HORL - knife sharpener - Made in Germany

Here comes a hand crafted knife sharpener from the Black Forest. It got great reviews in Germany. I will order it soon.
Video included on their website.

ENJOY
Martin

Will Alan yell at me if I sharpen my Japanese knives with this set-up? It looks too easy…

The magnets which hold the blade to the block also help hold the sharpening surface of the cylinder evenly against the blade?

There’s a 25% coupon on Amazon for this.

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Also for Japanese knives. just for the record I have only Japanese knives

Hi Martin,

Very clever and cool!

Im a purist

Japanese knives need to stone sharpened end of story, anything else is lazy.

Yes.

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Sold out on their website (maybe USA only).

go to AMAZON

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I thought so too.

BTW, it´s possible to buy 2 extra grain sizes for an even sharper knife in Germany chez Amazon.

Hmmm, that statement could apply to any number of modern conveniences, such as dishwashers, washing machines, computers, etc. Sometimes the new convenience tools can so nearly replicate (or exceed) the traditional methods as to render them not worthwhile to the vast majority.

Knife forums are full of these debates, but those remind me of the wine debates regarding 1st Growths vs 2nd Growths. At some point, the extra skill, and therefore time spent learning the skill, isn’t worth the final 0.1% of potential advantage.

No one is arguing that time on the stones with skilled hands doesn’t give you an outstanding result. But, an easy and no-skills-required approach for everyone else can be great too.

Yeah, I’m def buying this to sharpen my Japanese knives, have never felt like learning how to use sharpening stones and paying a pro knife sharpener ain’t exactly economical. Will be sure to do a review once I’ve tried it.

Hints on where the coupon is?

I learned from the Shun site that their knives are angled at 16 degrees, which should be a good match for this product. They say most German knives are angled at 20-25 which seems like it might change the dynamic since it’s a different type of steel?

It’s a little checkbox, only for Prime tho.

Can you elaborate a bit on the first part this point? Is there an underlying technical basis? At face value it would seem that any system that reduces some of “human error” inherent in a non mechanical approach would be an improvement.

Jay

Japanese knives have a much finer bevel than German of US knives, 15 degrees against 20-25 this requires more care to get a smooth edge. The steel is often softer which means it can easily be damaged by a bad sharpening, if you take off to much metal you risk burring and uneven bevel shape which could seriously reducing the lifespan of your blade as you fix any mistakes. Also some of the more speciality Japanese blades like the yanagiba or deba are single bevel and require a lot of experience to sharpen, even experienced home experts take these to a pro.

Chris

That’s a very weak argument, you really going to say that Margaux is only 0.1% better than Brane Cantenac ?

I posted this product for people like me who have no manual/handcraft skills whatsoever. In addition these Japanese knives need extra skills.

Fair to say I haven’t used it so far but the opinions are quite positive on Amazon Germany. Fair to say they are a few people who are disappointed, but they are in a clear minority. Also I should point out you could buy additional granularity sets for extra extra sharp knives.

I am happy about product experience from American buyers.

Here a first review by an US customer via Amazon on 4th april:

“This is a great knife sharpener. The built in angle makes it a breeze to sharpen knifes. Even though it can take a little while to change the angle on a knife, it is well worth the effort, my knifes have never been this sharp before. Also, the sharpener looks really good and has a great quality. I highly recommend it, well worth the money!”

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