Check the description for GOOD sharpening stones used in this video. All products I recommend are purchased with my own money, and are NOT sponsored. Thanks for watching! Happy Thanksgiving!

You didn’t complete the process. Just a month of using the pull thru and any knife can become a serrated knife!

For me, these sharpeners have always been a "quick and dirty" way to make your knife cut something. They create basically a saw effect on the edge, which helps to cut things but also tends to wear off pretty quick.

I’m not in the market for a knife sharpener at the moment, but thank you so much for doing this. I hate awful Amazon products with unreasonably large number of positive reviews. Thanks for exposing it.

I love videos like this. short, To the point, Comprehensive, And I feel like I walk away, knowing something, It didn’t distract me with three minutes of cheap frivolous antics. Instead, he gave me content that I didn’t have to stick around for an entire 10 minutes or 20 minutes to get. At the end, I feel like I’ve learned something valuable

I have a "fancy" pull-through sharpener that costs quite a bit. It came with instructions that very clearly said to apply a very light pressure, only pull 3-4 times through each side, and only use the coarse side for reprofiling. I take my favorite knife through the fine side about once every other month, and through the corase+fine like twice a year. It stays sharp as a laser. Maybe the higher price is justified and the quality itself is superb, maybe it's really the pressure and amount of pulls. But it definitely works and I'm happy with it.

Here's the thing, a full sharpening with several stones going up in grit will be far better every single time for an experienced sharpener. Hardly anyone is an experienced sharpener, though. When I first started for about 2 whole weeks, I literally made any knife I tried to sharpen WORSE! That's not an exaggeration. I legitimately turned paring knives into butter knives. I got so frustrated time and time again, and the only reason I overcame the hurdle of learning how to maintain an angle on the stone is I was simply too stubborn to quit. Those pull through sharpeners aren't the best by any means, but they work far better for the average person than a stone would. Saying "take 5 minutes practicing on a stone for better results" simply isn't true. Sharpening is a skill that needs a lot of effort to beat out that little pull through sharpener.

I must admit that it is rather enjoyable to sharpen a blade using a sharpening stone once I got the idea of keeping it at the same angle whilst sharpening . I like the way it is possible to resharpen disposable hobby knife blades as it seems so wasteful to throw them away when there is plenty of life left in them with a quick sharpening .

For those that have no experience free-handing on a sharpening stone, you can obtain little plastic clips that function as an angle guide on any of the usual websites (which I cannot mention without getting censored by youtube). they slide on the spine of the knife and help maintain a steady angle while sharpening. Another useful item are the fixed angle electric knife sharpeners, but they also tend to remove more material than needed. If you want the most perfect knife edge without free-handing or using angle guides on traditional sharpening stones, and money is no object, you could always get one of those complete kits of variable "fixed" angle knife sharpeners such as the kme knife sharpening system.

I have one of these sharpeners. I know nothing about knives but it was recommended a year or two ago by a popular consumer review website. I’ve noticed that the more I use it, the less sharp my knives are. Now I know why. Thanks for the informative, no-nonsense video and recommendations

I've been using these coarse/fine sharpeners for years as I've always wondered what's going on at the micro level, thank you for shedding some light on it. I have no doubt a sharpening stone is a lot better but here's where cost/benefit comes into play. My wife and I use our cheap, second hand cooking knives every day (and usually in a hurry) to cut basic meats and vegetables and the coarse/fine sharpeners seem to do the job well and quickly. You've helped me understand that it's reducing the life of the knives but I'm kind of okay with that since they're not great knives to begin with. When I finally get a chance to invest in some nice knives, I'll certainly get a sharpening stone to go with them. Thank you, great video!

I have a couple of the pull through type knife sharpeners. The packaging details how to do it. It basically tells you to use light pressure & keep the edge at a 90 degree angle to the 'v.' Once you get a feel for it, it works well. The quality of the steel also matters as you'd expect. The pressure used in the video seems to be far greater than "light pressure" as it sounds like a heavy grating. Regardless, these sharpeners aren't the best in the world, but they do have their place when used properly. I have no bias as I'm not profiting on these or any other sharpeners directly or indirectly via affiliate marketing.

I've been practicing on some old kitchen knives, and while it seemed intimidating to not fully understand how to get the right angle, it has become more intuitive. I have finally gotten into sharpening an old chisel of mine that someone tried to drive through a nail. I haven't gotten the full gouge/chip out yet, but it's getting there.

The sharpener you use is from an unknown brand, most likely made in China. From the looks, what should be carbide is in fact just hardened steel. Also, decent sharpeners of that build don't use fixed plates of material, but discs which rotate freely, so that at different times different portions of the discs are in contact with the blade. I just tried the sharpening on my Victorinox sharpener. The magnification I could use is only about half of what I you have, from what I can tell, but the discs don't look nearly as bad as those on your sharpener, despite the sharpener being in use for years. All I could notice were some fine steel chips attached to their surface, sideways - they fell of when I brushed them with a tiny brush. I also looked at the blade too, after sliding it through the coarse and fine discs of the sharpener. It's definitely not a finish like what I get on my water stones for chisels and plane blades, not even close, but it's also definitely not as bad as what you show. Truth be told, I started with a clearly better edge and a somewhat better knife. But you know that saying - garbage in, garbage out. Bad blade, cheap sharpener, you obviously won't get very good results. Better blade, better sharpener, and while the results won't be perfect, they'll definitely be much better.

I agree with your assessment, for the most part. I work on a shipping dock, and I cut boxes all day. Also, as former military, I have much knife experience. I use a Lansky sharpener to create a perfect edge, which lasts a long time. When the knife starts to lose that keen edge, I will use the pull through sharpener as a "touch up" only!! I have learned that a very, very, very light touch will improve the edge, but heavy pressure will start to chip the edge. Later, I go back to a stone to restore the edge. Pull through sharpeners can be a help when at work and don't have time for a stone, but the key is extremely light pressure.

I got into and started learning the art of knife/blade/edge sharpening and honing by hand a decade ago. Lookin' back, it was one of the best life decisions I ever made. Keep all my knives hair shaving sharp (I abhor dull knives), with regularly honing of my high use kitchen knives on an equivalent 1000 grit diamond honing rod or 1200 grit diamond stone, or on my leather strop, as well as maintaining sharpness on all my edged tools, all by hand. I simply abhor these pull throughs as much as I do dull knives.

I received a pull through sharpener with a Shun knife a few years ago and the directions specifically state not to use on chipped or nicked blades. It works fine for in between keep up and no issues at all when using my non damaged knives in it.

Those are good in a pinch, for a knife you don't care about. So far the best edge I've gotten is from a bog standard ceramic coaster. Second only to a real stone. Nice explanation! Let me add something.. Being a bit of a woodworker this is exactly why you use a long plane to flatten an edge. the longer the plane the flatter the end result because it averages out all those bumps.

Very good explanation and visuals. My dad showed me how to sharpen a knife way back in the day, I guess I was maybe 6 or 7 at the time (78 now). First start with a hand file, establish an edge, and make sure it is even all along the length of the blade. Then use an emery cloth and continue to slowly pull the knife along. Be sure to reverse the hold on the knife in both cases so that you are making your cuts in the same direction. Then use a stone and pretty much the same way shown in the video. Again, use the same direction on both sides of the blade (reverse and hold the back side by the blade if necessary). Now for the final stage, get an old leather belt, and strop the blade (ever see a barber sharpen a razor before he gives you a shave?) - you take the knife and pull it down the length of the strap and flip it over and pull away from you back down the strap. While common sense tells you leather could not have any ability to shape steel in fact it does. Your final effort will literally cut almost anything you could ever want to cut - yes you do have to be realistic here, You know what I mean. No, this does not work on serrated blades - but you can just use the leather belt every now and then to keep even a serrated blade very sharp.

The only thing that matters is: Does the knife cuts better? If so, then that's all I need to know. Nice to see how it looks at micro level though. And like people said, you really put on too much pressure on the sharpener and not passed enough times on the fine one. Yes, the fine one takes a lot of times to be effective on the first time you do it.

Agreed that a stone is the proper tool, you're putting waaaaaaay too much pressure onto that blade - it should just gently rest onto the finer sharpener and slide through it just a couple of times (as per instructions on my slightly less cheap sharpener)

I agree it's not a good system, but you can get less terrible results by using lighter pressure on each stroke, which will mean that the sharpening edges won't drop as deeply into the gaps, allowing them to become shallower.

I used to use a stone to sharpen my knives, but that's no longer possible due to issues with my sight. For the last few years I have been using a similar sharpener to the one you show. You have explained why blunting the knife on a fine file before using the sharpener works so well for me. I make a point of only using cheap knives, the process is not kind to them.

I've been using one of these for years, mostly the ceramic side, which never seemed to clog or chip for me. I know it won't produce a great edge, but it still does the trick. It keeps my kitchen knife nicely sharp for cooking, and considering how little my friends and family care for sharpness, using this still is a large improvement.

I've used a sharpening stone for years and then a Steel to maintain an edge between sharoenings. I'm amazed to see the difference up close in your vid! Thanks

Great information, so much detail, I can't believe the close-ups. Zac In The Wild showed a Work Sharp pull through today that looks like it has some innovation, so I'm curious how it would compare to something like this. Thanks for the upload.

Thanks for confirming the conclusion I came to about 50 years ago, which was that this device looks crude and brutal. I have never used one. I am not a "sharpener", I am happy with using a pretty worn broken-off piece of a coarse "sharpening stone with handle". It has served me for nigh on fifty years of light domestic use. I take care to use a consistent angle and only sharpen one side. I have not yet sharpened any blade to an unusable width! 🙂 I do have some better flat stones for chisels though.

Navy vet here. I was the guy that showed the guys that had dull knives how to sharpen a knife to a razors edge. Most had Buck knives that weren't Navy issue. A flat stone with medium grit will do a razor sharp edge. It's like spit shining boots, you don't figure it out until you do, then it's easy. Put the time in and you can sharpen any knife. I have a triangular setup (course, medium, fine) on my kitchen counter for kitchen knives and I just use the course. Works great and takes about 30 seconds.

I bought one of those sharpeners a long time ago and it worked in fact I sharpened a machete with it. But now it seems to make the knives dull. You explained why very well. I subscribed.

I have a pull through I've used for years with decent results on standard pocket knives, and otherwise its always been more of a quick and dirty sharpening tool. if I feel it needs a better sharpening I've used electric belt sharpeners. but I'm also trying to learn whetstone sharpening because I have some knives/ other blades, that I just cant sharpen well with either a pull through or my electric sharpener

I did notice you really tipped the knife up while using the carbide side rather than use a flat pull through. I wonder if that was causing extra damage.

I think you're supposed to wet the knife during this process so little bits you "filed" off don't damage the edge. It's also used in filing, and for polishing there is even a special lubricant

I've been using this for over 2 years and my knifes are still fine. They can cut paper easy after sharpening, which is sharp enough for me, I know you could get them sharper still, but for what it's worth and how easy it is this works great. If you don't have super expensive knives than it's perfectly fine to use.

Thank you for this video! Very impressive! Did you also check quality of work by Finnish sharpeners using ceramic wheels like those sold by Fiskars or Ikea? I use ceramic sharpening stones from Haidu, Tyrolit and Fallkniven, but family keeps asking me what could they use. Is it wise to recommend those rolling wheel sharpeners?

That’s brutal, all I can think of when I see those macro shots is that you’re gonna get micro bits of metal in your food.

holy! that difference is amazing! Interesting to see just how well the stones work with this closeup.

How about a video on abrasive sharpening rods? I use a ceramic rod and a wedgek honing rod angle guide for quick hair-whittling edges if I’m feeling lazy. DMT fine diamond rods are good for recurved blades, even if there are chips in the edge. I don’t usually use angle guides, but I can never get a good, consistent angle on rods unless I use them or lay the rod flat like a sharpening stone. They also work a treat on Scandi grinds, surprisingly well, I might add.

You need two stones. One coarse and one fine (or fine and finer lol) and you gotta rub them together (while wet) in order to smooth them out and make them both perfectly flat before every sharpening. Works much better that way. The only problem that I’ve found with water stones is that they can make the blade edge so sharp that it becomes very easy to chip. Just gotta be careful with them is all.

I have a Todocope Three Stage Pull Through Sharpener and my Every Day Knife is a SOG Traction Tanto. Due to the design of my knife's blade, it's rather difficult to sharpen it on a proper stone. It has a slight concave on the blade with sharp angles as well. The three stage Sharpener has the same first stage your two stage has with a Honing Steel Rod Style Carbide Steel and Ceramic Second and Third Stage. It literally saved my knife. My assumption on your results is due to the fact that it's both a two stage and the design of the stages. In addition, my three stage sharpener's manual states to pull through each stage three times, going through each stage one by one. So 3 pulls on Stage 1, 3 on Stage 2, 3 on Stage 3. My sharpener literally made my knife razor sharp, to the point I one accidentally and painlessly cut myself reaching into my pocket one day(Knife had slid open somehow).

Extremely well made videos, nothing beats a professional with free hand sharpening also for versatility, he can sharpen anywhere, anytime with improvised tools. ...takes much dedication. 😃👍

Thanks for showing the damage caused by pull through sharpeners. This is the best method to show why we shouldn't use them. Happy Thanksgiving to you & your family !

Thank you for SHOWING us up close what a pull-through sharpener actually does to a knife blade. It makes so much sense when you see it under a microscope. It both explains why the knife will indeed cut better through something like a ripe tomato right after it's been "sharpened", but it also shows why it's a terrible idea to remove material in the lengthwise direction of the blade. I will never use my AnySharp pull-through sharpener on my Zwilling kitchen knives again after having seen this. I have now bought the Sharpal 156N dual-grit diamond sharpening stone in stead.

just the sound when you pull the blade through gives me goosebumps. "Fiskars" has a pull-through sharpener with two round sharpening stones. I like the sharpener for quick results.

You are so right on this. I had a factory job once where we would mix 30 tons of milk powder pr day. About 2/3 or 20 tons of that we needed to empty out manually from paper bags that we cut open. That's about 1000 bags per day. Cutting needs to be fast and easy. We had a shapener simmilar to the one you are reviewing and it made everything worse. I could actually feel pain in the forearm because off the resistance from cutting after using this contraption from hell. After cutting open about a million paper bags I can tell you that this kind of sharpener is horrible. And the loose bits and pieces of metal on the blade probably end op in whatever you are cutting.

For those that like the Spyderco ceramic bench stones, grab them quick because they have been discontinued. I put an extra set away because I like the way they touch up my edges between formal sharpening of my knives.

I've been using that pinch sharpener for close to 5 years already. I did notice that my cheap knife is having more and more issues because of those grooves. However I still believes that it does the job just fine for everyday use - as a person who do no specifically care about knife maintenance. I reckon my knife will have to be thrown away in a couple years already, but that doesn't matter considering it's cheap initial price. If my 10$ knife lasts me 10 years, I much prefer the expanse than having to invest time into sharpening properly my knife That being said, your video and explanation accompanied with the visual is really informative and well done. Nice work!

Wow! That's crazy that those sharpeners do that to your knives. Thank-you for showing this. I will definitely be using a stone from now on.

I have some of those dead cheap diamond stones, and the 400grit does wonders for both quick retouches, or full reprofiles. the 1000grit takes too long to get anywhere IMO, and I personally prefer the slightly serrated edge you get with a coarser stone -- it's great for catching on tomato skins or similarly slippery things so you cut into them and not smush them

Well this makes so much sense. been using those for years and after while they just stopped seeming to "improve" the edge of my blade, even though the first few times they did when the knives were new. Had no idea it was that bad,

I did not expect that... That is shocking but explaining why I sometimes thought they made the problem worse sometimes. I didn't find a good and reasonable priced grinding stone yet and instead found a great sharpening rod that is not only durable but also highly effective. Traditional methods seem to be the best ones and have proven themselves over hundreds of years. I am sure that they could have come up with such a "V" design long ago, but professionals might have quickly ditched it when they saw the results with an experienced eye. Maybe masters did already know that scratching off material like that will logically result in damaging their hard work.

Thanks for the magnified views. Always wondered why my carbide sharpeners didn't work.

I always thought these sharpeners were almost making the blade serrated at a microscopic level. As such they often need to be resharpened soon. However, they do a great job of cutting slippery surfaces like tomato skin, tough meat etc. It's not a very sustainable way to maintain your knives but it doesn't require spending ages on the sharpening stone to get them dangerously sharp, so you can see why people like them.

What we usually use here in Brazil for a quick sharpening (and I would love to see you try it) is a tool called "chaira". I've heard this is supposed not to remove material from the knife and because of that, people use this immediately after they realised the knife isn't sharp enough and immediately gets back at cutting the barbecue with it, but I'm not completely sure of that fact, so when I use it, I wash the knife afterwards. It's like a straight stick made of steel or ceramic with ridges all around. There are more coarse versions that are cheap and more fine versions that are supposed to just straighten the edge of an already sharpened knife

thank you so much for this, i was always skeptical of how these pull-through sharpeners worked and now I will never use one again

I would obviously never use this on quality steel, but it can be useful for cheap knives. It will apply a semi-reasonable edge that lasts for a couple of uses. The ceramic side serves roughly the same function as a traditional steel. It just deburs the edge after the crude carbide sharpener has done its thing

I suppose the difference is quick results for short period of time vs slow results for moderately longer period of time. While better sharpening is on all account better, sometimes it's just easier to get quick fix for quick work rather than slow fix for multiple quick works. Cool shots on the edges though, really made the difference pop out.

I bought it before it became popular, and it worked great. To take a picture of the ceramic part, you can put a piece of colored paper over your light or just paint it with a sharpie. I recommend NOT inhaling metal particles, so maybe get the knife and sharpener wet, wear a mask, and wipe the area after. 🙂

First video I have seen of yours. This was so interesting!! I was going to get a sharpener. Thank you for saving me money and my knives!! I'm buying the stone you recommended. ❤ Thank you

Good video. Short and no repetitive fluff. I do have one of these little things and I do like it on my cheap kitchen knives. But maybe that’s all it’s good for

Great illustration of what these cheap "sharpeners" actually do to steel.

Granted the sharpening stone will give a better edge. The pull through sharpeners don't really sharpen but they straighten the edge where it has been rounded over through use. And if the blade has chips then when straightened will sort of give you a serrated edge. So the question is are you going to sharpen your knife every week with sharpening stone or would you simply true up the edge with the pull through when necessary. At some point you may want to give the knife a professional sharpening. Otherwise good video.

Very interesting. Thanks for the magnification shots. I use a pull through sharpening stone followed by a steel in my kitchen and it seems to drastically improve the cutting of my kitchen knives. I had a chef's blade knife that would cut so a peened it and it introduced lots of irregularities in the blade but again it seemed to cut much better after this abuse. Do you have any comments on my experience?

I've been using one of these for over 10 years. I absolutely love the thing and haven't noticed any damage on any of blades after all this time. Maybe if I was a professional chef I'd notice but I still love it for what I do

I use the ceramic side of my pull through and it seems to do a decent job on my pocket knife. About 6 swipes whenever it seems dull makes it work pretty well. Some day I might send it back to Benchmade or to a professional to see how much better it can be, but the quick pull through makes it good enough.

Thank you for these detailed close ups, those are incredibly helpful to me. The only sharpener we have is one of those ceramic sticks with a handle. I‘m really bad at using it (we don’t use it as often as we probably should), and the only chips in our blades come from hitting the edge of a plate while cutting etc. I should work on getting some practice…

Great video thanks - I use a pull through sharpener on our mass produced cheaper kitchen knives but a stone on my good ones. Only because when I tried the pull through on my good knives the angle was so far off it would have taken ages to get an edge on them so I went back to the stone. Glad I did but it also sounds like I’m sharpening them wrong so I better watch some more of your videos. 😊

Very informative, thanks!! What about the ceramic rod? is that decent? (been using one for my cheap knives and seems ok so far)

Great video. I always knew these sharpeners were terrible for your knives. Now we have excellent proof.

Very good ! I bought one of those ceramic stones right after watching your other video. Works like a charm. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Alex

Looks so high class

Nice vid In your experience, are the pull trough sharpeners with round stones any better?

I think the best "gateway" sharpeners to recommend to a complete novice who is not a knife nut nor has any interest learning to sharpen on a flat stone is an angle sharpener using rods like the Spyderco. If they can relatively hold a knife perpendicular then they can get good results without worrying about requiring a steady hand to hold an angle. Even Lansky's very inexpensive angle sharpener will provide results that are far better than a carbide sharpener and an edge that will hold up.

You nailed it! All these things really do is create a 'saw blade', which provides the illusion that one ends up with a sharper blade, when in fact it 'saws' through paper rather than cut through. To an amateur that may appear to be impressive. Your video highlighted what really happens.

Great video, thank you. I would love to see a review like this with these amazing close up shots using a higher end pull through tool that uses rounded blades like the black Lansky BladeMedic. I am trying to decide on a portable solution for my kit. I have stones and I love them, but I'm not going to carry 2 massive blocks on a two-week op. It's either the Lansky BladeMedic or the DMT - Double Sided Diafold Diamond Sharpener (probably two, course/fine and fine/extrafine)

I have a pull through device from Switzerland and it makes my knife nice and sharp. Got it as a present from my uncle many years ago. From the instructions you first pull it through 2-3 times with some pressure and then do it 6-8 times with less pressure applied.

This seems more like a hobby than an actual thing. I use knives every day when cooking and I just give it a quick sharp on one of those pull throughs every day and they perform very well.

Thank you for a great video with lots of close up magnified images! This is exactly what people need to learn what is happening to their knife bevels and edges when they use these different tools. It looked to me like the ceramic side did help it some. I first started using slot scraper devices long ago when I needed to sharpen things, but eventually decided they weren't good enough. It took me years of study and experimentation to figure it out, and I still think I could get better, but I have a system that does some pretty impressive things now, for very little money.

This is amazing content. This meshes Science, Metallurgy, Macro Photography, and Experimental Customer Review style show is amazing. I'm captivate at seeing the world at such a small scale to see what everything is made of

Pro tip. Run it thru the ceramic side first to smooth it, then pull through the carbide side only if it needs it. Most knives can be straightened out with just ceramic. When pulling thru carbide side, light oil, extra firm grip and a quick even pull are your friend. That "waviness" is caused by your inability to hold the knife rigidly.

Used an old pull thru on a single knife for ages, real sharp, cuts well, fine enough for me

Finally, I just purchased one and also a different one cause I thought the problem was in me or something was wrong with the sharpener. I am not even sure how people could sell these, any idea?

To remedy those chips, you have to use a rough stone, or even a file, along the full length of the blade to a point where you have one continuous and straight edge devoid of those chips. When doing this, you should maintain a proper angle on each side of the blade (roughly 15-20 degrees). You're having to remove a good bit of metal to get to this point. On your final strokes, you need to create a burr along one side of the blade. That's when you know the two sides of the blade have met. Then you can start final sharpening and honing. If you don't get rid of those chips, the knife will always feel like it's sticking when pulling through the item you're cutting.

The cheapest sharpener gives the cheapest results...not too surprised LOL. Great video! The editing and pacing were excellent, no silly crap or lame attempts at humor, and great work with the close up shots!! I have some "cheap" kitchen grade knives that I got from my last restaurant job. I use this sharpener on them, but I make sure to use a drop of oil when I run the blade through, and I go VERY LIGHTLY on the coarse and fine sides. It keeps the cheap knifes sharp, but these are also $10 knives that I don't mind having to replace. NOW MY HANDMADE custom 8" chef's knife only gets sharpened at my brothers house on his stones. 😎

Thanks for this thorough, evidence based, review!

I was about to buy a pull through sharpener, thanks, this is eye opening.

Great video, could you possibly do a comparison to another type of popular "no skill needed" sharpener, the one IKEA sells that has a rotating sharpening stone bit inside?

This was a fantastic demonstration of how looking with simple optics/photography can reveal the success/shortcomings of a technique. Thank you for doing this. I have never liked those carbide scrapers. It might be interesting to see two more simple steps. 1) look at the knife after one more run through the scraper of death (post Shapton 1000) to see how it messes it up again; 2) then run the edge against the Shapton 1K for a couple of passes to flatten and dull tip to tail, and then put the edge back to see how quickly the chips disappear and the edge is nearly perfect (maybe two passes on 5um diamond strop per side).

I don’t know what you’re doing wrong but I’ve been sharpening my kitchen knives with a sharpener similar to this for five years and it works just fine. But thanks for reminding me I need to sharpen some of my knives again.

Great video! Out of curiosity, what camera are you using for the close-ups on the blade?

I've come to realize people take everything at face value for the most part. Give it enough stars to make it seem worth buying and everyone that doesn't know better will jump on it. (Similar to "Grab Hags" in china) 🤣🤣 I love this channel bringing normalcy 😎🤙 Stay awesome Alex

Perfect. Thanks for the close-up images - I have a really nice set of kitchen knives that we send back to the manufacturer every year or so for sharpening. I hand sharpen utility and hunting knives myself (thank you OLD Boy Scouts). My stone is a tad small tho - so I'll take you up on the offer for an upgrade. Thanks for the great tips and sharp wit.

Good info, thanks. Ill pick up a traditional sharpener soon and practice. Thanks again.

Nice review thanks! Have you ever reviewed, or compared in the same way, other altertanive knife sharpeners like the HORL 2 or Tumbler knife sharpeners?

Wow. I used those pull-thru's for years out in the field, no more. I was using ones put out by companies like CRKT that did ok, but never as sharp as my stones. Never realized they did so much damage. Bought a Work Sharp Precision unit...love it! Puts a razor edge on my knives.

The worst part is the "edge" being formed on the pull through is basically one giant burr, and then the entire edge is compromised by a scratch pattern that undermines the strength of the edge, even if you have a good diamond paste loaded strop and you spend the half hour it would take to remove the giant burr, the edge would fold over immediately as soon as it touches a piece of wood.

WOW! Eyes opened! I am getting a sharpening stone and learning how to use it, not joking. I bought a 'pull thru' sharpener called a 'hunter honer' YEARS ago at a 'gun show' and now I see what I am ACTUALLY doing to my blade/knife... VERY interesting/awesome video...

Totally agree with you're points in this video, I would normally use either a steel or a sharpening stone for my knives but those pull through things are not meant for beauty, they're meant for ease and quickness for knives or people who don't care, and that's totally fine too. I will add though I really loved the close ups that really showcase the state of the blades.

You are absolutely right. I would not use anything that crude to sharpen even my axe. With Amazon reviews I found many Chinese companies selling a lot of different junk that is aggregated under one review where you get tens of thousands of reviews. My problem with sharpening stones however, is I could never get the angle right and the knife turns out to be duller than when I started. Recently I bought work sharp Ken onion sharpener and found that it gives me a consistent sharp knives.

If i buy the sharping stone and the diamond stone i just need to use those like that? Or should i buy a toll that holds them somehow? I saw in the video that you have something look like stand for the stones. If it is a stand do you have a recommendation for that?

It's amazing there are so many views. Glad to see people are interested in learning. (... and KNIVES!!)