Work Sharp Culinary Kitchen Knife Sharpener with Ceramic Honing Rod, Gray, 7.2 x 4.5 x 5.2 inches

So simple I could sharpen my knives while holding my squirmy toddler at the same time! I love that I can customize my sharpening depending on how beat up my knife is. The blinking light lets me know when I'm getting close to done with each of the "Shape, Sharpen, Refine" stages, taking out all that guess work of "how long is long enough?" I sharpened several knives and was very pleased on every single one, especially after doing two Shape cycles on one particular knife that has always seemed tough to get sharp with our honing steel. I used to let my husband do that but now this little device will be enjoyed by both of us. It will have a permanent home on my counter (looks great) and get a lot of use! After sharpening I got carried away cutting such perfect tomato slices for BLTs that I almost burned my bacon. Blown away by how easy it is to learn to use and it is clearly a well thought out product! Highly recommended to anyone intimidated by sharpening. Buy one for yourself and then surprise your friends who have never even realized that they are using dull knives--this product will teach them how easy it is to have a sharp knife and how much that makes a difference in preparing meals.

At first it seems expensive. I bought it with the East/West upgrade kit and another set of belts.So far, I have not used the Blue Belt, which is the one to "repair" knives (see the edits below)... but I used the East/West to do five knives:Sushi knife, single beveled edge, 15 deg.Japanese Santoku knife, 15 deg.8 inch french knife, 20 deg.12 inch slicer, 20 deg.6 inch parer, 20 deg.[EDIT: I went and did all the knives, including the big cleaver, the other slicer, two more paring and the 10 inch french. ]When I first got it, I used the default to quickly sharpen the 8 inch knife because it was evening and I was in a rush to make dinner. It worked quite well wit the default 17 degree guides and the red belt. I didn't quite know how it works (who reads the manual anyways?) but mahaged to get a sharp blade. It sliced very cleanly through sideways romaine lettuce leaves.This morning I read the manual, pretty simple and short, and opened the upgrade kit. I spent about 35 minutes or so sharpening those five knives. I got then better than new. I think this weekend I might use the blue belt on my 14 inch chef's and rebuilt it from scratch. I will also give it a try with the cleaver (chomp!) and likely will redo the 12 and slice and perhaps the Santoku. Make me some good espresso and sit down for an hour or so.The interesting thing is that Western knives use a the rougher blades while the Eastern knives run finer belts.Who knew? Now I'm an expert. ;-) Seriously, though, I spent about $250 but I got about $750 of knives collected over the years. After seeing the results, it came to be a no brainer.Now my question... what angle to do the jamon serrano slicer? It a narrow, flexible, long blade.Life is too short to sharpen your knives by hand.[EDIT: I finally used the blue belt. I guess the Western knives really needed it. I mean, I couldn't believe it but they are now even sharper to the point that you got to be careful when you run your finger along it. Awesome. Making french fries, chopping veggies, slicing thin slices of sharp cheese is very easy now. Great buy.]

I bought a few Ken Onion Work Sharps a few years ago. I use them a lot for a small knife sharpening business. The only problem with them was the plastic angle guide would scratch the flat of the knife. In the E5, Work Sharp tried to remedy that with a piece of leather on the guide. After a few knives, the guide can still scuff the flat of the knife, so be cautious. The E5 is great. The placement of the knife feels very secure and the edge is nice as always. The vacuum doesn't pull quite as well as advertised, still particles on the exterior housing. This was only supplied with a single belt and only one set of angle guides - to obtain the other angle guides, it costs more thus making it substantially more expensive than the Ken Onion. It looks nice and is great for the occasional user. But for heavy work, the Ken Onion is an amazing unit and beats this one by a lot. The scuffing with angle guides is a big problem. I just tape the sides with blue tape for sharpening. Great unit, but squeezing us for extra parts wasn't cool. The Ken Onion is a much better value (and 1 belt?!, c'mon).