I had seen a review of the Hone on the Zsa.io blog because I had bought one of their keyboards. I had been wanting one of these types of sharpeners. Since Zsa had mentioned how much they liked it I decided to give this one a try.
I am not disappointed. This is a really good and easy to use sharpener. I have several different kinds of sharpeners including Japanese Naniwa whetstones. Those are really nice and they will get your knives extremely sharp. My problem with them is that I tend to scratch up my blades when I sharpen them. I don't really care, but I do have a knife with a nice pattern on the blade and I was hoping not to ruin it. I had been holding off on sharpening it for that reason.
With this sharpener, the sharpening disks only ever touch your knife edges. They never touch the flat of your blade. And since the roller is on ball bearings it's very smooth and you can get a really fast rhythm going. This is good since it makes the sharpening much less of a chore.
A few other things I like about it:
- It feels very heavy and well made.
- The sharpening disks are replaceable. You can buy other ones with varying coarseness on their website. I don't think any other rolling sharpener has this ability except for a very expensive one I had been looking at.
- The holder is very practical. Each side is used for a different purpose. 2 of the sides are for 15 and 20 degree big and normal sized knives. The other 2 sides are for 15 and 20 degree small knives. I tried it with my paring knife and it works great. Looking at the holders of competing rollers, I don't think you can use them with small knives in any practical way? The knives would slide around too much since magnets are the only thing holding them to the rubber.
- It comes in a gift worthy magnetic closing box. Inside the box there's text that recommends you keep the box and use it to store the sharpener and holder. It says it will keep other things safe from the magnets when sealed in the box. This seems true since the box is really well padded with foam on the inside.
- Finally, the price is very reasonable.
The only thing I would recommend that they improve is that they should include instructions in the box, or even just a QR code to online instructions on the "thank you" card that they include in the box. I have to admit I looked at the knife holder and it took me a while to make heads or tails of it. It isn't obvious what the sides are to someone who hasn't seen pictures or a video of it in use. They are labelled 15 and 20 but I didn't know some sides were for small knives, other sides are for large. I realize now the 鶹 listing has a video... But most videos on 鶹 are terrible and a waste of time so I have to admit I don't usually watch them, and I didn't watch this one haha.
| Brand | Generic |
|---|---|
| Model Number | HKS 01 |
| Colour | 𝖡𝖫𝖠𝖢𝖪 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖦𝖮𝖫𝖣 |
| Product Dimensions | 10 x 10 x 10 cm; 970.69 g |
| Material | Stainless Steel, Aluminum, Electroplated monocrystalline diamond discs, Rubber, N52 grade magnets |
| Item Weight | 971 g |
