- Hi it's Parris from Epic Review Guys,
it's nearly Halloween and what are you going to do
for carving a pumpkin if you don't have sharp knives?
Well, our knife set is ten years old,
they are all dull, as are these scissors, ten years old,
can barely cut anything anymore.
So, we've decided to try out Swifty Sharp, as seen on TV,
promises to return your knives to razor sharp condition.
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Swifty Sharp goes for about 15 dollars,
I'll put a link to it down below this video
if you'd like to check it out.
I actually found it over at Walmart
in the as seen on TV section,
now it is battery powered, so it's supposed to do a good job
of grinding the knives back into sharpness.
And I don't know why they didn't just make it
so it plugged into the wall,
seems like that would be a lot easier
and provide more power for grinding.
Besides which, other than Edward's Scissors Hand,
on a camping trip, who needs to bring
a big motorized knife sharpener to go?
And looking on Amazon,
the Swifty Sharp has atrocious reviews.
If my knives and scissors weren't so old
and barely functional, I think I'd be afraid
to try this one them.
But maybe it's going to surprise me.
Maybe there's just a bunch of haters over there.
Let's see what we get in the box.
Well, it is that shade of green.
This would go so well in a kitchen
sometime back in the late 60's or 70's.
Takes four batteries, four AA batteries,
That's how it's powered.
And it's got different slots of different sizes here
for the different kind of blades you may need to sharpen.
Here's a close-up view of the Swifty Sharp.
You can see probably the largest spot
that you can put blades in
and the plastic goes down at an angle
it's supposed to push the blade against the sharpening stone
at just the right angle.
There are a few more here, there's one over on the side,
it says for serrated blades, even though,
I thought you weren't supposed to use it
with serrated blades.
And on the end here, you can sharpen up the tips
of your screwdrivers, apparently.
On this side, it's supposed to be easier to use
if you're right handed, because they want you
to hold this in your right hand and the tool in your left,
but that feels backwards to me for some reason.
But anyway, you push the button,
I've put the batteries in, let's see what happens here.
(sharpener noise)
See the stone in there spinning.
(sharpener noise)
This also comes with a little plastic tray
that snaps in here and that is to catch
the metal shavings that fall off
while you're doing the grinding.
Reading the instructions, I find you don't use any water,
they don't want you to put the blades in here wet.
And I haven't tried to sharpen blades in a long time,
but I remember doing them where
you had to have the blade wet.
In fact, they even feel they need to mention here:
Do not put blades into this device with food on them.
As a sharpness test, I've got two knives,
I'm going to take them and try to just cut the paper here.
I would think once these are razor sharp
they should have no trouble.
(cutting noise)
Nothing.
Other knife,
trying to give it the best chance it can
of cutting through here.
(cutting noise)
Nothing!
Will not cut through this paper very easily.
I realized that biggest opening was for scissors.
I want knife and they have a knife setting here,
but in the process,
you basically twist this around the stone,
it sorta comes off pretty easily as well.
So there's the actual sharpening stone
with that plastic guide.
And if you're sharpening household items
that you mention, you can take this off and do that,
but wear protective eye-ware and a dust mask.
Okay, we're gonna line this up,
I assume that's where the line goes for sharpening knives.
I ran into a little bit of a sticking point as it were,
in the sharpening, because they tell you to hold this
with your dominant hand, and for most people
that will be their right hand,
so you'll hold the knife like this.
Their instruction's based on where the blade is,
the actual point that comes down at an angle,
that carries the edge I guess you would call it,
rather than the blade, and that's supposed to be
either in one of these two different grooves
based on whether it's on the right or the left.
Which is all okay, I can understand that,
but in the picture, they show the person
holding it like this, which then reverses
where the blade goes and it actually makes more sense
judging on the fact that this seems to be the front
edge of the stone, that I would put this knife
with the edge here into this slot.
Now this kind of confusion could be how it got
such bad reviews over on Amazon,
because people are grinding down the side of the blade
that doesn't have the edge.
So with my limited knife fight experience,
I'm going to do what I think makes the most sense
and put the blade with the edge on this side
into the futher most slot, which will press that
edge against the stone.
I think that's what's supposed to happen,
we'll see if we get any shavings here
and we'll see if it improves the knife
or completely destroys it.
You're supposed to do it five times,
starting at this end and pulling it to the tip,
five times, check for sharpness
and then do it three times quickly to hone it.
And I will hone it, even if I ruin it.
(sharpening noise)
I feel like I'm mowing the lawn.
(sharpening noise)
How many times was that?
I'm going one more.
I don't know why it's not making that noise anymore?
But okay, check for sharpness.
Yeah they did mention you may see
little metal shavings on the blade and I do.
Back to the paper test!
(cutting noise)
Oh, hey!
What do you know?
It didn't cut it immediately and it does say,
before I cut it all to pieces here,
that you can go through the steps again
to put more of an edge on it,
so let's try that.
Okay, now it ought to cut so nicely!
(cutting noise)
Well, it does, I don't know if it improved any
over the first five times through,
but it wouldn't cut this paper at all before.
It seems to me the other thing they always test knives on
is cutting tomatoes, so I have the unsharpened knife here,
I'm going to try to cut this tomato.
It's pretty firm.
It doesn't want to go through the skin,
finally it went through.
Okay, now I'm going to try to cut a thin slice,
because I know that's tricky when the knife isn't sharp.
Usually just squishes the tomato.
Okay, we finally got through the skin there.
Knife's not as bad as I thought.
Okay, let me clean this off, run it through the sharpener.
Because I'm not supposed to put it in with food on it.
And we'll see if it improves.
(sharpening noise)
There we go.
Feels like it's doing something when I hear that.
Tomato tomato.
Woah, quite a difference.
Yeah, I hardly have to put any pressure on it
and it goes right through the skin of the tomato.
That's definitely a lot different
after just that little bit of sharpening.
And the instructions here are a little different again.
They say to put the cutting edge of the scissors,
again, the one that's at an angle,
towards the stone.
So I've dialed this to scissors,
I'm going to put it in here, pull it out,
and then this one I'll have to flip over and do the same.
(sharpener noise)
Make a lot of contact there.
They say to do this three times.
Oh!
They don't want to go together now.
Okay, now they do, but they feel much tighter.
Well I can't show that the Swifty Sharp
improved the scissors, but they feel more secure doing this,
so I suspect they will cut better now.
I looked in this tray, figuring with all that sharpening
that's happened, there should be some shavings in here,
but microscopic if there are.
What I actually feel all over the desk here is:
I don't know if it's metal shavings
or maybe little bits of grit or sand
from the sharpening wheel,
but there's stuff all over here now.
So I'm actually kind of impressed by the Swifty Sharp.
I, again, have never bothered to sharpen our knives
in ten years and I think this is actually an improvement.
As for all the one star reviews on Amazon,
could be because of the confusion of which way to hold it
when you're doing the sharpening of the knives,
people are doing it on the wrong side
and maybe even damaging their knives.
That might explain it.
For 15 dollars, I would say I got pretty good results
in sharpening my knives and also in sharpening
a pair of scissors.
And it is kind of strange when you think about it
that the knives do go dull
if all you ever cut with them is bread and tomato
that this is made of metal, why does it get dull?
Well, it's because of that razor sharp edge,
it's so thin, that in the process of cutting,
some molecules of metal do come off
into your food and you presumably eat them,
then your knife needs sharpening.
So, when you go to the circus and you see
the knife swallower who has that sharp edge
half-way down his throat, pulls it back out
and everyone applauds, he's got nothing on you.
Think about the where the pieces
of your knife edge have been.
You should have your own show.
To my surprise, I'm giving the Swifty Sharp a thumbs up,
it really does seem to work.
The proof is in the cutting.
If you'd like to find out more about it,
I have a link to it down below this video.
I'll be back with more gadgets
and interesting products to review soon.
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see you on the next review.
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