Presto 08810 Professional Electric Knife Sharpener Multi None

The Presto knife sharpener is a practical investment for any home cook who values sharp, reliable knives and wants an easy, affordable way to keep them in top condition. The sharpener arrived ready to use right out of the box, with a compact design and non-slip base. Using the sharpener is straightforward. The device features a two-stage sharpening system: the first stage grinds and reshapes dull or damaged edges, while the second stage hones and polishes. I tested the sharpener on various kitchen knives, including chef’s knives, paring knives, and even a serrated bread knife. The results were consistently impressive. Noise level is tolerable and worth putting up with for the benefit of having sharp knives! In summary, the Presto knife sharpener is a good value for its simplicity, speed, and effectiveness. Read more

Simple to use and great results. Do practice on an old knife which will allow you to learn the proper technique and break in the stones a bit. Update: after 2 weeks of ownership and 30+ knives sharpened, I am completely satisfied with this product. I have sharpened all of my knives, slicing and serrated, and am compiling a nice set for each of my two sons who are moving out and need basic kitchen tools. My new hobby is to rescue unwanted quality knives at yard sales, and give them new lives as high performance tools. The results are truly awsome and it is such a pleasure to work with sharp tools again. Update after approximately 1 month of use. I have sharpened close to 100 knives for friends and family with fantastic results. Some of the negative comments mention the motor to be underpowered. Either the motor is faulty on their unit, or they are pushing down too hard. A very light pressure works best. I would again recommend using one old knife to practice on, which will also break in the stones and perhaps reduce any over aggressive grinding. It is important to position yourself so that you are pulling the knife in a straight line towards yourself to keep the knife along the guide and at a consistent angle to the wheel. Since this is done at a slight angle to the unit, I move my body left or right accordingly. When I am using one of the sharpening slots, I angle my body so that my shoulder and arm are in line with the direction of knife motion. I also count the number of seconds that it takes me to complete the motion to make sure that I am not going too slow or too fast. So for an 8" blade, it should take me about 4 seconds to do one pass. For knives which have a curved tip, you have to raise the handle as you are pulling the tip across the stone to get the proper grind. On a long knife, I often will steady the tip with my other hand until it reaches the back of the unit. It also helps to have a good high intensity light to see the edge for inspection and to see the wheel that you are using so that you can locate the knife precisely. I work in the medical device industry where we sharpen surgical needles which penetrate human tissue, so I am very familiar with what a good edge looks like. I also have a 10x loupe which makes edge inspection very easy. A dull edge will reflect light while a sharp one will not. So if you have a light directly over the edge, if you see specs of light reflecting back at you, that means that those areas are not yet sharp. If you can get a hold of a magnifier, hold it close to your eye, steady your hand by resting it against your cheek, and move the knife towards the magnifier until it comes into focus. Most people hold the object to magnify at arm's length, and move the magnifier until it is in focus, which is incorrect. If used properly, you will have a larger image to inspect. Under magnification, the edge has micro serrations which make it very sharp. My company used to polish our needles so that they were very shiny with a smooth edge, but after developing a test for sharpness, we realized that a dull surface with a micro serrated edge is much sharper. We now use a process which keeps those micro serrations. When I am done sharpening a knife, I pull it very lightly across a finger and can feel it "biting" into the skin. Scary sharp! I have also read on some knife forums that grinding an edge can de-temper the steel and make it weak. I reached out to one of my Metallurgists and was told that unless I can see visual heat lines, which I do not, de-tempering is not occurring. Although when sharpening stainless steel I do not get any sparks, carbon steel does spark a little, which is also a good test to see what type of steel it is if you are not sure. I recently bought a Vintage 10" Chef's Knife which was advertised as "stainless" but it had some light staining on the blade so I suspected that it was made from carbon steel. It did spark during sharpening so this confirmed that I got a carbon steel knife and a real find! Now, some purists will argue that hand honing gives the best results. Perhaps, but I am not collecting priceless knives, but merely buying great knives and turning them into fabulous kitchen tools in a fraction of the time that it takes to hand tone. This sharpener is one of my favorite tools. Read more

Overall, I would give this sharpener a 4.5 if I could. It's almost ideal -- especially for the 42 bucks I paid for it. Pros: It's lightweight, relatively quiet, highly adjustable, does santoku/asian knives (sort of), grinds a very fine edge without much fuss. It's also fast -- I was able to sharpen a full set (~12) of knives to paper cutting glory in about 10 minutes' time. Can't beat that! Cons: The blade guides (orange parts) appear to be spring loaded or at least give a little when you press a knife against them. If there is too much wiggle room, you can screw up your edge pretty good. This should be more rigid IMO. Also, sharpening close to the handle is rather hit and miss, due to the structure of the unit. I'm guessing it's fairly common with electric sharpeners, and to be honest, I don't care because I don't do most of my cutting right at the handle. If it's an issue, I can just whip out a whetstone for that. Be advised that the first set of slots (far left) are really only there for coarse grinding -- really big or really messed up blades. You should rarely if ever need to use them. The middle 2 slots are for basic sharpening and the right hand side is for essentially polishing the blade. That's where you'll get the most mileage out of this unit. Read the instructions -- use very light pressure (really just enough to hold the blade in place while passing through), take your time pulling the blade through the slots, alternate sides, don't let your blade get too hot to avoid permanent damage. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase and would recommend it to anyone interested in a cost-effective, easy way to keep knives safe, sharp and looking good. Read more

Best knife sharpener so far. I've sharpener 3 knives in less than 10 minutes and works flawlessly. Easy to use and the adjustment for different thickness of knives are a great option. Read more

The design on this thing is nice. It it nice and strudy. I has 3 steps on sharpening your knifes. Easy to install and use. Make my kitchen knives very sharps. HAs the ability to sharpen thick and thin knives which is very nice. Read more