$26 Guided Knife Sharpener from Ebay

For light duty I think it is well worth the money . Butt !
As soon as you ask more from this product it will show you all it’s weaknesses .

My man! I got one of these, about $25, does a great job. It comes with a set of stones from 100 to 10000 grit.
The most important trick is to always pull the stone along the blade, never to push against the blade.
The second important trick is to pull the stone along the entire blade in one motion, and avoid lifting and reapplying the stone.

I got one that’s similar from amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073QQDSXD/
It works pretty good but as you say has a few short comings.
I have really considered replacing or permently fixing a few minor problems it has.
I feel like with a few upgrades it could become a very decent sharpener.
Buying a good set of stones make a Huge difference and cost way more than the system its self.

I got one of these, they’re called ruixing 008 pro if I’m not wrong. I use it with a set of Venev “Dog” diamond matrix stones, $17 for 2 4” stones for a total of 4 grits, after trying these stones I would not go back to aluminum oxide or carbide. The included stones are pretty much obsolete, they dish like crazy and not even the coarsest one can cut 8cr13mov like it should.

With the diamond matrix stone I’m getting impressive results with D2, S30V and even M390. Sharper than factory spyderco edge with near mirror finish, and usually with just the first two grits it’s enough for cutting anything other than paper. With cheap SS kitchen knives I tend to go very lightly on the coarsest side to avoid dishing the 1mm material, but even after 15 knives sharpened it hasn’t wore out much. I don’t want to sound like a venev shill but to be honest these are the best $17 I have spent on knife sharpening stuff, you’ll know when you try them.

The build quality has lots of room for improvement specially at the rod joints and nylon pivot piece. If they fixed a couple things it could easily rival a TSPROF in terms of results. The tsprof is extremely well machined and precise, and absolute breeze to adjust angle to compensate stone thickness.

I plan on affixing this one to a board …
Remove the rubber feet / cups … Make some holes in the board to match , and glue it down .
Should improve things a lot …

I have another sharpener kit that came the same day , it clamps the knife blade . Should be much better for profiling an edge .
Also ordered some diamond sharpeners that fit the guide rod . For heavy duty work .
The included stones do the job for edge maintenance .

Now if only I could find some ceramic sharpeners that would fit that guide rod .
I do like my ceramic sharpening rods .

You are right, the included stones are bad. The coarsest stone got a visible curve after sharpening one VG10 chef knife. :person_facepalming: probably need to throw away after sharpening another 2 knifes.

get some diamond inserts … Especially for profiling the bevel . Cost about the same or less .

Good advice, I should definitely check out some diamond inserts. :+1:
I wonder what RC uses, with so many knifes to sharpen.

I have so many knives, and I dull them so rarely, that I haven't sharpened the vast majority of them.

It's not very impressive, but I use one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/AccuSharp-1-001-Knife-Sharpener/dp/B00004VWKQ

This is still one of my favorite sharpeners due to both price, and the fact that setup time is basically instant compared to fixed angle systems: https://www.amazon.com/Lansky-4-rod-Turn-Knife-Sharpener/dp/B000B8FW0E
Also very portable, but I’ve never really taken it with me anywhere.

RC, just be aware that those carbide pocket sharpeners can eat away a lot of blade material IIRC.

Yup, that's the common complaint.

I use it because it's cheap and extremely easy.




I put a base on the guided sharpener . No glue needed . There is enough tension from the rear screw to front to avoid glue .
Front wood screws hold the legs and the rear screws that held the suction cups were simply pushed into the drilled holes .

And hopefully will work now with little to no muss or fuss !

I like this set-up, looks simple and I like simple.

I got one of them a few years ago. The stones above 800 grit on mine are basically the same thing. But it’s easy to glue some finer wet/dry sandpaper onto a stone for really fine finishing. It’s really handy for resetting a bevel.

I use to sharpen by hand - a lot. No biggie. Now I don’t do that so much and without practice, it’s easy to loose the muscle memory needed to keep a constant angle.

One of these cheapie thingies and a good strop strap and getting things sharp is way easy.

Been thinking about getting some diamond stones to really cut faster.
All the Best,
Jeff