This posting is going to reflect my experiences with knife
sharpening, as well as what products are available in 2021. It isn’t
comprehensive, as any comprehensive article would need to account for every
sharpening system and technique available, and there are a myriad of them.
These are just the ones that seem to work the best for me, or the ones that I
have experience with. I will make note of the fact that the items I’m
mentioning in this article have competitors in similar price points and
function. You may very well find a competitor or knockoff for any of these
items at a much-reduced price. I would be cautious about going exceptionally
low end due to the possibility of it not working well, breaking, damaging your
knives, or a combination of some or all these issues. If a sharpener is
particularly poorly designed, it could cause or contribute to the possibility
of injury as well.
There are several factors that should be considered when it
comes to how to sharpen your knives. They are, in no order: cost, technique,
space, and time. If you have all the time and money in the world, the options
are certainly greater than if you have almost no time or money. Your own
commitment to learning how to sharpen a knife needs to be factored in as well.
The absolute cheapest and easiest way to sharpen a single
knife would be to own a Benchmade or Spyderco and send them back to the factory
for factory sharpening. Some other manufacturers may offer a similar service,
but I know that both Benchmade and Spyderco will do this for you. That will
cost you the price of shipping, and in some cases $5 for return shipping. If
you only need to sharpen a knife once and don’t need to have it for a few
weeks, this method has a lot going for it. You need absolutely no technique, it
takes up no space, and the only time commitment is boxing it up and shipping it
off. This is fine for one or two knives, but eventually the wait time and the
cost of return shipping will start to add up.
Some of my favorite Benchmade and Spyderco knives:
Spyderco Para 2 (I carry this one almost daily!)
The next option is a sharpening stone or set of stones. The
cost on this is entirely variable, as I have seen some really cheap stones, all
the way up to some high-end Japanese stones. The time and technique factor for
this is going to be high. Free hand sharpening of blades requires that you keep
a consistent angle on the knife as you draw it across the stone. If you want to
take a deep dive into that world, I’d recommend watching Burrfection on YouTube. He’s got a series on how he sharpens knives, and that would be a
good place to start. He also has several videos on knives of all sorts. I
should mention that he’s a big fan of high end custom Japanese knives, so if
you start watching those videos it is likely that you’ll be tempted to buy some
product down that road. You’ve been warned!
If you want something relatively inexpensive that holds a consistent angle for you, the Spyderco Sharpmaker is a decent option. As of this writing it is around $75. It only requires that you draw the knife straight down on two different ceramic sharpening sticks. My experience with it is that it is OK for maintaining an edge on a knife, but very time consuming to bring a very dull knife back with it.
A step up or over from that may be the Lansky sharpening
system. The price can be less than the Sharpmaker or slightly more, depending
on the set that you get. The Lansky system uses a clamp to hold a sharpening
guide setup on the knife blade, and then you use stones that you screw down to
metal rods. I have seen people get good results with this setup, but the ones
I’ve played with never gave me a very consistent angle, due to the metal rods
not being exactly straight. If you want to try this one out, I’d recommend
checking the angle of each stone/rod setup before using it on your knife.
Knife makers typically use abrasive belts to put an edge on
a knife, and an abrasive belt can certainly be used to bring back an edge on a
knife. You can certainly free hand it on a belt sander or use one that is set
up for angle guides. The cost is quite variable depending on the belt
sander/grinder that you buy. If you want something that is set up specifically
for knives, the Worksharp Knife Sharpener is around $80 and works pretty well.
It doesn’t typically generate near as much heat as some of the bigger belt
driven systems. You can also get the Ken Onion version, which is more expensive
but gives more options in terms of sharpening angles. With a belt system you
can sharpen a knife fast. If you aren’t careful, you can also ruin a knife
fast, either in terms of taking off too much metal or heating the knife up past
its heat treat. Note that technique is very important when it comes to using a
belt driven system.
Similar in some ways to a belt system, a rotary wheel system
can be fast as well. Cost is also all over the map. Higher end systems such as
the Tormek can start at $450 and go over $1000. Much like a belt system, a
rotary wheel/stone system can get you a sharp edge fast, but also like the belt
system, a rotary system can wreck a knife in short order if you don’t know what
you’re doing, or you lose focus on the task at hand.
I will say that if you’re going to be sharpening a lot of
knives and don’t want to turn it into an all-day chore, a belt or wheel system
is probably where you will end up. Whichever one of those you choose, get a
cheap knife that you don’t care about too much and practice getting an edge on
that knife. It’ll save you some headache and heartache when you’re sharpening a
knife that wasn’t cheap and that you care about.
One of the sharpening systems that I use quite a bit is the Apex Edge Pro. It has a shelf that you hold the knife on to keep the sharpening
angles consistent, and the setup that holds the sharpening stones is robust and
keeps a consistent angle as well. I have gotten a knife edge polished to a
mirror shine and the edge so sharp that it splits hairs with this system. The
downsides to this would be cost and time. The initial investment on an Apex
system is going to be at least $200, and more like $250 if you get some of the
extra items that you’ll probably end up wanting anyway. And to get that knife
to a mirror polished edge took me close to 30 minutes, maybe slightly longer.
Not a big deal if you’re sharpening one knife, but it adds up if you’re
sharpening all the knives in your kitchen.
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| Spyderco Para 2 sharpened with the Apex Edge Pro |
A similar setup to the Apex is the Wicked Edge. I say
similar, but that is only in terms of concept, because the Wicked Edge is more
expensive. It does have the advantage of clamping the knife in the middle of
the sharpener and then working on both sides of the edge simultaneously with
two stones. I have tinkered with one, but I do not own one. I am not saying
this to be pejorative of the system, but only to tell you that the cost is
real. That said, if you’re sharpening a lot of knives, this would be faster
than the Apex system, while not being as quick as a belt or wheel.
Your needs will dictate where you land on this spectrum, but for me, most of my general sharpening happens on a Worksharp belt system. It works well for kitchen knives and pocketknives. It has never delivered a mirror finish to the blade bevel for me, but it has certainly generated a more than useful edge on any knife I’ve tried it on. The last time I was sharpening kitchen knives with it my wife was skeptical, but changed her mind after doing some chopping in preparation for dinner. I do break out the Apex system when I want to reprofile a knife or just put a very very sharp edge on it. I’d say that only about 10-20% of my sharpening happens on the Apex, but I’m always satisfied with the result when I do use it.
Please note that my Amazon links are affiliate links. If you purchase any of these items through these links it will get me a small percentage of the cost of the item, but at no cost to you. This helps me offset my expenses for running a business, such as hosting fees and buying items to review. Thank you for reading this review!
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