Edge Pro Apex 4 Knife Sharpening System

received on time as described. very good quality. Thank you

Gives great results

I have bought a lot of knife sharpeners, but I didn't start out to buy a bunch of sharpeners, I was hoping with each one it would solve all the problems involved in not being consistent enough to get a very sharp edge. The reason for that is I was trying to save money but I also wanted a very consistent edge for some nice knives I have collected. I want a better edge than a lot of people would care about for the amount of money you have to spend to get there. So I have learned a lot about sharpening a knife through a series of failures with each kind of sharpener. So this review is to tell you about the Edge Pro Apex and why I kept buying sharpeners beyond this one. The problem I ran into with it is, it isn't good at holding the knife still. I was sharpening a Red Horse Knife Works Hell Razor P Series and the blade isn't straight or flat enough for this jig to hold it still and that is why I returned it. for this kind of money, I should be able to put the knife in the jig and sharpen it consistently and I wasn't able to do that with this product. If you want to know where I am in my knife sharpener journey, currently I have the KME Sharpener System and so far it is pretty awesome. If I had to do this all over again and I know what I know now. I would probably go with the Wicked Edge WE100 which is the most sold product they have by a lot. Also I would look at the Hapstone V7 from gritomatic dot com, the Hapstone is a good one especially if you like the format of the Apex jig, the Hapstone just does it better. One reason the Wicked Edge WE100 is good is because the clamp jaws move in parallel which is more important than you might think and they have a system to set the knife the same way every time. Also like the KME and any other sharpener than comes with the diamond stones, you can sharpen a LOT of knives with the stones you get and you would only need to add stones of finer and finer grit to get a more shinny edge. One thing the KME can do is put a convex edge sort of like the WorkSharp Ken Onion Edition, if you get the convex or curve rod. The workSharp does it because of the slack in the sanding belt. It makes for an edge that lasts just that much longer. One other one worth looking at, but I haven't owned, is the Tormek. You won't get a convex edge but it will make a very sharp edge. If I were going to go that route, I would go with a knock off version like a WEN wheel grinder and maybe add the Tormek wheels to it. You can get some decent wheels and wheel stones that are less. At the end of the day, you could just send your knife off to get it sharpened beyond your wildest dreams from less than you would ever spend on a sharpener. I have found that I like sharpening knives a bit and it kind of became a challenge for me.

I was thinking about going for the knock off version, but man I'm glad I didn't. Quality built into every piece and you can feel it when you use it. Very solid and fluid machine. I've spent about 5 hours using it so far sharpening and polishing 4 knives up to 12000 grit and then 60000 grit stroping paste. One hell on a shine Kudos to the builder...I'm glad I spent the extra money on the original. Plus it's built in the USA!

I really like this sharpening kit. The first knives I sharpened were razor sharp. I really like this kit but to me it's costs a lot. I just sharpen my knives on occasion but for the knife connoisseur this may be a better value. However, any time I can by USA made products, I can swallow the higher costs. Recommended.

The point of a sharpener is to get your knives razor sharp with little effort or skill, and this product delivers. It'll take you about half an hour and a test knife to figure the technique out, and then you'll be able to sharpen anything razor sharp. So all in all, this is an excellent product and I would highly recommend it to anyone.Once you're proficient, it takes about 5 minutes to sharpen a knife which is dull but otherwise in good state, and maybe 20 for one which has been chipped or has a rounded or otherwise unsuitable profile (e.g. from bad hand sharpening), or to completely reprofile a knife.I have used it on various kitchen knives (from small 7 cm / 3" paring knives to 25 cm / 10" chef knives), "tactical"-style folding knives, and even the blade of a spokeshave (a tool similar to a wood plane). The knives were carbon steel, stainless steel, and in various conditions from "chipped and dull like a a butterknife" to "already pretty sharp". The longest I spent was on the spokeshave blade which was chipped and dull and took about 20 minutes until razor sharp.If you are not sure which version to get (1, 2, 3 or 4), here's a list of what's included in the Apex 4 kit and what it's useful for:- Obviously the tool itself, a bag and some knick-knacks which come with every version.- 120 stone - extremely useful if you want to remove metal, e.g. to reprofile or remove chipping. I highly recommend this. I suppose you could also do this with the 220 but it would take a little longer.- 220 stone - MUST HAVE - great stone for a first pass on a knife which has been neglected for a while but without major damage.- 400 stone - I have never used it since it's so close to the 600. Pretty much useless if you ask me. I suppose it would be useful if you didn't have the 600 stone.- 600 stone - MUST HAVE - this is the stone which gets your knife sharp. And I mean very sharp. Good enough for any practical use - anything beyond this is only to please yourself, not for practicality. If you don't care about ultimate razor sharpness, you can stop right here. It's quick if you did a good job with the 220 - maybe 5 passes on each side.- 1000 stone - gets your stuff razor sharp. Razor sharp meaning literally as sharp as a razor blade, presuming that you are sharpening a high quality knife. The edge starts to shine and seem almost polished (not quite mirror finish). If you don't care about that and just want your knives to be "more than sharp enough for any practical use" vs "razor sharp", you don't need this.- 2000 polishing tape - never used since the 3000 is finer and works quickly.- 3000 polishing tape - this is basically for cosmetics. I can't tell the difference in sharpness between the 1000 stone and this, but this gives the edge mirror finish. Literally mirror finish, you can see reflections in it. It's very quick to do after the 1000 stone (2-3 passes on each side), so I don't think that the 2000 polishing tape is really useful.- ceramic rod - the instructions say to use this to "remove the burr". I never had any burring after going over a knife with the 1000 or 3000, so I'm not sure this is really needed. I tried it once anyway after the 1000 stone, and I had the impression that it actually made the knife less sharp. It has a weird curved handle which I don't like. It feels like it would break easily if dropped. I could do without this.Now after all the good things, here's the (mildly) bad:The reach of the tool is limited, so you'll have to move knives with long blades (more than about 6") from side to side to get to all of the blade. This makes it a little more difficult to hold the angle consistent.Since the support is pretty narrow, it's also tricky to sharpen knives with thin/flexible blades because they bend a little under pressure.I don't understand why it doesn't come with some sort of clamping mechanism to hold the blade. Holding the knife still with one hand while sharpening with the other is trickier than you think, even though there is a support for the knife. It also means that you have to switch hands when sharpening the other side of the blade - it's surprisingly difficult to be consistent across hands. I think I might modify or extend the sharpener with a clamp at some point - I'll update this review once I have a working system.If you want to reprofile a knife and give it a known angle (e.g. you say "i want to give this knife a 20 degree edge"), you'll need an extra tool or something for an accurate angle measurement. It's very easy to set the tool to "the same angle the knife already has", but you can't set it precisely to a known angle. I don't care about this so I don't know what the best way to do that is.But again, these are all minor complaints. As a whole, this is a fantastic sharpening system and will allow you to get literally razor edges with little effort or skill. It is *way* ahead of any other sharpener I have ever used.