Review: Wüsthof electric knife sharpener

PaulR

#1 – 10:15 AM May 28, 2009

I have a sharpening steel, but I find it hard to use.

I've had my set of Sabatier knives for thirty-five years(!). I've never had to sharpen them. Cutting an overripe tomato is easy with these. I can even shave the hair off my forearm with them.

akbar56

#2 – 10:20 AM May 28, 2009

Spyderco tri sharpening system is the best (and easiest to use) way I have found.

I never trust a sharpening device that doesn't allow me to see the blade connect to the sharpening bits.

paanta

#3 – 10:33 AM May 28, 2009

You should never try to tell people the best way to sharpen knives, because it's like religion.

I use and love the spyderco system but if I use my steel regularly (after every washing and drying), I don't need to sharpen even the less durable edges on my carbon steel knives. Unless someone leaves one wet and it gets rusty. Grrrr.

P.S. You don't want a really fine edge to cut tomatoes...it needs some roughness to catch the edge of the skin. The knife would probably cut tomatoes best after the courser grind. I often use a file to rough the edge of a knife and give it little micro serrations.

morkus

#4 – 11:13 AM May 28, 2009

If you own Wüsthof knives, you should be using the steel nearly every time you use them. The steel isn't for sharpening the knife - they should really be called aligning rods. It realigns the little bits of metal which tend to fold over with regular use.

Also, if your knife is made of high-quality steel, you're using your aligning rod on a regular basis, and you're not mistreating them (i.e. throwing them in the sink or dishwasher, etc) you could probably get away with one professional sharpening a year, or less often. There's a grinding company near me which will sharpen for $2 a knife.

Furthermore, if you're decent with your hands (and you should be; you're spending good money on a decent knife) there's no reason you can't spend $15 or $20 on a waterstone on amazon for keeping a passably keen edge on your knife.

$200 can buy you several VERY nice knives. No matter how you slice it (har har) that $200 seems too much to spend on a sharpener.

karrock

#5 – 11:15 AM May 28, 2009

Perhaps it's important to note that none of these contraptions, steels or stones are really "sharpening" your knife. You're just using them to hone the edge straight and true.

REAL knife sharpening is done by a professional using equipment that will never be in the hands of a consumer.

acipolone

#6 – 11:22 AM May 28, 2009

Or just use this, for $10.

I've been using it for years and I think it works great. And as long as you pair it with a sharpening steel, your knives will keep their edge for quite a long time. Remember that a sharpening steel doesn't do any real sharpening, as karrok (#5) says. Over time your sharp knife edge will start to curl (sort of) to the side -- the steel just straightens it. But when this isn't enough, using something like the AccuSharp I linked to will shave off enough of the metal to give you a good edge again.

ryuthrowsstuff

#7 – 12:35 PM May 28, 2009

#5 is wrong on the idea that stones don't sharpen. Take a look at the stone after you finish using it. Whats that all over the place? Its metal filings. Stones, grinders (including that wusthof thing), and sanders all remove metal. Thats the defining difference between sharpening and honing. Stone removes metal, honing steal does not.

I don't like automatic sharpeners. Most of them don't work particularly well. They can chip or scratch your blade (especially thinner more brittle ones like Japanese knives have). Most gimmick knife sharpening systems give you little or no control over edge geometry. And frankly its not hard to get a decent to razor sharp edge with a stone in 15 minutes. The boy scouts are out there teaching 8 year olds to do it every day. Use that steal correctly and you wont even have to do it too often. My grandma has a set of knives that was last sharpened sometime in the mid 60's still razor sharp (last time before that was mid 30's).

maxoid

#8 – 12:39 PM May 28, 2009

sharp knives are way safer than dull ones, so anything people gotta do to maintain that edge is better than nothing. if that means dropping a couple hundo, so be it.

that said...

it's worth noting that grinders such as this remove material from the blade, little by little, and with the collar bit on german knives blocking the very back edge from going through the slot, you end up with a little "scoop" in the back inch of the blade after a couple hundred sharpenings. not a huge deal, but if you can manage to train yourself with a honing steel (there are several acceptable methods), you'll extend the life of the knife by quite a bit.

i also recommend stropping, which is stupid-easy, before carving raw meats and other tough-but-squishy things.

@#1: hooray for sabatier! i have a bunch of carbon steel sabatier blades that i found at second-hand shops, and they're definitely my most-used favorites.

Scott Rubin

#9 – 1:53 PM May 28, 2009

I just wanted to agree with everyone else who is pointing out the difference between honing and sharpening.

You should hone your knives with the honing steel just about every time you use them. If you have good knives, hone them, and take care of them, you should only need an actual sharpening once a year-ish. It's worth it to get a professional sharpening, just so you can be confident it's right.

Knife sharpeners like what you show here are not consumer products. They are only practical in big kitchens with lots of chefs using lots of knives constantly.

PaulR

#10 – 4:26 PM May 28, 2009

Maxoid @8:
A few months ago, a buddy was watching me chops onions and said something like: "Wow! How often do you get your knives sharpened? You're cutting through those like there's nothing there!"

In 33 years, I've never had to sharpen my knives on a stone nor on sandpaper. I'm not using them in a commercial kitchen - YMMV. If I find a knife doesn't seem to cut as easily as they should, I touch the edge up with the steel - using the 'stationary steel and shaving with knife' method.

A longer version of the instructions appears here:
http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/culinarytools/ht/honing.htm
Except, I don't draw my blades 10 times (yikes!) across the steel. Two or three times is plenty. And my steel is about 12-13 inches long.

A hearty 'Hear! Hear!' on two points mentioned by many:
1) Dull knives are dangerous. You press harder. They slip. And they're no fun to use.

2) Sharpening your knives takes a considerable amount of material off of them - my experience, if you're not a professional chef nor a butcher, is that it doesn't need to be done "every few weeks".

If the knives' edges are still the correct angle and shape, you don't need to sharpen them, just touch them up with a steel. Sharpening is to return them to the correct edge shape and angle, when the blade has been damaged or incorrectly honed.

As a few people here have noted, kitchen knives need a little (microscopic) roughness to the edge to tear and dig into the skin and into the flesh. That's why a good steel has small, shallow grooves machined into it.

If you're talking about wood chisels, that's an entirely different matter. They need to be razor-sharp, honed to a mirror finish.

My advice, avoid this (and any other sharpener) at all costs. If you ask me, the stone wheels on this sharpener are too small - their small diameter means that your knives will get a 'hollow ground' edge. There will be too little material behind the cutting edge, and the knives will dull and wear out faster - aside from the removal of material from the sharpening process. Learn to use your steel. Date a chef who likes to read.

My set of Sabatiers (10in Chef's, 10in Meat, 6in paring, cleaver, and the steel) cost me about $125 in '76 - a week's wages (at a bit more than minimum wage) at the time. I don't know what that'd work out to in 2009 dollars. $500? It was money well spent. As Maxoid noted, a good set of knives is such a pleasure to work with.

styrofoam

#11 – 6:51 PM May 28, 2009

I fed my Kyocera ceramics through one of those sharpeners once. They were never the same afterwards. :(

ryuthrowsstuff

#12 – 10:01 AM May 29, 2009

@#11 those things aren't meant to need sharpening at all (or very very rarely)

Everyone seems to be mentioning Sabatiers. I haven't been able to actually find any (reliably anyway, and baring vintage). It seems like they've been pushed out of the US by Wusthof/Henckels and your various Japanese knives. Even when I do run across some its either some low grade non Thiers junk or on a French website that I can't read and wouldn't ship to me anyway. Advice on where to look?

murray

#13 – 6:31 PM May 29, 2009

Oh, Lisa! You spent $200 on the electric version of a $20 manual tool that takes only a few seconds to use. And here is that tool (also by Wusthof): http://www.amazon.com/Wusthof-2-Stage-Knife-Sharpener/dp/B0009NMVRI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1243646899&sr=8-1

Remember, hone often, sharpen very very occasionally!

Sharpe Shankley

#14 – 7:44 PM May 29, 2009

No-one ever heard of the Chantry?

http://www.twentytwentyone.com/displayProduct.asp?ProductID=1538&x=2710

PaulR

#15 – 5:42 AM May 30, 2009

ryuthrowsstuff @12: Feel the force of my google-fu!

You probably already know this, but Sabatier has been adopted by a whole slew of manufacturers. YMMV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier

It seems you can't get Lion Sabatier, my knives, outside of Europe these days - I had purchased mine in Montreal.

However, you can get authentic Theirs Sabatiers shipped internationally (at what seems like reasonable shipping rates) here:
http://www.sabatier-shop.com/information__8_deliveries_14.html

Don't forget to order a steel, too. Get the 12in model.

maoinhibitor

#16 – 10:04 AM May 30, 2009

In this economy, $200 for a sharpener is a little dear. You might want to check out the Chef's Choice sharpeners, such as the Model 110 which goes for around $85 and does the same thing.

I have also heard very good things about Victorinox Forschner chef's knives. Made in Switzerland, priced competitively for commercial kitchens.

Anonymous Anonymous

#17 – 5:29 PM May 31, 2009

Sharpening is not magic. It's a skill like any other. I can sharpen axes, chisels, swords, cooking knives, and fighting knives, using any number of techniques and tools. Hollow grinds and serrations take something more than just a rock, and chisels require a true planar surface, but straight-edged cooking knives are butt-simple.

I can sharpen a cooking knife with a rock. A rock, picked up off the ground (I select the rock, though, not anyone else). Sharp enough to shave the hair off your arm- in fact that's how I test a blade for sharpness, no shave, no sharp.

A good sharpening gadget takes less skill on the part of the sharpener. That's it, that's all. Sharpening is not magic. Chef's choice sharpeners are very good, in my opinion, for normal folks' kitchens.

Honing with a steel is a middle step between grinding and stropping. You can use a thick belt for a strop if you don't own a real one. If you want to be able to drop a dry leaf on your blade and have it split of its own weight, first, get a piece of steel that can take such an edge (I doubt wusthof will do the job, I am not impressed with the henckels and wusthofs I've sharpened) then shape, hone, strop.