Hey guys welcome back Ricky here alright today
We have a electric sharpener versus a whetstone comparison and a lot of you guys have been asking me about
Whether or not you should buy an electric sharpener, and if they're worth your money
Or should I go and buy a you know set of whetstones. So on my right
I have the Wusthof by Chefs Choice sharpener this here is
Really rated probably the best sharpener on the market in terms of a home use or even
Semi-professional use. Now I did my best to look through the instructions manual and through the box
And I really couldn't find any sort of grit level for these
For these three slots so the wet stones I chose for this series is the Suehiro
soaking wet stones the CRX lineup that we have the Cerex 320 we have the Cerex 1000 and
The Rika 5000 but in terms of pricing you're looking at these three stones
You're looking at $150 investment for these three. You can find all these three stones between 50 and 55 dollars
You can certainly find them in eBay and on Amazon which I will leave in the video description if you guys want to do some
Research on your own time and the electric sharpener here is currently on sale at Cutlery and More's website for
$149 and you can find them typically on retail pricing for about 189 dollars or 179
to 189 dollars so this methodology is not perfect
It's not complete and let me explain well mainly because this sharpener here was not necessarily designed for knives
heat treated over a
62 and so I chose the 62 because these are the knives I use the most in terms of rockwell rating and
Most of my subscribers are asking about this you know this set up here are using Japanese knives as well
They're asking if these electric sharpeners are worth it for Japanese knives
So I chose a 62 of rockwall set of knives so again. This is only isolating one rockball rating at 62 to 63
I will do more tests with lower rockwell ratings and higher rockwell ratings
So give you guys really a much better understanding of how versatile this sharpener may or may not be but on the sharpener
I basically went through the instructions manual did exactly what it said on stage one
I did 20 pairs of pulls on each side alternating between one and the other and
Then I went through stage two now the manual suggested that I went through two
pulls or two pairs between one or two pairs of pulls for the middle stage two section
on stage three that suggested that I go three pairs of pulls and
About three to five seconds per every five inches now the very last step, which also involved stage three again
It's actually the stropping phase and they suggested that you do one second pull for every five inches of blade so on the eight-inch blade
it took about one-and-a-half seconds so maybe two seconds for the eight-inch blade to fully come through and the total time it took was a
Little bit over five minutes, which is not too bad
I thought actually would take a little bit less time
but because they actually have all these steps and
The actual you know pulling has to be timed properly it actually took longer than I expected
Which is fine
I mean a little bit over five minutes to get a knife sharp is not a big deal in terms of overall noise
It was fairly quiet. I didn't find to be very loud. I'm definitely if you're someone's in the house
You will hear it go off, but it's not overly loud even being right up front to it
Not a big deal at all. It's very planted and staple
It's got four very large rubber legs which keep it nice and planted on this smooth stainless steel table
It wasn't sliding around at all in terms of actual usage there were a couple of things
I really didn't love about it the first thing is the guides, the fairings are actually
They hide the blade so you actually don't know where the blades are for the first few pulls
You actually have to guess as to where the blades actually are and even after a few pulls even when I was on stage three
I really really wasn't comfortable using this because there were times when I try to get the blades
Planted and actually situated in the slot really nice and securely before I pulled and actually would
Pull the knife too far down at the bottom of the guides
They're actually these plastic pieces here, and your knife actually will cut into them
No matter what I did so I really couldn't get
The knife not cutting into the plastic after it would leave the cutting blade if you actually have the blade too high then you actually
Missed the cutting blade altogether or you hit certain spots of your cutting blade so from a you know
visual standpoint
it was actually kind of frustrating for me to use I
understand that these guards these fairings are actually made to actually protect your blade and
To kind of guide the blade and also maybe to even protect your fingers
Or you know children who actually accidentally may turn this unit on
It's just a little bit frustrating to use as
a person who actually really wants to be more precise and
To be a little bit more sure of where the blade and the cutting blade is it's this kind of frustrating to use sometimes
Now for me this next issue is probably the deal-breaker
And it's this there are hairline scratches at least a half inch above the cutting edge all the way through the entire length of blade
from being used on this sharpener
You don't want to have scratches on the sides of your knife now having scratches from
Daily use that's one thing when the scratches are more
Organic looking and they just kind of happen over time and that's gonna happen with all knives anyway
but when you have hairline scratches that are a
Half-inch thick that run from the heel of a knife all the way through the tip. It just looks very unnatural and unprofessional
And very unseemly in my personal opinion
And then the other thing is if you had a chip in your knife this sort of a sharpener
I don't think we actually handle a chip at all minor chips and pitting will probably not be an issue
But if you were cutting to a bone by accident well a knife and you have a chip
That's a millimeter deep this sharpener will be useless in that case then I went over to my Whetstone's and so in terms of overall
sharpening time
I'm not counting the soaking time, so just keep that in mind the Cerex 320 is a really great core stone
It could be used as a fixer stone
Or as a bringing a knife back to edge stone the Cerex
1000 is a stone that I can recommend for anybody who just wants to have one stone that can really much do it all it
can
Fix minor chips it can also bring a knife back to razor sharpness if you just took your time sharpening on it and maybe stropped
In some newspaper afterwards the Rika 5000 to me is one of my favorite five thousand polishing stones
It leaves a kasumi finished stone, which is a non mirror polished stone
It's a very hazy very misty looking
Sort of a finish and to me very mysterious and just very sexy the kasumi finish is my personal preference
I just think that they look better. They look more professional and to me
I think they actually look sharper so overall my entire sharpening time without me trying to rush
Anything at all and really just enjoying my time really it took a little bit over seven minutes, which really wasn't too bad
I'm in terms of a soaking wet stone
I don't think that any other stones are actually are better than these stones here for your money
Even up to a hundred dollars per stone
I still think that these three stones here will hold their own against any whetstones
So now we're gonna do a really quick cut test and again. This is just off the machines
No stropping involved basically off the whetstones and off the machine you guys can hear for yourselves
How clean the edges are and I don't have a microscope here, so I can't show you guys exactly
How the edges look judging from my eyes the final stage on this machine here
I don't think is any finer than 1500 grit now my best guess is that the chef's choice makers actually know that people who use
High-end Japanese knives or knives are heat treated from a 62 and above are probably not gonna be using their knives on this sharpener
so they probably formulated these sharpeners to top out at a
1000 or 1500 hundred grit so that knives at the 55 to 58 Rockwall can be easily sharpened
And you know honed on them that is just my guess. Okay, so I have no
Conclusive you know evidence that that's the case, but that's just my guess alright
So we're gonna go with the e sharpener first
This is the Dalstrong sharpened with the e-sharpener, and we'll first go with the grain of the paper
So that edge is actually decent it's not bad. It's what I would expect on a 1000 with Cerex to be honest
Okay, so we're gonna go horizontal to the paper
Okay, this is the Rika finish right here
Okay, so let's go horizontal
Okay, so so here is my final conclusion and take everything with a grain of salt
I will say that for the everyday person
Who is just getting into knives and just want a sharp knife to use the e sharpener is gonna
Give you a better consistent result at a much faster
time
So when you buy this out of the box?
That's the edge that you can expect
You might have to try a few times to kind of learn where the edges and where the grinding edges on this sharpener
But for the most part within 10 to 15 minutes, you will get a knife that is comparably as sharp as well
I just showed you here on Whetstone's that learning
Curve is gonna be much higher it might take you weeks it might take you months to produce that same cutting edge
That I've just showed you there, but there is gonna be your learning curve
And you really cannot deny that you know so overall I think it's a fine sharpener. It will give you decent results
It's just not gonna give you the results of what you would find on a whetstone and the pro is the whetstone once they are
More portable you can use them pretty much anywhere. You don't need a power source which is great
you just needs a bucket of water and
a knife and a platform put them on in terms of
Correcting your knives. I find that whetstones are going to be much more versatile you can fix chips you can fix gouges
You can re-profile your knife, which none of them can be done on this sort of machine here
This machine is really just for sharpening and bringing a dull knife back to life any gouges on your cutting edge on your belly
You're not gonna put on this sort of machine so even though
I will say that the edge produce on the whetstone is far superior
I would say as much as two or three times better than the edge you can get on this machine here
It will take you a longer time to actually get there if you are new to sharpening so keep that in mind
Don't take my results as the end-all be-all
To everything I want to hear from you am I being completely biased for whetstones, am I not giving the e-sharpener a chance
Did what I say actually makes sense? D o scratches bug you yes or no? I want to hear your thoughts
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recommendations for knives
Whetstone's and sharpening accessories are I will leave a link in the video description to my kit list and in that kit list you will
see all of the knives that I used recommend and
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Alright, well. Thank you so much for being here. I'll catch you in the next video