Simple, Inexpensive and Effective
Our favorite utility knives receive heavy use and some abuse with multiple knives being stored in a single tray in a knife drawer. Up until recently, the most frequently used knives were regularly sharpened by a professional service.
I had used manual knife sharpeners before without much success. They seemed ineffective even after multiple sharpening sessions. Fortunately, America's Test Kitchen had favorably reviewed the AccuSharp and I decided to give it a try.
The AccuSharp Knife Sharpener was first used on a heavily (ab)used 9" utility knife with a number of nicks in the blade. This knife is NOT a fine cutting implement although it is a favorite and frequently used because of its size and weight.
A single pass of the AccuSharp demonstrated it to be fairly aggressive at removing knife blade metal. The knife blade is quickly brought to a wedge shaped cutting edge. The side/edge of the blade where metal is removed appears rough when viewed under a magnifying glass. Approximately 12 passes were necessary to bring this very dull and dinged knife back to a sharp cutting edge.
In use, the newly sharped knife is now much more effective at cutting carrots, cucumbers, onions and even tomatoes. This knife is a pleasure to use again.
Because the AccuSharp is aggressive at removing metal, I would not use it on my fine kitchen cutlery but for bringing everyday utility knives back to life, the AccuSharp is an excellent choice and very reasonably priced.
