt. After calling the 800 number for Chef's Choice, I found out that the 100 is different from the model 110 because of the inability to sharpen the full length of the blade. Both the 100 and the 110 use reciprocating flat stones to do the sharpening. I found that the model 100 had a tendency to leave irregular sharpening marks on the knife, They were sharp - but purely on an aesthetic view - they didn't look that good after sharpening. I then opted to go for the Model 120. The Model 120 uses three sets of rotary stones that are controlled by springs that keep a constant pressure between the blade and the knife. It also has spring loaded slots that keep the knife at an exact grinding angle. It is an almost foolproof method of sharpening knives. As long as you maintain an even speed pulling the knife through the sharpener and you allow the spring to hold the knife at the proper angle, you should get the same excellent results that I got. The first stage only has to be used the first time that you sharpen a knife with the unit - after that only stage two and three should be necessary. One of my concerns about using an electric knife sharpener has always been about how much steel is removed from the blade during sharpening. The model 120 has a magnetic cleanout plug under the machine that collects the steel removed during the sharpening process. After sharpening eight knives the filings that accumulated on the magnet were almost non-existent. I have always been reluctant to try an electric knife sharpener on our Henkels Four Star knives. We have had the knives for over twenty five years and the only sharpening that they have ever seen has been with the Henkel's fixed wheel pull through sharpener and steel along with an occasional "tune-up" by a professional knife sharpener. After using the Chef's Choice the edges of the knives are a good as the day they were purchased. I highly recommend this unit.

Very well designed/sturdy build. I’ve never been able to sharpen knives and with this sharpener it’s virtually impossible not to get an extremely sharp blade. Seriously sharp as in use extreme caution when cutting an item.

Works great