Mini review of Chef's Choice Trizor 15 XV knife sharpener.It was an early Christmas present from my wife, purchased by her on Amazon, because I had been complaining that we ought to get presents for Thanksgiving. smile.gif
Through the years, whether cooking in my restaurant or just cooking at home, I have tried so many different sharpening systems. I never cared for earlier models of the Chef's Choice but also never did find another system that was easy and reliable for me to use.
This sharpener creates a 15° edge angle per side on all knives, whether they be Asian or
European/American made. It creates two upper bezels about the cutting edge. I think that they are at 17.5° and the top one at 20°. These add strength to the narrow angled cutting edge so it should stay sharp for a longer period of use.
Most of my knives have an edge of 15° or less already with a few at 20°-25° per side.
There are three sharpening stages with Stage 1 being the one to reshape your knives. The other two stages refine the edge.
It is important to read and follow the instruction manual and to develop a burr on the knife before moving on to the next stage. The manual will explain and illustrate the burr as I will not go into it here. But it's easy to detect.
If your knives are European or American made, you will spend the longest time in Stage 1 until you feel the burr. The manual indicates that it may take as many as 20 sets or more of pulls to develop the burr. This was the case with my Sabatier's and a few others.
If you have mostly Asian knives that were at 15° to start with, it should only take up to 5 pairs of pulls to develop the burr.
Once is Stage 2, the burr develops much quicker and I found that I never needed more than 5 pairs of pulls.
The only knives that failed to develop the burr after 30-40 pairs of pulls through stage 1 were several that were custom made by an American knife maker. Now these knives are absolutely beautiful to look at, perfectly balanced, a pleasure to hold and can get fairly sharp. They did get much sharper with the CC 15 even though I could not get the burr.
The problem with these knives, and it was a problem before I ever got this sharpener, is that the metal is so thick, that, from day 1 of use many years ago, they could not slice completely through, say, an apple, without splitting it like a maul. The cut starts out easily but then it cracks through the fruit or vegetable like a wedge. So I never really used them because all of my other knives are so much thinner that they can easily slice completely though anything.
But suffice it to say, after using the Model 15XV, all of the 30+ knives that I use regularly are razor sharp, and are sharper than they were when first purchased.
But if most of your knives are a more standard 20° edge per side, you may want to get the Chef's Choice model 120. It is identical except for the sharpening angles, which are 20° for the cutting edge, 22.5° for the second bezel and 25° for the upper bezel. It would be less time to sharpen them and less work for you to do.
But I believe that the 15° edge is sharper but it practical terms, how sharp do you need your knife to be?
And the XV restored my hand made $150 Japanese knife that was dulled with several nicks taken from the cutting edge by the Smith electric sharpener that I returned for a refund. The Smith engineers claim that it was user error that caused several of the diamonds on the wheel to break off, which is why my knife was damaged. They claimed that I must have held the knife at an angle while pulling through the wheels instead of holding it straight. I absolutely deny that I did this, especially as it was the 21st knife I pulled through their sharpener, 8 times each. Every pull I made was straight across.
The nicks are gone and the knife is scary razor sharp again as it had once been.
And for comparison purposes, I was pleased with the Smith's sharpening of my knives before the "incident" but the Chef's Choice has made them MUCH sharper. The Smith, by the way, created a 22.5° per side edge.
I also have the Spyderco system which requires much more skill to get similar results and takes much, much longer to use, and also used the Edgemaker Pro system which crates an 11.25° angle per side. It worked best with my serrated knives but none of the knives got as sharp with their system.
So how did I test the sharpness? Of course, I cut soft tomatoes with ease which is the standard test. And they all sliced effortlessly through a sheet of paper.
But I folded a 12 page tabloid newspaper in half and was able to easily slice through it with each one of the knives that I sharpened with the Chef's Choice 15XV.
I give this sharpener my ultimate endorsement. I assume that the Model 120 will give the same results as it is exactly the same other than the sharpening angle, as I have mentioned.
I only wish that I had more knives to sharpen with it. smile.gif
Followup 11/12/10: I have found that I need to touch up my knives more and more frequently. And many have had to go back through Stage 2 first as Stage 3 stropping wheels would not restore them. This has proven to be disappointing.
Truthfully, this sharpener does give good results but is time consuming, not only with the initial sharpening but with followups. Once you have to go back to Stage 2 and feel for the burr, it takes a while before you are finished with the sharpening.
It has not been able to sharpen the entire length of my 2 12" flexible salmon slicers. Maybe it's user error in that I may not be able to maintain the correct contact with the wheels for the entire length. But I always try to maintain the even pressure on the wheels.
But with persistent effort, your knives will be very sharp.
The Smith Edgeware company that I noted above offered to replace my defective sharpener (they acknowledged a bad batch of diamond wheels which have al been pulled from the market) with their newest ceramic interlocking wheel sharpener.
It has my knives sharper than I got with the Trizor XV and it sharpens both sides of the edge at the same time. So it takes just a fraction of the time as the Chef Choice with fantastic results. It is now my electric sharpener of choice.
Buy Chef'sChoice 15 Trizor XV EdgeSelect Electric Knife Sharpener Now
I was a bit doubtful choosing this sharpener. I had seen the results of the lesser Chefs Choice products. My dad always told me you get what you pay for and in this case he was absolutely correct. This thing rocks!! I have expensive knives and I didn't want a machine that removed too much metal. I understand this regrinds the edge completely so metal removal is something that will happen to some degree but it was minimal. the knives came out very sharp with an nice even edge. I even sharpened one of my crappy serrated blades on this and it worked like a champ. one thing though, you MUST follow the directions to get good results. they are simple, but if you don't use them you will not get the results you expect. I love this machine. I hope it stands the test of time because it is a bit expensive. so far it has been well worth the cost!!Please vote if this was Helpful ... Thanks!
Read Best Reviews of Chef'sChoice 15 Trizor XV EdgeSelect Electric Knife Sharpener Here
I was skeptical of using a "machine" for my traditional handmade sashimi knives and Global knives. Just finished all of my knives and I was pleasantly surprised of the results. The result is astonishing and the time saved is a definite must! I must add that this however does not sharpen as sharp as an experienced pro using various grades of stone. But this machine will get you there 95% in less than 1//5 of the time! Enjoy it!Want Chef'sChoice 15 Trizor XV EdgeSelect Electric Knife Sharpener Discount?
Most people think that a professional chef would know how to sharpen knives. Well, I'm here to tell you that is not true. Most of us do not. So, when my knives started to get dull (Shun knives), I needed someway to sharpen these knives. The Chef's Choice 15 Trizor was my choice after reading about it online.It is set to the Asian standard of knives of 15 degrees instead of the American/European standard of 22 degrees. Since the knives I'm using right now are Asian, this was perfect. It brought my knives back to really sharp. It was certainly better than my Shun Electric Sharpener. I was very pleased.
When I read the instruction manual, it indicated that it could also take my European knives and change the angle so that they were just as sharp as my Asian knives. The only thing the manual indicated was that it might take more pulls through the slots than your Asian knives. And, they were right. When I did this, I was impressed. The most impressive sharpening came from my 11" carving knife. When cutting Prime Rib, it made very clean cuts. Very easy to cut. I was loving it.
I now bring this sharpener to work everyday with my knife kit. I have become the official knife sharpener person for all my fiends. Even the some of the Sous-Chefs have borrowed my machine to sharpen their knives. But, because I have sharpened so many knives, I have already had to clean out the magnetized dust collector. You will know when you have to clean the magnet when you see black spots on your knife when you sharpen it.
Also, if your knives are not as sharp as you think they are, remember this... It takes a while to whittle away the metal, especially the better quality knives. I have found that it takes many pulls through the sharpener for the Global knives. The metal is HARD. So, while it will take a while to sharpen, it will take longer for it to get dull. On the other hand, the really cheap knives with softer metal sharpen in only 2 or 3 pulls. They are just as sharp as the other knives, but do get dull faster.
I'm glad I bought this sharpener, Impressive performance and really sharp knives are awesome.
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