A common saying in professional kitchens is, “a sharp knife is a safe knife”. A dull knife requires more pressure to use and is more prone to slip across the surface of certain foods (like tomatoes). Pressure plus slippage plus your non-cutting hand is a recipe for disaster. While you can certainly cut yourself with a sharp knife, the likelihood is reduced because it moves so smoothly through your food — and if you do cut yourself, it will be a “clean” and shallow cut.
I’ve used a lot of different sharpeners over the years and have been left disappointed. The only thing I found that worked really well was by sharpening on a series of three wet stones. Sharpening this way really made me feel like an artisan — like I was crafting a samurai sword. The resulting edge on my knife could shave the hair off my arm. BUT… it was time consuming and took a lot of concentration to ensure the proper sharpening angle.
The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV had been on my Amazon wish list for a while and when I saw that it was a “Deal of the Day”, I just had to give it a try. I was not disappointed.
The Trizor XV has three pairs of sharpening grooves, and the first time you sharpen a knife with it, you will use all of them. Because most American and European knives have a 20 degree edge on them, your first step with the Trizor will be to use stage 1 to create a 15 degree edge on your knife. Subsequent sharpenings will only require stage 2 and stage 3.
An added bonus to the Trizor XV is that the stage 3 sharpener is a belt, rather than a wheel. This means that it can be used to sharpen serrated knives.
To test the Trizor XV, I sharpened a rather mediocre Guy Fieri chef’s knife. The results, as you can see in the video below, were quite impressive.
The Trizor XV is a fantastic sharpener and one that I could easily recommend to anyone. You could probably charge people to sharpen their knives for them — it’s just that good.
I bought this knife sharpener based on your review. It is worth every penny I paid for it. The different angle on my knives make them super sharp. It is easy to buff up the edge too. I have kitchen knives that are nothing special, but the edge this puts on them make them pleasurable to use. Thanks for the review and recommendation.;
I know this is an old post, but just wanted to see if your Trizor was sent in a plain brown box with 2 pieces of styrofoam, and a twist tied cord without the standard prong covers new items usually come with. Also, dies your honing slot sound way different than the other two, and occasionally shed white pieces? Trying to determine if I got a used one.
Mine came in a an official looking box.