Which Knife Sharpener Brand Wins?
A head-to-head test of 8 knife sharpener options with the measured results for each. See how they ranked and watch the full test video.
Wicked Edge Gen 3 Pro
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The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Scroll sideways to see all measurements. Products are listed in the order they finished.
| Product | Spec | Time to sharpen | Initial sharpness after sharpening | Durability test (Osage orange hardwood, 40 passes, 15 lb weight) | Condition issues | First sharpening attempt (18 degree slot, 20 pulls per station) | Second sharpening attempt (20 more pulls per station) | Sharpening result (20 pulls per slot) | First sharpening attempt (20 passes) | Second sharpening attempt (20 more passes, 40 total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Wicked Edge Gen 3 Pro | same 100 to 1,000 grit diamond sharpening stones as the Pro Pack 1, but holds the knife much higher up (helps sharpening technique), half-degree increments, 0.05 degree micro angle adjustment, set to 17 degrees, comes with a carrying case, made in USA | about 4 minutes, same as the Pro Pack 1 | score of 90, the best (sharpest) initial result of all 8 sharpeners tested: 'when it comes to initial sharpness the wicked edge gen 3 Pro came out on top with a sharpness score of 90' | 90 to 120, lost 30 points, still the sharpest of all 8 knives after this test, though 3 other sharpeners (Lansky, Work Sharp, Wicked Edge Pro Pack 1) ended up tied at 125 | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 2Wicked Edge Pro Pack 1$600 | sharpening stones 100/200/400/600/800/1,000 grit, includes a 5 and 3.5 micron diamond and leather strop pack, sharpening angles 15 to 30 degrees in 1 degree increments, made in USA | about 4 minutes | score of 100, tied with Work Sharp for 2nd-best initial sharpness of all 8 sharpeners | 100 to 125, still extremely sharp | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 3Hapstone$355 | sharpening stones 240/600/1,200 grit, universal electroplated diamonds, pivot unit with fine tuning, linear ball bearing, full 360 degree rotation, made in Ukraine | about 5 minutes; its sharpening stones are about 50% wider and 50% longer than Work Sharp's and Lansky's, which speeds up the process, and changing stones is quick | score of 105, very close to Work Sharp | 105 to 130, lost 25 points, held up really well | purchased unit was advertised with two guide-rod stopper pieces that were missing on arrival; the unit's included instructions cover setup but not actual sharpening use; the sharpener also requires a separately purchased angle finder that is not included | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 4Lansky controlled angle sharpening system (includes the optional Lansky universal mount, purchased separately)$88 base price, plus an extra $15 the narrator spent on the Lansky universal mount, for an effective $103 as tested | deluxe diamond stones, sharpening angles 17/20/25/30 degrees, extra-coarse/coarse/medium/fine grit hones, made in China | about 6 minutes, not including setup time; slower than the pull-through sharpeners but this is expected for a guided-rod system | score of 110 | 110 to 125, lost only 15 points, still very sharp, and had the LOWEST percentage sharpness loss of all 8 sharpeners at 13.6% | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 5Work Sharp Precision Adjust Elite$120 | 7 abrasive grits (220/320/400/600/800, diamond, fine ceramic), leather strop, small ceramic rod, made in USA, about 15 seconds to assemble | about 8 minutes, about 2 minutes longer than Lansky, attributed to having more sharpening stones starting at a less aggressive grit | score of 100, tied with Wicked Edge Pro Pack 1 for 2nd-best initial sharpness, sharper than Lansky | 100 to 125, still very sharp | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 6Orange Ninja$36 | pull-through sharpener with 5 sharpening angle slots (12/15/18/21/24 degrees), usable on kitchen, pocket, and hunting knives, made in China | not tested | not tested | transcript states a result of 45, described as producing the sharpest, most polished edge with no osage-orange residue buildup on the blade unlike Gordon and Kitchellence; FLAGGED as an almost certain dropped-digit caption error, since a durability-test score this low would mean the blade got sharper than brand-new (baseline new-knife sharpness was 140) after 40 abrasive hardwood passes, which contradicts every other knife's result in this same test (all became duller); kept as literally stated rather than silently corrected, most plausible reconstruction given the shared trailing digits would be a value like 445, but this is not asserted as fact | not tested | sharpness score 410 (transcript renders this as '$410,' a stray dollar-sign caption artifact before a plain sharpness reading, not an actual price), worse than the $2 Gordon | improved to a sharpness score of 240 (transcript renders as '$240,' same stray-dollar-sign artifact), narrowly beating Kitchellence's 265 | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 7Kitchellence$1 for the sharpener as stated in the transcript; this price seems implausibly low for a widely reviewed (~30,000 Amazon reviews) three-stage sharpener and may itself be a garbled/dropped-digit figure, but is kept verbatim per the no-invention rule rather than corrected | three-step pull-through sharpener (diamond rod to repair/straighten a damaged blade, second slot to restore the V-shape, third slot for fine polish), includes a cut-resistant glove, made in China, roughly 30,000 Amazon reviews and described as the most popular knife sharpener on Amazon | not tested | not tested | 265 to 575, a loss of 310 points, described as really struggling in this test; some osage-orange buildup appeared in the blade's bevel but not directly on the cutting edge | not tested | not tested | not tested | sharpness score 265, described as 'by far the best yet' among the sharpeners tested up to that point in the video | not tested | not tested |
| 8Gordon$2 (sold at Harbor Freight, stated as the least expensive sharpener tested) | pull-through sharpener with two ceramic rods, ABS construction, made in China | not tested | not tested | 350 to 470, a loss of 120 points; some osage-orange residue built up on parts of the blade but not directly on the cutting edge | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | sharpness score 350, described as just not very good | no improvement, still 350 |
How it was tested
- initial sharpness after sharpening (Best Certified Sharpness Tester score, lower = sharper)
- time to sharpen a knife (excluding setup)
- blade edge durability after 40 passes across Osage orange hardwood with 15 lb of weight
- percentage of sharpness lost in the durability test
- ease of setup and use
“the wicked edge knife sharpeners are very nice but they're also very expensive for that reason I really like the Work Sharp or the ly [Lansky], both of them are very good knife sharpeners that create a super sharp edge”
Data notes and caveats
This video declares a clear category winner for initial sharpness (Wicked Edge Gen 3 Pro, score 90) but its closing overall recommendation is an explicit EITHER/OR between two different, cheaper sharpeners (Work Sharp or Lansky) on value grounds, not a single named 'best overall' product; winner/runnerUp/budgetPick are therefore left null rather than forcing a single pick out of that tie, per the same principle used for other explicit-tie videos in this corpus. All 8 products from the description's Products Tested list are covered. Several brand names required resolution against the description and chapter titles due to heavy caption garbling in this transcript (a noticeably lower-quality auto-caption pass than most videos in this channel): Kitchellence appears as 'kitchenin'/'kelant'/'kence'/'kelin', and Lansky appears as 'lansi'/'lansky'/'lancey'/'lcy'/'ly'. Two numeric anomalies flagged rather than silently fixed: Kitchellence's stated $1 price seems implausible for a ~30,000-review three-stage sharpener and may be a dropped digit; Orange Ninja's Osage-orange durability-test score of 45 is wildly inconsistent with every other knife's result in the same test (all got duller, not sharper, and 45 is even sharper than a brand-new blade's baseline of 140), almost certainly a dropped-digit caption error, kept as literally stated. Wicked Edge Gen 3 Pro's price is never stated in the transcript (the narration moves from the Pro Pack 1's $600 straight into the Gen 3 Pro's specs), so priceMentioned is null for that product rather than assumed equal to the Pro Pack 1.