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This is a great sharpener for the every-day sharpening of bad to mid-range traditional kitchen knives. If this is what you have or you want to sharpen, get this sharpener. Don't expect more.That being said, you have to know what it does and use it appropriately. Some random thoughts in no particular order.1. Ignore the instructions -- they are insufficient.2. Know that the sharpener will replace your knife's geometry with its own geometry. This is OK if you're sharpening a mid-range kitchen knife (e.g. Chicago Cutlery, or some lower end Henkel, Wusthof, or Mondial). Any knife that cost you less than $100 or so is a mid level knife.3. Because the sharpener replaces existing geometry, it may take a lot longer to sharpen a knife the first time than the instructions tell you. You need to put the knife through the "1" slot until the previous edge is completely replaced. You can judge this visually, or you can judge it based on the fact that there will be a burr along THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE BLADE. If you move to #2 before you've established the new edge base you're just wasting metal and spinning your wheels.4. Don't put Japanese knives through this. Send them to somebody like Bob Tate at Seattle Knife Sharpening.5. Don't put high end knives through this. I have a Lyle Brunckhorst custom knife and I would not dream of putting it through this sharpener. In fact, I have a Tormek sharpener and a Veritas jig, and I don't trust myself sharpening this knife with either.6. As long as you replace the geometry by persevering enough, this sharpener is easy to use; idiot proof is the way I'd describe it. By comparison, I can get a much better edge on my Tormek with the right jig, but I've ruined perfectly good knives when I first started sharpening.7. Once you've set the edge, maintaining it is veyr quick. It takes me 20 minutes just to set-up a knife in the jig at the right angle in my Tormek sharpener. I'll do it for good knives when I care a bout the difference in sharpness (need a particularly clean cut) but for every day knives for everyday tasks -- total overkill and waste of time.If you follow these guidelines you'll have kitchen knives that will consistently slice paper think slices of very ripe tomatoes and easily chop items or carve turkeys and roasts. If that is your objective, this sharpener is perfect.I've added pictures of knife blades to the product description. They are for comparison. As you look for them, you will see a blade sharpened with this sharpener. Note how the edge is good, but it shows classic roughness associated with this type of sharpener's mechanical wheel grinding. This is not a big deal for everyday kitchen use. The second picture shows a kitchen knife I sharpened on my Tormek. Note how much smoother the edge and the shine the leather strop creates. Finally, see the picture of the Global japanese blade sharpened by Bob Tate.So, if you want a razor for a knife, get a Lyle Brunckhorst or Kramer custom knife and send it back to them for sharpening. I have a custom filet knife from one of these gentlemen. My buddies and I used it to clean and prepare 400 pounds of yellowfin tuna we caught, and the fish ended up perfect and the knife was just as sharp at the end as it was at the beginning.If you want a superb blade for special tasks, get a high end forged blade (maybe one of the Kramer knives made by Zwilling) and learn to sharpen it on a Tormek with the right jig. Beware that it will take a bit of time each time to set-up the jig, sharpen the knife, strop it, and finish up. Also, beware that you don't practice on your good knife. I ruined a numer of knives on my Tormek before I got reliably good at sharpening. Alternatively, buy this same knife and send it out to Seattle Sharpening to be sharpened. I have a number of these and they are a pleasure to work with. There's nothing like watching think slices of turkey get sliced cleanly with one on Thanksgiving day.If you want a mix of kitchen knives that you can maintain quickly and successfully at home, you can't lose with this sharpener. Get the Henkel knife set from Costco, when the edge is lost, reset the geometry with this sharpener and you'll be happy. It's just a different objective. You'll be slicing ripe tomatoes cleanly, dicing, slicing, and generally cooking with pleasure.So, get it, use if for what it's for and you won't be disappointed.We have three sets of kitchen knives; a low quality TV infomercial special, a medium quality Chicago Cutlery set, and what we consider high quality home knives by J.A. Henckels. Plus we have more working knives than I care to count. I have used a lot of sharpeners and edge straighteners over the decades but we only use those now for machetes that my wife won't let me use in the Chef's Choice 120. They'd fit too!I bought the 120 for my wife two years after I bought her the J.A. Henckels knives. New, the knives were amazing; felt like they had a near surgical edge. I knew once they got dull or burred we didn't have anything that would restore them to like-new condition. Before we bought the 120 we took our dull Chicago Cutlery knives to a professional butcher for sharpening to see what we'd get back. We were not impressed with the results so I knew we needed to find a good knife sharpener.After reading the reviews on sharpeners, I chose the Chef's Choice 120. We carefully read the directions and practiced our technique on the cheap knives. Wow, talk about impressed with the results. Then we put the dull Chicago Cutlery knives through all three stages on the 120. Several of the knives were so dull we had to three-stage them three times to recover the edge. When we were finished they sliced effortlessly through paper! They had NEVER been that sharp, even new. They are decades old knives and I will admit the 1st stage of the 120 did put some scratches on the blades about 1/4" up from the edge, but we didn't care. We just wanted a razor sharp edge on the old knives and the 120 delivered.We tested stage two and three on some loose knives we had to see if those stages scratched the knife blade. They didn't. Most knives that are maintained properly only require stage two and three, or only stage 3. Once we were confident of no scratches we used only the Stage 3 polishing strop stage on the newer J.A. Henckels. Although the knives were two years old and still exceptionally sharp, they had not been sharpened since we bought them. Plus they had developed a few small burrs. The 120 Stage 3 strop stage removed the burrs, restored the near surgical, like-new edge, and no scratches either. My wife was thrilled with the results!We use the Stage 3 strop stage on several serrated knives we own and they are noticeably improved and shaper. I've used the 120 on my working pocket knives too. I thought they were acceptably sharp using a diamond edge straightener but the 120 takes sharpening to a completely new level.The 120 will get hot sharpening a bunch of knives one right after the other, but we typically limit our sharpening to ten knives or less. Stage 1 definitely does scratch the blade but that stage is only recommended for hopelessly dull knives.Others may have issues with the 120. Not us. Once you understand the technique you need to use with the sharpener, it works great! We love it!I have bought many knife sharpeners in my time, but this one is fantastic, so easy to use and gives a razor sharp edge, 100% recommendedI find it very expansive, but as I like very sharp knives, I am happy with it.On one of the slots, there is a side that doesn't produce the same sound as the other, so I guess it is a bit unbalanced, but for my daily home use, it is very good.I think that they use this in places you bring your knives to, for $10-15 each time, and often you have le leave them there and return fetch them another day (in my experience). I doubt they do than by hand. So after 5 years, I think I made it profitable. I have also helped some friends and family with their knives.What can I say? It works.... and works well! I had a 20 year old Chef's Choice sharpener that had run it's course... I decided to replace it with this unit. I was happy with the results from the old one and figured I would go with Chef's Choice again. I am glad I did. This unit far exceeded my expectations.... it is a VAST improvement upon my older model, and the knives are razor sharp... (There is a different model if you have Japanese knives, but if you have standard Chef's knives like I do, then this is the unit for you!) - It won't disappoint!I now can sharpen all my knife in minutes and not scratch the non-cutting part of my knife. I used table top belt sander before and it takes longer to set up and if not careful I scratch my knife. The best part is my wife can use it and is about the only power tool I have she have used and not F*#k it up.Love it! All my blades are the sharpest they've ever been! I even had a blade that had been in the back of my drawer for years because no amount of honing on the steel would help it. A couple pulls through all 3 stages and it's super sharp again! Every knife I put through it passes the paper test on the first try!
