Smith’s 50933 Knife & Scissor Electric Belt Sharpener – Fine, Medium, & Coarse Belts – Straight Edge Blades – Handheld Sharpening – Workshop & Tool Sharpener

I'm not one of those guys that finds their zen spending 30 minutes with different stones and what not putting an edge on a knife that can bisect a human hair. I just want to be able to cut a steak/tomato/onion/etc. without having to fight with it. This does an excellent job at quickly getting a knife sharp, took me under 10 minutes including assembly and playing around to sharpen the 5 knives I actually use. It also very quickly cleaned up the "ragged" edges that my knifes got from those pull through ceramic sharpeners. I only used the 80grit for a few passes and it was more than sufficent for what I need. If you wanted to take more time and use the finer grits you could probably get some very sharp knives out of this thing.

EASY BELT CHANGE if you use the lock & release button to remove belt tension then re-tension the belt (also run briefly to re-center belt before sharpening). Belt quality on fine belt was junk - the splice was poorly done and wears very fast. I did buy spare set of belts. best advise is DON'T force the sharpening action with too much pressure. My machete went from junk to sharp in a few minutes.VALUE is superb; very light weight construction will last if you use sense. short use - moderate force

So I had doubts after reading some reviews. Many said the 20 degree angle was unfit for pocket knives, I have found that isn't totally true. I found out 20-23 Degrees is what most pocket/folding knives use as a basis. Using that information I used the sharpener on a handful of various blades and each one came out much sharper than before without much effort or changes to the geometry of the edge.Pros:+It works fast and well. You have to follow the directions closely, and use a fair bit of pressure to ensure the blade stays in contact with the belt, especially when grinding on the edge where the belt will try and lift the blade out of the guide (the left side of the grinding tool).+Its compact and easy to use. Once you have it set up it is fairly simple to use and effective, though I can imagine if you are left handed it would be a bit harder as it seems the on switch is not ambidexterous in it's positioning and you can't really flip it around and use it.Cons:-Belts are a pain to get in. It is not a fast or easy switch between belts. It can take a few minutes of careful prodding to get them in and out and I was afraid of breaking or damaging them a few times.-The belts run down quick. The belts do not have a robust grit to them and it wears down rather quickly.-Won't sharpen the heel. So at the bottom of a blade (the part closest to the hilt/ricasso) is the blade heel and in many circumstances I could not get the sharpener to sharpen this because you cannot push the blade far enough into the guide to get it to grind there.

This is an awesome product.The price was on the money.I just sharpened about 20 knives, anything ranging from 3 inch to 12 inch, pocket to kitchen, also ranging in different types of steel and various carbon%.It handed all of them with authority, brought them all back to a very sharp edge.

I couldn't get the belts on right. I just couldn't figure it out.

Great

While I like the design and ease of use, it simply is built with substandard materials. I bought 2 of these and both have broken one of the wheels that the belt spins on. They are made out of simple hard plastic and spin at a relatively high speed, it is apparent this creates more stress than the plastic can handle. The first one, the smaller wheel shattered when it was turned on the first time sending high speed shards flying in all directions. I simply sent that one back to Amazon for a replacement and have only used it one time since replacement. The second one broke on the 3rd use, the larger plastic wheel split in two. This time it is outside of the 30 day return so good and bad news. The good news is they claim a 3 year limited warranty, the bad news is I'm out the cost of shipping this back to Arkansas for them to repair/replace it. At the current failure rate I will have more invested in shipping them back for repair/replacement than they are worth. I wouldn't recommend this sharpener.

Very happy with it used to have a work. Sharp knife and tool sharpener that finally wore out from bass pro. Found this when I was going to order a replacement. Very happy that I found this because it's. Half the price of the one I was going to buy from bass pro shop.