The Best Knife Sharpeners

The Pronto is a little handheld sharpener with two V-shaped slots. You set it on the counter, hold the handle, and push and pull the blade gently through the coarse slot, then the fine one. Both are lined with diamond abrasive, and the slots are deep enough that the knife can't wobble off its angle. That deep slot is most of what separates a good manual sharpener from a bad one. It's the manual sharpener America's Test Kitchen ranks first, and it weighs under six ounces.

What you give up against the Trizor is speed on a very dull knife and any kind of repair. For a santoku and a chef's knife that get a few pulls whenever they start to drag, it's plenty, and at about $41 it's the one I'd give as a housewarming present.

This one works the other way around. You hold the knife on the counter, blade up, and draw the AccuSharp along the edge a few times, a bit like peeling a carrot. The V inside is tungsten carbide, and a guard runs the full length to keep your fingers off the steel. It feels odd the first time and quick after that.

It's fast because it's aggressive. Under a microscope, the edge it leaves is ragged (knife people call it toothy), which actually grips a crusty loaf nicely. America's Test Kitchen finishes it with a few strokes on a honing rod. The carbide wears faster than diamond, so AccuSharp makes the blades reversible, and replacements are sold.

This is the 15-degree Gourmet version. If your knives are 20 degrees, the classic AccuSharp at the same price is the one to get.

Every knife at its own angle

The Precision Adjust holds the knife in a clamp and guides a rod at whatever angle you dial in, from 15 to 30 degrees in one-degree steps. The rod carries a three-sided handle: coarse diamond, fine diamond, fine ceramic. You stroke the edge with the coarse side until you feel a little lip of metal along the other side (that's the burr, and it tells you the edge is fully sharpened), flip the knife, do the other side, then turn the handle to the next grit.

Work Sharp says a set of abrasives lasts 200 to 300 sharpenings and sells replacements. Keep it dry; oil and water can make it rust. For a kitchen with one good chef's knife, this is more than you need. For a drawer full of mismatched knives, plus the pocketknife and the fillet knife, it's the most useful thing here.

Rolling sharpeners are everywhere right now, and this is the one I'd buy. You stick the knife to a magnetic block (it has 15, 17, 20 and 25 degree faces), set the roller on the counter beside it, and roll the diamond disc back and forth along the edge. Then you swap to the finer disc, then the ceramic one, each held on by a magnet. Outdoor Life put it first out of seven rolling sharpeners.

America's Test Kitchen gave up on two popular ones (the HORL 2 and the Tumbler) because the roller sat too low to reach the heel and the tip of a standard chef's knife. Work Sharp gave this one big 2.5-inch discs and says it handles blades up to about 2.25 inches tall. Anything narrower than half an inch won't sit well on the magnet, so the tiny paring knife may have to go elsewhere.

King stones come from Matsunaga in Osaka, and the 1000/6000 is the one people start on. The darker 1000 side does the sharpening and the pale 6000 side polishes. Soak only the 1000 side, for about two minutes, and just splash water on the 6000 (a finishing stone left in water can crack). The kit here adds a plastic base and an angle guide to help you hold the knife steady while you learn.

It's slow, but you end up knowing your knives. A stone also works at any angle you hold, including the lopsided edges some Japanese knives have. Practice on a cheap knife first, and keep a towel under the base (it gets wet).