What A Pull Through Knife Sharpener ACTUALLY Does To Your Knife | SUPER CLOSE UP

What does a carbide pull through knife sharpener do to your knife edge? Its not pretty, but let's take a super up close look to find out. I do not recommend these types of knife sharpeners due to their inability to sharpen knives properly. In this video I will show you why.

Knife sharpener used in this video⬇️

Sharpening stone id recommend over the pull through⬇️ (HIGH quality, low price!)⬇️

CHEAP Diamond stone⬇️

As an Amazon affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.

These are affiliated links. I may earn a commission from purchases made through product links at no additional cost to you. Everything in this video was purchased with my own money.

Chapters
00:00 INTRO
00:33 Close up of the sharpener
01:05 Knife I’m using and close up before using pull through sharpener
02:12 Knife after profiling / sharpening on pull through
04:00 A better option
04:31 Close up of better option

[OUTDOORS]

Check the description for GOOD sharpening stones used in this video. All products I recommend are purchased with my own money, and are NOT sponsored. Thanks for watching! Happy Thanksgiving!

[atomotron]

For me, these sharpeners have always been a "quick and dirty" way to make your knife cut something. They create basically a saw effect on the edge, which helps to cut things but also tends to wear off pretty quick.

[anteckgoat]

You didn’t complete the process. Just a month of using the pull thru and any knife can become a serrated knife!

[VicJang]

I’m not in the market for a knife sharpener at the moment, but thank you so much for doing this. I hate awful Amazon products with unreasonably large number of positive reviews. Thanks for exposing it.

[seanu]

I love videos like this. short, To the point, Comprehensive, And I feel like I walk away, knowing something, It didn’t distract me with three minutes of cheap frivolous antics. Instead, he gave me content that I didn’t have to stick around for an entire 10 minutes or 20 minutes to get. At the end, I feel like I’ve learned something valuable

[Romeyoav]

I have a "fancy" pull-through sharpener that costs quite a bit. It came with instructions that very clearly said to apply a very light pressure, only pull 3-4 times through each side, and only use the coarse side for reprofiling.

I take my favorite knife through the fine side about once every other month, and through the corase+fine like twice a year. It stays sharp as a laser. Maybe the higher price is justified and the quality itself is superb, maybe it's really the pressure and amount of pulls. But it definitely works and I'm happy with it.

[gotstrpk]

Here's the thing, a full sharpening with several stones going up in grit will be far better every single time for an experienced sharpener. Hardly anyone is an experienced sharpener, though. When I first started for about 2 whole weeks, I literally made any knife I tried to sharpen WORSE! That's not an exaggeration. I legitimately turned paring knives into butter knives. I got so frustrated time and time again, and the only reason I overcame the hurdle of learning how to maintain an angle on the stone is I was simply too stubborn to quit. Those pull through sharpeners aren't the best by any means, but they work far better for the average person than a stone would. Saying "take 5 minutes practicing on a stone for better results" simply isn't true. Sharpening is a skill that needs a lot of effort to beat out that little pull through sharpener.

[rick]

For those that have no experience free-handing on a sharpening stone, you can obtain little plastic clips that function as an angle guide on any of the usual websites (which I cannot mention without getting censored by youtube). they slide on the spine of the knife and help maintain a steady angle while sharpening. Another useful item are the fixed angle electric knife sharpeners, but they also tend to remove more material than needed. If you want the most perfect knife edge without free-handing or using angle guides on traditional sharpening stones, and money is no object, you could always get one of those complete kits of variable "fixed" angle knife sharpeners such as the kme knife sharpening system.

[dakota]

I have a couple of the pull through type knife sharpeners. The packaging details how to do it. It basically tells you to use light pressure & keep the edge at a 90 degree angle to the 'v.' Once you get a feel for it, it works well. The quality of the steel also matters as you'd expect. The pressure used in the video seems to be far greater than "light pressure" as it sounds like a heavy grating. Regardless, these sharpeners aren't the best in the world, but they do have their place when used properly. I have no bias as I'm not profiting on these or any other sharpeners directly or indirectly via affiliate marketing.

[danjlurie]

I have one of these sharpeners. I know nothing about knives but it was recommended a year or two ago by a popular consumer review website. I’ve noticed that the more I use it, the less sharp my knives are. Now I know why. Thanks for the informative, no-nonsense video and recommendations

[Tockohead]

I've been using these coarse/fine sharpeners for years as I've always wondered what's going on at the micro level, thank you for shedding some light on it. I have no doubt a sharpening stone is a lot better but here's where cost/benefit comes into play. My wife and I use our cheap, second hand cooking knives every day (and usually in a hurry) to cut basic meats and vegetables and the coarse/fine sharpeners seem to do the job well and quickly. You've helped me understand that it's reducing the life of the knives but I'm kind of okay with that since they're not great knives to begin with. When I finally get a chance to invest in some nice knives, I'll certainly get a sharpening stone to go with them. Thank you, great video!

[jmfs]

I've been practicing on some old kitchen knives, and while it seemed intimidating to not fully understand how to get the right angle, it has become more intuitive. I have finally gotten into sharpening an old chisel of mine that someone tried to drive through a nail. I haven't gotten the full gouge/chip out yet, but it's getting there.

[Rebel]

The thing is, I don't need a knife sharp enough to use as a scalpel, just sharp enough to cut meat and potatoes and for that my "pull-through" knife sharpener works just fine. When I was a kid the only sharpener we had for years was a whet rock on a wood handle and it worked fine, but took a whole lot longer than two or three passes through the pull through.

[rexnemo]

I must admit that it is rather enjoyable to sharpen a blade using a sharpening stone once I got the idea of keeping it at the same angle whilst sharpening . I like the way it is possible to resharpen disposable hobby knife blades as it seems so wasteful to throw them away when there is plenty of life left in them with a quick sharpening .

[alandul]

I agree with your assessment, for the most part. I work on a shipping dock, and I cut boxes all day. Also, as former military, I have much knife experience. I use a Lansky sharpener to create a perfect edge, which lasts a long time. When the knife starts to lose that keen edge, I will use the pull through sharpener as a "touch up" only!! I have learned that a very, very, very light touch will improve the edge, but heavy pressure will start to chip the edge. Later, I go back to a stone to restore the edge. Pull through sharpeners can be a help when at work and don't have time for a stone, but the key is extremely light pressure.

[fricki]

I've been using one of these for years, mostly the ceramic side, which never seemed to clog or chip for me.
I know it won't produce a great edge, but it still does the trick. It keeps my kitchen knife nicely sharp for cooking, and considering how little my friends and family care for sharpness, using this still is a large improvement.

[ImKrazyFrench]

I've been using that pinch sharpener for close to 5 years already. I did notice that my cheap knife is having more and more issues because of those grooves.

However I still believes that it does the job just fine for everyday use - as a person who do no specifically care about knife maintenance. I reckon my knife will have to be thrown away in a couple years already, but that doesn't matter considering it's cheap initial price. If my 10$ knife lasts me 10 years, I much prefer the expanse than having to invest time into sharpening properly my knife

That being said, your video and explanation accompanied with the visual is really informative and well done. Nice work!

[davidstewart]

Very good explanation and visuals. My dad showed me how to sharpen a knife way back in the day, I guess I was maybe 6 or 7 at the time (78 now). First start with a hand file, establish an edge, and make sure it is even all along the length of the blade. Then use an emery cloth and continue to slowly pull the knife along. Be sure to reverse the hold on the knife in both cases so that you are making your cuts in the same direction. Then use a stone and pretty much the same way shown in the video. Again, use the same direction on both sides of the blade (reverse and hold the back side by the blade if necessary). Now for the final stage, get an old leather belt, and strop the blade (ever see a barber sharpen a razor before he gives you a shave?) - you take the knife and pull it down the length of the strap and flip it over and pull away from you back down the strap. While common sense tells you leather could not have any ability to shape steel in fact it does. Your final effort will literally cut almost anything you could ever want to cut - yes you do have to be realistic here, You know what I mean. No, this does not work on serrated blades - but you can just use the leather belt every now and then to keep even a serrated blade very sharp.

[viewerfrom]

Those are good in a pinch, for a knife you don't care about. So far the best edge I've gotten is from a bog standard ceramic coaster. Second only to a real stone. Nice explanation!
Let me add something.. Being a bit of a woodworker this is exactly why you use a long plane to flatten an edge. the longer the plane the flatter the end result because it averages out all those bumps.

[harryv]

I got into and started learning the art of knife/blade/edge sharpening and honing by hand a decade ago. Lookin' back, it was one of the best life decisions I ever made. Keep all my knives hair shaving sharp (I abhor dull knives), with regularly honing of my high use kitchen knives on an equivalent 1000 grit diamond honing rod or 1200 grit diamond stone, or on my leather strop, as well as maintaining sharpness on all my edged tools, all by hand. I simply abhor these pull throughs as much as I do dull knives.