J.A. Henckels Twinsharp Knife Sharpener

Product Description

Henckels TWINSHARP - Gift Box - Black - 32591-000

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #6144 in Kitchen & Housewares
* Brand: Twin Sharp
* Model: 32591-000
* Dimensions: 5.50" h x 6.50" w x 7.25" l, .50 pounds

Features

* "Resets" a knife's edge; alternative to knife steel
* Employs steel and ceramic wheels to hone knife's edge
* Simple to use--draw knife through slot, toward your body
* Lifetime warranty against manufacturers defects

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Despite its name, this tool doesn't truly sharpen a knife. It's an alternative to a knife, or "butcher," steel. Like a steel, it performs the vital task of realigning, or "resetting," a knife's edge, which bends this way and that when contacting a cutting surface or other hard object. Because it employs steel and ceramic wheels to do the work on a knife's edge, it can grind a bit of steel off the blade. But that's more a polishing, or honing, than an actual sharpening. It's simple to use: grasp the curved grip with the left hand--left-handers must do it this way, too--and draw a knife through a V-shaped slot toward the body with the right hand. --Fred Brack

Customer Reviews

Simple and effective5
I tried this sharpener (for practice) on the ...Farberware knives I hadn't touched since I tried Henckels 4-star and Pro-S knives. These knives had been beaten up from throwing them in the dishwasher, and the Twinsharp put a very serviceable edge on the Farberware slicing knife; while not as effective or well-balanced as the Henckels knives, it *would* once again, smoothly and without fuss, cut through an onion. Be careful about the downward pressure you apply - a little more may be required at first, but a light pressure and smooth motion is required for the final finishing strokes, and you want to tilt the knife to keep the EDGE parallel to the countertop at the point the sharpener touches.

I then ran my 6-month old Henckels chef's knife, which was still pretty effective, though the sharpener. The knife cuts much more smoothly, and the sharpener eliminated any "dead spots" in the cutting edge. In addition, this sharpener smoothed out the three nicks that resulted when the knife slipped while I was washing it, bouncing off the drain of my stainless sink... if you look close you can still tell where they were, but the edge is greatly improved; a bit more use and a sharpening or two, and it should be visually impossible to tell the difference.

Just for kicks (and probably disobeying a few common-sense safety rules) I sharpened a dollar-store stainless pizza cutter, holding the sharpener to the floor with my boot and holding the cutter handle with one hand and rotating the blade (to simulate pulling a knife through) with the other. The cutter, which had previously been a pain ...and required a bit of pressure, cut right through a Tombstone pizza on the first pass.

I don't know if it will work for serrated knives, but for smooth-edged knives this sharpener seems very effective and easy to use - just hold the handle solidly against the counter and pull the knife through, keeping the cutting edge in good contact. The sharpener design and knife guides make it easy to hold the knife square in relation to the sharpening elements, resulting in a clean edge. The lefties are correct in their comments; this sharpener IS designed for a right-handed person, and there is no left-handed alternative available, but I found it to work very well for me.

Sharp Edge Quick & Easy4
Most of todays kitchen knives are hard stainless steel. Therefore, they fail to properly take an edge when in need of sharpening. At the factory, the first edge is ground in and unlike the directions say, that edge sooner or later requires touching up. The Henckels Twinsharp Knife Sharpener does just that. A few quick "pull thru's" and the blade is dressed no matter the level of steel blade hardness. So, if you are not a master of the sharpening steel and want to do fast and easy food prep. Then by all means consider the Twinsharp. It really works, but sooner than later you will need to find a way to get get you kitchen knives fully sharpened.

It does the job4
I don't have the best knives in the world...and they're quite old. They've only been sharpened once in 10 years. They were barely able to cut anything anymore. I thought I would invest in a modest sharpener just to see if this would sharpen before I needed to purchase new knives. All I can tell you is that you just need to hold the knife over an onion and it seems to melt right through. I don't know whether that just meant it honed the knife like the Amazon reviewer noted, but all my knives now are as sharp as they can be.