There are two different types of hand held knife sharpeners.  Sharpeners that have grinding wheels, or sharpeners that have grinding rods.  Ekitchenknives.co.uk supply sharpeners with grinding wheels. 

The main advantages of using a hand held knife sharpener is its ease of use and the angle is already set up for your kitchen knives (20 to 30 degree angle for Western kitchen knives and a 10 to 20 degree angle for Japanese kitchen knives).


When purchasing a hand held knife sharpener make sure you purchase the correct sharpener for your kitchen knives, dependent on whether they are Western or Japanese.  e.kitchenknives.co.uk would recommend the Robert Welch hand held sharpener or the Henckel Twinsharpe® hand held sharpener for Western knives and the MinoSharpe Universal hand held sharpener for Japanese knives.

To start drizzle some water over the surface of your whetstone.  Keep a small bowl of water to hand, as you may need to lubricate your whetstone again as you use it.

Place the tip of your kitchen knife at the lower knife-hand end corner of your whetstone, with the edge of your kitchen knife blade  facing toward your guide hand and resting on the stone at the desired angle (20 to 30 degree angle for Western kitchen knives).

Slowly slide your kitchen knife diagonally across your whetstone, moving it simultaneously away from you and from point to heel.
Continue to moving your kitchen knife across the stone until the heel of your kitchen knife comes off the upper guide hand corner.  Repeat these steps 4 more times.

Now, flip your kitchen knife over and place the tip of your kitchen knife at the lower knife hand corner of the stone, with the edge of your kitchen knife blade facing away from your guide hand and resting on your whetstone at your desired angle (20 to 30 degree angle for Western kitchen).

Repeat the above steps.

Check that your kitchen knife is sharp by trying to cut a piece of paper.  If you kitchen knife is sharp it will leave a clean cut.

Do not apply pressure to your kitchen knife let the weight of your kitchen knife do the work.

A whetstone is the best way to sharpening your kitchen knives, as you have complete control of the angle and grit.  There are 4 different types of whetstones – water stones, diamond stones, oil stones and ceramic stones.

Firstly, you need to make sure both your kitchen knife and sharpening steel are completely clean and dry.  Western kitchen knives are usually sharpened at between a 20 and 30 degree angle and Japanese kitchen knives are usually between 10 and 20 degrees.  Hold you sharpening steel in your guide hand and rest the tip of the steel onto a chopping board.  Hold your kitchen knife in your knife hand, line up the spine of your kitchen knife with the handle of your sharpening steel at your desired angle.  Now pull your kitchen knife hand across and down the steel, moving from the kitchen knife heel to the kitchen knife point.   

You now need to move the blade to the other side of the sharpening steel and again, line up the spine of your kitchen knife with the handle of the sharpening steel at your desired angle.  Pull your kitchen knife across and down the steel, moving from the heel to the point.



Repeat both of the above processes 3 to 5 times.

You do not need to apply force. The weight of your kitchen knife is enough to do the job.

Remember to clean both your kitchen knife and steel  when you have completed the above processes, as this will remove any metal particles that may have come off your kitchen knife whilst sharpening.

This really depends on how often you use your kitchen knives.  If the blade edge of your kitchen knife feels dull it requires sharpening.