Lansky Universal Sharpening System

I've owned the Lansky system for almost 20 years and they perform perfectly and enable me to get fantastically sharp knives every time with a modicum of elbow grease but without any actual skill. Lansky's system is a brilliant arrangement of a knife clamp with sets of holes that ensure consistent grinding angle for the stones that have long steel guides. This solves the problem of how to hold the stone to the knife at a consistent angle. Using stones to sharpen your knives gives you total control and allows you to achieve the finest edge (much finer than using a chef's choice, motorized bench grinder (which can overheat the blade ruining the temper), or any of those ceramic wheel/rod dohickeys). The available angle choices are 17 degrees (for Asian knives), 20 and 25 (for Western knives) and 30 degrees (for hatchets). Lansky offers various different stones (from natural Arkansas stones, to diamond abrasive). This particular set includes 4 synthetic stones coarse, medium, and fine; and a triangular stone for serrated knives. The stones are of good quality. The fine is fine enough to get your blades shaving sharp. The coarse one cuts quickly, but will be the first stone to wear out. They also give you a bottle of sharpening oil to help carry away the metal shavings to keep the stones cutting. I don't like using oil so I keep a wet paper towel handy when sharpening and wipe the metal off the stones and blade periodically while sharpening that that works fine for me.

To use the Lansky the process is simple clamp the blade into the clamp then scrub the blade against the stone with a consistent angle until you feel a burr (a thin raised seam) along the edge. The burr is your cue to flip the blade over and do the other side. When you get burr on the other side, move onto the next stone. By the time you get to the final fine grade polishing stone and get burr on the last side, then flip and give slight touch with the stone on the other side (to remove the burr but not raise another one) and you'll find your knife is literally shaving sharp (will cut the hairs off your arm).

The process for serrated is different you just use the one triangular stone to sharpen just the edges of the pointy tips of knives that are serrated with pointy tipped serrations. This stone isn't for scalloped serrations. It's fiddly and time consuming to do serrated knives, because each pointy tipped serration is two sharpening operations (each side of each tip) but serrated knives stay sharp for a long time so you don't need to do it often. FYI only the medium serrated stone is included with this set. If you want to get crazy you can also get a fine serrated stone to put the final polish on all those little tips. If you aren't going to be sharpening serrated blades, Lansky sells plenty of other sets without the serrated sharpening stone.

Is Lansky the perfect sharpening system? For medium and small knives it probably is. Knives over 6"-7" long, however, require you to sharpen 1/2 the knife and then move the clamp and sharpen the other half because the edge angle changes too much if you attempt to sharpen too far from the guide hole. The stones themselves are pretty small (about as wide as your middle finger and as long as your hand) so it can take a long time to do a big knife. I can do a 5" utility knife in about 5-10 minutes, but an 8" Chef's knife can take more than double that which starts to become a bit of a big project. If you do a lot of big knives you'll probably want to spring for an Edge Pro Apex (same mechanical concept, bigger size for much much more money). If you only periodically sharpen then this can be lived with. You shouldn't sharpen your knives more than once or twice a year (or they wear out too quickly) since sharpening removes metal. You should use a honing steel frequently in between sharpenings to keep your knives sharp.

Lansky's system is the best way for normal regular people (non fanatics) to sharpen their knives. It's pretty easy, fun, satisfying, and extremely effective.

I have owned the Lansky Universal Sharpening System for close to a year and have used it to keep an assortment of knives in top shape. The Lansky system has been by far the best and most effective system I have used for keeping my assortment of kitchen and sporting knives nice and sharp. This comes after having tried a variety of mechanical and electric sharpeners with indifferent success.

The Lansky Universal Sharpening System comes neatly packaged with all the parts you will need to get a nice sharp edge on flat blade and serrated knives. Included in the kit are a set of coarse, medium and fine hones, a special hone for serrated knives, oil for the hones, knife holder, and a set of guide rods for the hones. The instructions that come with the kit are well written and easy to follow. I had no difficulty putting a razor edge on a well used and quite dull pocket knife.

The knife holder has slots that allow you to position the hone guide rods at various angles to allow you to tailor the edge to the knife's function. The instructions provided with the kit gives you examples of different knife types and what honing angle you would use. I found the suggestions to be spot on.

The first time the sharpener is used will require the most effort. In my case, many of my knives were dull and long overdue for sharpening. Per Lansky's instructions I started with the coarse hone to quickly put a rough edge on the knife and further refined the edge with the medium hone. After I was satisfied with the edge, I used the fine hone to polish and finish the knife edge. Due to the nature of the Lansky system is easy to touch up knives as needed and quickly get identical results time after time. I have found it only necessary to touch up with medium and fine hones to reproduce a nice sharp edge on my flat blade knives.

I have found the Lansky to be a bit more time consuming on the serrated knives, but the reward for your patience is a nice sharp knife. I sharpened a bread knife when I got the sharpening set and it is still sharp a year later.

In short, I have found the Lansky while not as quick as electric sharpeners, but the end result more satisfying and consistent.

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I have used a Lansky kit since the late eighties. I bought my brother this same kit. Because of the kit I have a reputation for having sharp knives. During dinner parties I overhear friends warning others before they step in to help to be careful because the knives are really sharp.

On the product. It does work better for small knives. I sharpen my 10 inch chef knife, but it might require two settings for the clamp.

Also, this product puts a perfect angle on the blade. I've been told that the 'old guys' using regular stones actually try to put a rounded taper on the edge. That might last longer, I'm not sure.

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I've been using Lansky's for at least 14 years. I love them. If you want a good sharp/safe knife this is the sharpner you want to use. If you have some good knives it is a must. I own a wide varity of sport and kitchen knives, Henckels Twin , Chicago Cutlery , Jimmy Lyle (the rambo knife maker) RIP Jimmey, Victronix, Kbar, Leatherman. It does a good job on all. The trick is to put the correct angle on the cut and to keep it. Using a stone. V shaped unit or a sharpening steel is not consistant. Also the better the knife is at holding an edge the harder it is to sharpen so this consistant angle is really important on them. If you can't or won't use a sharpening service this is a good alternative.

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Before I order this product I have already owned Gatco sharpeners. I ordered this one as a gift to my dad. If I compare this one with Gatco, I can see that Lansky's sharpener is not as wide as Gatco's. If you sharpen small knife it should be OK. If you do your kitchen knife, I feel Gatco is better.

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