The sad truth about pull through knife sharpeners is that they’re detrimental to your knives.
Top 8 reasons not to use a pull through sharpener
- Pull through sharpeners (not all but most) assume a one size fits all approach. The angle on the edge is different on all knives and most good quality Japanese knives have offset bevels so how can a plastic box with ceramic wheels know the difference. Even the adjustable ones are not well suited to all knives.
- Electric pull through sharpeners remove way too much metal and shorten the life of your knife by years.
- Ceramic wheel sharpeners tend to take chips and chunks out of thin Japanese blades.
- A pull through sharpener will permanently damage any single sided blade like a yanagiba, deba, usuba
- Because of the mechanics of use, it is impossible to apply the same amount of pressure throughout the blade. As a result, the edge tends to go out of shape changing the original blade profile.
- There is absolutely no way you can sharpen a knife with a bolster using a pull through sharpener.
- In some models there is a high danger of cutting yourself. We are not talking a little knick here and there, one of our customers has a scar 15 cm long from an early experience with a pull through sharpener.
- When you eventually crack the shits and bring your knives to us for sharpening, it is very difficult to realign the blade.
If you bought your knives for long term use rather than as a short term consumable, it would be best to avoid the gimmicky gadgets available on the market.
