Chef's Choice 3 Stage Sharpener, Model 110

Tricky to hold the blade steady against the pull of the grinding wheels - weak magnets didn't help hardly at all.Even when following the instructions there were grinding marks along both sides of the blade, but the net result was not at all sharp - and needed re-grinding after a short period of mild domestic use.Having struggled for about 10 months to get a good edge, a piece of metal fell out (probably a magnet), which was the final straw.Fortunately Amazon raised no queries and immediately gave me a full refund and return postage label.I'm now on the hunt for a sturdier, simpler, more reliable sharpener, which WON'T be Chef's Choice!

For years, I bought cheap knives from the supermarket. Usually a pack of assorted knives with one thing in common and that is that they didn't stay sharp very long! A few years ago, I decided I really needed to spend serious money if I wanted a set of decent kitchen knives like the TV chefs use, so I've gradually been building my collection. However, I found that even my expensive chef knives have lost their sharpness after a while and I've been tearing my hair out trying to find something that will sharpen them. I've tried wet stones, oil stones, hones, steels, an electric can opener with an integral sharpening wheel and the sort where you draw the blade betreen two disks. None of them would do the job.So eventually, after a bit of Googling, I came across this product.It seemed a bit expensive for the amount of times it's likely to be used but on the other hand, the user reviews were mainly positive and if it can restore new life to my knives, I decided it would be worth it. I ordered it on the standard free delivery terms on Wednesday and it arrived today Monday. That's three working days. Excellent!So I rummaged through my cutlery drawer, and pulled out 10 knives to experiment with. I used one of the older cheaper quality ones first to try the sharpener out and it really is very easy to use. Within a few minutes, the knife had a really sharp blade, probably better than when it was new. Prior to sharpening it was useless for cutting things that require sharp blade, such as sliced tomatoes.Happy with the result so far, I spent the next half hour or so sharpening the rest of the knives. They are all fantastically sharp now. I had been a bit wary of using the machine with my best chefs knives as I had read some other reviewers mentioning scuff marks. I didn't get that on any of my knives until I reached the cheaper quality "supermarket" knives and then I did. What they all have in common is they are made of much thinner metal than the "quality" knives. I guess, that being made of thinner metal, they go much deeper into the recess where the sharpening is done and that allows the scuffing to happen. So, basically if your knife has a thick, rigid blade, you probably won't get any scuffing. If it's a cheaper one where you can flex the blade in your fingers, you possibly will but it probably didn't cost a lot in the first place and at least it will actually work now!Overall, I definitely give this product full marks. Excellent!

I bought this a year ago and now I have amazingly sharp knives - in fact I'm finding this difficult to type right now because I nicked my finger on the blade of a recently sharpened knife yesterday and it cut pretty deep!BUT...This is kind of the "pro" model, in that you need to learn how to use it. The newer 1520 and I think other models have much improved guides which make it childs play (not literally I hope!), to sharpen. This one requires you to learn how to angle the knife while sharpening - if you get the angle wrong, you are basically using a diamond surface to blunt your knives and it does that remarkably well! It has taken me pretty much a year (of infrequent use) to get to a point where I feel I have got it.

well...as a few other reviewers have already noted:positive aspects:1) the sharpener does sharpen the knives quite well (not sure I would say razor sharp...but very sharp)2) there is only a small learning curve to use it correctly, and after that it is quick to do your next knife. follow all the advice in the leaflet! * for me...the trick was to ensure that the 'burr' is created along the whole knife edge in stage 1, before proceeding to stage 2 * also to loosely get the knife to follow the left of the left slots...and the right of the right slots..ie, do not try to get it to be perfectly upright and against the middle of the slotsnegative aspects:1) to be 'automatic' this sharpener replaces your current knives edge with the 'trizor' edge, which might damage the appearance of your knives. on my hard steel knives, this resulted in about 1-2cm of 'scuffed' appearance along the whole knife edge (ie, from the edge of the blade toward the top).all in all... i am reasonably pleased as i could not get a sharp edge using manual products, too bad it does scuff so much though

Delivered the next day after order. Fantastic service.I followed the instructions although I have only sharpened one knife so far but the difference is absolutely amazing. The sharpened (Chinese steel blade) sliced straight through the really hard dried skin of a lime so easily, Iv'e made a mental note that it'll be superb on vegetables and meat etc. The gin and tonic the lime went into wasn't that bad either!!Really simple to use and the knife is now a pleasure to use again. I'll be running all my knives though it over the weekend.

The first knife sharpener I've owned which I can persuade to actually do what it says on the box, but still highly technique dependent. The instructions make much of lightly holding the knife and the speed with which to draw throughbut one of the slots tries to push the knife back out the other way for example so it's not that simple. After some trial and error however my knives are much sharper than they've been for a long time. It seems to work best on serrated edges where you only use the last two processes. Recommended.