Best Electric Knife Sharpener – Reviews and Buying Guide 2020

Over the years, the demand for knife sharpeners has grown. A knife sharpener is no longer just a tool for chefs at eateries, restaurants, hotels and so on. Now more people are beginning to see the need for knife sharpeners at homes too. Keeping knives sharp is very important as a good, well-sharpened knife makes cooking easier. In this article, you’ll find reviews of the best electric knife sharpener. All products were carefully selected and are all great choices.

Best Electric Knife Sharpener in 2020

1. Editor’s Pick – Presto 08800 EverSharp Electric Knife Sharpener

This product ensures consistency in sharpening by the presence of precision blade guides. The guides place the knife at just the perfect angle for most knives so that you would get great, consistent results every time you sharpen. That’s you getting some time off trying to find the right angle for sharpening.

The sharpening wheels (coarse and fine grind) are very durable as a result of being made of a super hard material that you’d find being used at professional shops. Customers have testified to the ability of the sharpening wheels to last years in good condition, without needing replacements.

For all these features, it is a very cost-effective machine. The only product that costs less on this list is the budget pick. Electric knife sharpeners are known to make noise but the motor of this is not loud. If you don’t mind the weight, then you should get it. Another downside will be that the angle has been pre-set and so is not adjustable. Not to worry, it’s the perfect angle for most knives and that should not pose any difficulties.

2. The Highest Quality Product – Chef’sChoice 15 Trizor XV EdgeSelect

The product gives more freedom by allowing you to determine easily the sharpening angle yourself by the provision of advanced flexible spring guides. It also features an advanced stropping stage that uses 100% diamond abrasives to give smooth sharpening. Like the product above, you can use it to sharpen various types of knives, serrated or not.

With this not-so-small machine, you get to sharpen the blades of your knife perfectly and in no time. It takes about a minute to sharpen a knife the first time; subsequent sharpening should take no more than ten seconds.

A shortcoming of the machine (if you would consider it one) is that it only sharpens to a 15-degree edge. This means that your 20-degree knives will be converted to 15-degree ones. That is okay if you don't mind. In response to that, its manufacturers advocate that 15-degree knives are sharper and so better. Whatever way you see it; it might be an advantage or otherwise.

3. The Highest Quality Product – Chef’sChoice 120 Diamond Hone EdgeSelect

You guessed it; it also uses a three-stage sharpening system with 100% diamond abrasives too. Similar to the previous two, it features an arch-shaped edge in the first two stages for regular sharpening while stage 3 features a flexible stropping disk for stropping and polishing. It also works for various kinds of knives too: serrated knives, pocket knives, sporting knives, etc. And, unlike the former, it would not convert your 20-degree knives to 15-degree ones.

Because of its Edge Select feature, you can decide which edge you want to use for the various types of knives to be sharpened. Its precision angle control guides ensure error-free sharpening. Other features it has are its speed (sharpening should be done within just a few seconds) and its durability. It comes with a two-year warranty too.

Despite all these wonderful features, I have noticed a disadvantage in the product: it is huge. It’s the biggest of all products reviewed here and it weighs a massive thirteen pounds. Well, if you don’t mind that, this product is good for you.

4. Budget Pick ​– LINKYO Electric Knife Sharpener

This knife sharpener features a two-stage sharpening system. The first stage is for normal sharpening of the blade while the second is used to complete the job by polishing it. Blade positioning guides automatically help hold the knife fixed to the right position while sharpening. This ensures a smoother blade.

It has an interesting ‘stop' feature built in. Many people who use electric knife sharpeners damage their knife blades by applying so much pressure when sharpening. The ‘stop' feature prevents this damage and guarantees that your blades last longer. The product has an optimal size and is not too heavy.

Don’t forget that it is only a budget option and so would be lacking in many other really cool features. For example, it can only be used to sharpen straight-edge blades, not serrated ones. If you want to do that, you might have to shell out some more cash and buy any of the products above.

5. The Best Knife & Tool Sharpener - Work Sharp WSKTS-W Knife & Tool Sharpener

Despite its ability to sharpen all of these knife types and tools, it’s still much like a regular knife sharpener in terms of cost and size. I would say it is absolutely worth the cost. And concerning size, at just about 2 pounds, it weighs less and it is also much smaller than most products on this list.

Considering that this product is a jack-of-all-trades, you may think that it’s lacking in many other knife-sharpening specific features. But I bet it’s not. It features three flexible abrasive belts: coarse, medium and fine. The first is mainly to repair damaged blades while the medium is for most knife sharpening. The fine belt is meant for honing already sharpened blades.

You would also find useful its precision sharpening guides. They ensure that you consistently have good results with sharpening. You would hardly find an all-purpose (knife and tool) sharpener with the cool features that this has. It is suitable for your home since you’d have other tools that need to be sharpened too and it’s not just knives.

What to Consider Before Buying an Electric Knife Sharpener in 2020

Well, you should not just go out and bring a knife sharpener home with you. There are different factors to be considered. This section is essentially explaining the qualities a good electric knife sharpener should have. However, you should ask yourself, first, if you truly need a knife sharpener. Consider if you have knives to be regularly sharpened else a knife sharpener would be of no use when you buy it eventually. If you have very little need of an electric knife sharpener, I would recommend that you sharpen your knives manually instead.

The Types of Knife to be Sharpened

Next, you should consider the types of knives you have in stock. Not all knife sharpeners can sharpen knives with serrated blades so if you have such knives, you should be sure to buy a knife sharpener that works. There are various types of knives: gourmet knives, pocket knives, fillet knives, sports knives, hunting knives and so on. Many knife sharpeners may also not be able to handle all these types of knives and that’s also part of why you need to be careful in your selection. You may also have some tools like scissors, garden shears, axes and so on to be sharpened. For those, regular knife sharpeners would not work and you need a knife and tool sharpener, just like the last product reviewed in the list above.

Excellent Performance

Every product should be able to do what its manufacturers say. The best should deliver the best performance. However, how can one tell, before buying an electric knife sharpener how its performance would be?

• One of the features you have to watch out for is the kind of surface the sharpening edge(s) have. Good ones come with diamond abrasives surface and offer the best sharpening. Other abrasives type that should do is tungsten carbide and polished ceramic.
• The amount of sharpening stages is important too. A good electric knife sharpener should have at least two sharpening stages. The first should feature a very coarse abrasive that can be used to restore damaged knives to good condition. The second stage should use fine abrasive that is used for final honing and polishing. Some manufacturers even take this further, offering three sharpening stages.
• The most common angle for knife angles is the 15-degree Asian model and the 20-degree European style. Whatever knife sharpener you buy should be able to sharpen these two blade types, at least. Many products fulfill this by featuring an adjustable precision angle guide for your convenience.

Price and Cost-effectiveness

Once you have considered that the product has the necessary features to offer a good performance, you should determine if the price of the product is worth the features it claims it has. Of course, before this, you should have known how much you are willing to spend on a knife sharpener before buying one. Once you know that, you should buy the best you can afford.

Be careful here, that a product is expensive does not determine that it would be more effective than a cheaper product. Besides, you may not need the extra features that come with products that are more expensive. In addition, the type of product you need and the purposes you want to achieve would determine the price. For example, if you don’t have much knife-sharpening to be done, then a budget product would do just fine. That takes us to the final subsection.

Final Considerations

Before making a final decision to buy a particular product, some other considerations should be made. Enquire from the manufacturer or supplier on the shortcomings of the product, if they are willing to tell you. Alternatively, especially if you are making a purchase online, read product reviews and comments from other customers on the product. For example, you should consider if you don’t mind noise for which electric knife sharpeners are notorious. If you do, well, go for a noiseless or low-noise product. This is just an example of a downside that the manufacturer would not state in the product description.

Also, consider if the product comes with a warranty. If it does, how long is it? You should be sure that you would enjoy an excellent and rapid service in case your product develops a fault, especially during the warranty period. The longer a warranty period, the more trust a manufacturer reposes in the product they have made. These are some of the final considerations you need to make before finally settling for one product.

Tips for Using an Electric Knife Sharpener

• Ensure that the slot provided fits the knife blade well before you begin.
• Most sharpeners have at least two sharpening slots or stages; one for coarse grind while the second for a finer grind. Run the knife through the first and then go to the finer grind stage for polishing.
• Place your knife in the appropriate slot and hold it down firmly; do not apply too much pressure, else you run the risk of your knife getting damaged.
• Beginning from the heel of the blade, run the knife through the slot, pulling slowly towards you up to the tip.
• Repeat the step above two times on either side of the blade. That’s four times in all.
• Test the sharpness of the knife once done and if it is still dull, repeat the process again.
• Once done and you’re satisfied with the work, rinse the knife and dry.
• Above all that have been mentioned here, follow the instructions from the manufacturer contained in the owner’s manual. These are general instructions but those would contain instructions for the particular product.

Conclusion

By now, it must have been clear how Presto 08800 was arrived at as the top pick. It is a good product with excellent features and buying it would not require you to reach too deep into your pocket. Other products are absolutely the best in their respective categories whether you are willing to spend more, or you want to spend less, or you have a need for other uses, or you just want an alternative. And they are completely worth their prices. The most important thing in buying an electric knife sharpener (or any product, I think) is knowing what you really want.