Whether you’re a chef, a camping enthusiast, or you’re about to pack up your tackle backpack for a fishing adventure, knives are the ultimate tools to get a lot of tasks finished. However, after a while of using them, knives can become slightly blunt and difficult to use. This is where a knife sharpener comes in.
Sharpeners being mentioned, the range of different choices on the market is beyond huge. But as much as all of them will sharpen your knives, the truth is that some of them will do it quicker, easier and more efficiently. Here’s what you need to know to pick the right option for your needs.
Types of Knife Sharpeners
Before you decide to explore the market and pick from the wide range of sharpeners for knife, it’s essential to get to know the different types and choose something suitable for your needs. Hence, we can split sharpeners into a couple of general categories:
Manual Sharpeners
Manual, or commonly known as “pull-through” sharpeners feature handles that are supposed to get stabilized on a counter and abrasive slots that carve a new edge into the blade’s steel. While you’re pulling your knife throughout these slots, your knife’s blade is sharpening on both sides at once.
These knife blade sharpeners tend to be very lightweight and super quick, as they require only a few passes through before your blade is sharp. On top of that, you don’t even need to worry about holding the knife in the right way, since they’re built with an angle that will do the job for you.
Electric Sharpeners
Electric sharpeners work similarly to manual ones, with the only difference being that they use motorized, abrasive discs or flexible belts to sharpen your knife as you’re moving it through the machine. Many of the models you’ll stumble upon will feature several levels of abrasion – the coarsest level to create a new edge, and the finer levels to refine and align it.
Once you turn your electric knife sharpener on, it will start spinning its sharpening stones to sharpen the blades to the desired sharpness. Most of these models come with guides that will allow you to get the perfect angle, which makes them one of the most easy to use and common types.
Whetstones
Whetstones, or commonly known as sharpening stones are the traditional type of sharpener. As their name states, these sharpeners use stones to sharpen the existing edge of your blade instead of carving out a new one. To use them, the knife should be held at the correct angle, and take several passes before your knife’s blade is completely sharp.
Talking about their stones used for sharpening, whetstone sharpeners can use either natural or man-made stones. Also, some of them might feature diamond abrasives mixed in to get the optimal cutting edge for your upcoming tasks.
Honing Steel
In fact, honing steels are long rods coated in a ceramic finish that straighten bent blades without chipping away the metal, so they can improve the knife’s performance. These rods take only a couple of seconds to keep your knives straight and narrow, and this is why they’re most commonly used by professional chefs.
Honing steel comes in a couple of different styles, all of them packed with their own features. For instance, regular cut steels are the most common style, as they’re made from steel. Diamond steels are the type that features diamond abrasives similar to those found in sharpening stones.
Aside from these two types, there are combination cut steels that combine a coarse surface for minor sharpening blades, and a smooth surface for honing them. And finally, ceramic cut steels are made of ceramic materials that are used for minor sharpening to help you align your blades.
Pay Attention to the Grit
A sharpener’s grit refers to how small or large the abrasive material on the sharpening surface is. Available in various levels of grit, you have the sharpeners for knife with lower grit number and coarser surface, and vice versa. While most of the whetstone sharpeners are double-sided, manual and electric ones often feature at least two settings.
The level of grit depends on how much metal is taken off the knife while sharpening. Coarse grits (typically labelled as less than 1000) are mostly used on damaged knives with chips or nicks. Medium grits (typically labelled as 1000 to 3000 grits) are commonly used to sharpen dull knives that aren’t that damaged. And finally, fine grits (4000 to 8000 grits) are similar to honing steel rods used to refine knives’ edges.
Pick the Right Size
The size of the sharpeners for knife is one of the most important considerations yet often overlooked. However, as much as the size typically doesn’t affect how your sharpener is going to sharpen your knives’ blades, it typically affects the way you store it, which can determine its performance. Hence, it’s always recommended to look at the dimensions of the specific sharpener and consider how you’re going to store it before you make your investment.
Truth be told, sharpeners for knives come in a variety of sizes. As much as you’ll stumble upon many compact models that can be conveniently stored inside your kitchen drawers, there are also larger electric sharpeners that will require some more storage space. Keep in mind that storing your sharpener improperly can make it wear off quicker. Now that you found out about the most basic aspects, it’s time to hit the market and start searching for the most suitable sharpener for your needs.
