Chef's Choice 130 Professional Knife-Sharpening Station, Platinum

Even my oldest and dullest knives became better than new with just a few minutes. It works perfectly, is easy to use, and takes no cleaning afterwards. It comes with a little note in red letters warning that knives will be very sharp after use...laughed at it before use, however, it was warranted as my knives became sharper than razor blades. It's costly, but compared to buying new good knives every couple fo years I see it as value for money (it was a birthday present so not my money, but still ;-) )

For DECADES (literally) I have been wanting a knock-your-socks-off knife sharpener, but up until recently, I could never get myself to pull the trigger on spending the more than $100 it would require - especially when plenty of other knife sharpeners were available out there for $5 to $20. So over the years, I tried maybe a dozen different cheaper sharpeners, and whenever I saw a new one in a store, I had to go check it out. Ask my wife. When you ask her about me and knife sharpeners, she'll smile and nod and probably roll her eyes. First, it is much more important than most people realize that your knives be sharp. I don't mean just kinda sharp, I mean really sharp. Not only do sharp knives work better, they are also much safer. Because with a sharp knife, you can let the knife do the work and not have to press so hard. If you stop to think about it, you should agree that most knife injuries are caused by kinda-sharp knives where you had to press too hard to make it cut, then it suddenly did, and ... OOPS! Ouch! For me, the two main things that make a knife sharpener useful are (1) how sharp does it get the knives; and (2) will you actually use the thing? I finally got to the position where I was fed up with all those cheaper sharpeners, and did the research (thankis to all Amazon reviewers!) and decided on this Chef's Choice 130 sharpener. And I must say, I am DELIGHTED! The booklet that came with the unit did an outstanding job of not only explaining HOW to properly sharpen a knife, but also WHY it needs to be done that way. I learned more about the theory behind knife sharpening from this booklet than I ever expected, and am very happy to know this. When the device arrived, I couldn't wait to use it. But I read the booklet first, and I'm glad I did. Once I unpacked the thing and turned it on, I was pleased to hear it runs fairly quietly, and is heavy and sturdy enough to sit solidly on the counter while doing its job. I got out all the supposed-to-be-sharp knives in my kitchen - the good ones I use regularly, and the older dull ones from the bottom of the knife drawer. The long ones, the medium ones, even the short paring knives and the huge meat cleavers. I dived into the knife-sharpening task, and had a blast. I didn't count, but there were probably close to two dozen knives all together. It took me two knives of sharpening to begin to feel natural and comfortable with the process, but once I got going, it didn't even take two minutes per knife - maybe about a half hour total for all of them - to complete the task. So how sharp did it make my knives? The product information says it will make knives sharper than when they come from the factory, and I have no reason to doubt that. This device put an amazing edge on every single one of my knives, from the meat cleaver to my 1 1/2" pocket knife blade. The booklet says the way to test an edge is (NOT WITH YOUR FINGER) to hold up a piece of paper by the edge, and try to slice it with the blade, about half an inch from where you're holding the paper. Every single one of the knives I sharpened, including the meat cleaver, went through the paper like it wasn't even there. Needless to say, I am hugely pleased with this device. I will probably get it out twice a year and redo the edges on all my knives. And if anyone asks if they should get this, I will answer with a resounding YES!

Easy to use and does sharpen a variety of knives with a very good edge. Probably not as good as a sharpening stone and an hour or more grief, but does a very satisfactory job.

Tres efficace, en 1mn un couteau coupe comme un razoir. Mais le 130 contrairement au 120 n a pas de meule en stage 2 juste un fusil, efficace pour refaire un fil de coupe vite fait.

Sharp knives are not more dangerous than dull ones, because sharp knives do their job easily, whereas dull ones require you to use more force, leading to more risk of slipping and to not as good a job cutting. So, in short, you want a good sharp knife, just as anyone wants the proper tool to do the job. This knife sharpener works really really really well on your kitchen knives. I have some top grade knives--they sharpen up well--as well a few sets of steak knives as well as lower grade knives as well as the knife my grandfather made in 1950 out of a single piece of metal (blade and handle) which now has the first sharp blade it's ever had on it. Oh, the point here is that this sharpening device produces a very sharp blade. The manual is a bit confusing (although very thorough, and very helpful as to how to get a sharp blade) as it talks about all the options available to sharpen your knife, and doesn't distinguish between whether or why you would want a steel-sharpened or a diamond-sharpened blade. Whatever, your knives are gonna be much better than before, and while the manual doesn't really get into the differences between why you'd use the "second" and "third" grinding options, this device gives you really sharp knives in a variety of really sharp ways. This also works well on bread knives and other deeply-serrated edges, as well as santoku blades, individual steak knives, roast slicers, boning knives, etc., based on what I've been able to do with sharpening them. Even second-class knives I delegated to limbo-land cuz they didn't work too well, have now sprung back into life. Again, a sharp knife is a good knife to use, not one to avoid cuz it's "sharp", and this sharpener does a wonderful (repeat, wonderful) job in preparing the right tool for a cook. As in all my reviews, I have no financial or any other interest in this product or this company. Occasionally, one buys something and then feels that if you had the chance to buy again, you'd pass on buying it. Not this sharpener, if I ever lost this or whatever, I'd buy it again since I've used it and have seen what it does.