Shinkansen 'Water' Sharpener - Black and Red

I have a collection of 10 Global knives that haven’t been getting the love they deserve from my whetstone so thought I’d treat them to this water sharpener.I must say firstly that I love my whetstone, it gives an incredibly sharp edge to my Global knives, but for me it just takes an awfully long time, I admit I'm a bit of a perfectionist with this sort of thing, but I could easily spend 15 minutes sharpening each knife on my whetstone and with 10 to sharpen that’s the best part of the morning gone! Hence the reason for this purchase.To use it you simply poor water into the wheel compartment (no need to pre-soak like with a traditional whetstone) then you grip your knife firmly and with a very slight pressure move the blade back and forth over the pink wheel 7 or 8 times. If your blade is particularly dull then use the white coarse wheel first, then finish with the fine pink wheel with another 7 or 8 strokes. Always finish with the pink wheel to ensure a fine edge. Once done you just wash you knife and you’re good to go. Just a small note here that if you're sharpening a different brand of knife (i.e. not a Global) then minoSharp recommend 15 strokes per wheel.My only very slight criticism is that the edge is not quite as fine as I manage to achieve with a whetstone, just not as acute an angle which does mean they need sharpening ever so slightly more frequently than when I use my whetstone…having said that this is far more preferable.Remember, a blunt knife is far more dangerous in the kitchen than a sharp one, you're far less likely to end up cutting yourself if you keep your blades sharp and this Shinkansen 'Water' Sharpener is a great way to keep your knives very sharp.

I have a number of Japanese Damascus steel knives and have always used whetstones (including a very expensive diamond one). This is better. The key seems to be just letting the weight of the knife do the work without any extra pressure and then following up with a steel for the final polish.I can imagine that this wouldn't work at all on thicker non-Japanese knives which have a wider grinding angle.

I'll start off by saying I can get a sharper edge with whetstones. That said... more often than not who has the time!With this I can get a very good edge with a few swipes

Really very good little sharpener, easy and safe to use. I knocked off one star because the little wheels inside tend to come loose when you turn it upside down to drain it - it is easy enough to re-seat them but if the design was slightly better this wouldn't be necessary at all. Otherwise though, works very well. If your knives are very blunt then you may need to repeat the cycle a couple of times before they get to the sharpness you want.

I previously had one of these and didn't realise that I had used it so much that the stones had worn down and split. I used to press really hard to try to sharpen my knives but to no avail. A brand new one and with just medium pressure and a few runs of my knives through the sharpener and they can slice through tomatoes (the ultimate test) with ease. A little pricey but you pay for quality. Well worth it.

Brrings my global knives back to sharp in an easy, safe mechanism.

Brilliant

Using a steel or a whetstone requires a certain level of skill whereas a chimpanzee could operate this. I use this sharpener on Henckels knives and it is brilliant. Run the knife through half a dozen times and it slices through paper with no effort. would imagine this gadget is at its best with good quality knives so it is probably best to invest in a set of those to start with, but I really can't think of anything bad to say about the Minosharp. I don't know how long the ceramic wheels will last, but with replacements available for around £13 they are not going to break the bank.