Smith's 10" Oval Sharpening Rod & Santoku Knife Sharpener
With two knife sharpeners from Smith's you can keep all the knives in your kitchen sharp and like new with the Smith's 10" Oval Diamond Sharpening Rod and the Santoku Knife Sharpener.
Ease of Use/Performance: 23/25
Convenience/Storage 24/25
Appearance/Design 24/25
How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 95/100
Smith's has been crafting knife sharpening devices for your home, outdoors and just about every other sharp utensil since 1886 with both hand and electric sharpeners available. When it comes to knowledge and craftsmanship you cannot compete with a company that has been in business longer than any of us has been alive.
Smith's started as an Arkansas stone company and built a solid reputation for manufacturing the best knife sharpening devices and have really broadened their field to just about everything with an edge. Sharpening systems and even electric knife sharpeners are available but I am going back to a simple knife sharpening solution with new modern materials and the latest knife to hit kitchens.
The Smith's Oval 10" Sharpening Rod is a common kitchen steel taken to new modern materials to combine the best method of final knife sharpening with the best materials available. The Smith's Santoku Knife Sharpener is the latest sharpener with two types of sharpener for common knives and the newest knives to hit kitchens for food preparation, the Santoku.
The Smith's Sharpening Rod is a 10" Oval sharpening rod designed from a steel that is the chefs choice for sharpening knives. The steel is usually round but the 10" Oval Sharpening Rod allows for an easier time for non chef's to get that perfect edge on kitchen and even pocket knives.
The 10" Oval Diamond Rod has a large protective rubber coated handle for comfortable and sturdy handling of the sharpening rod when in use. The tip is the end of the rod of plastic inside the sharpening rod that extends beyond the diamond impregnated sheath that is the honing surface.
The honing surface is a sheath of steel impregnated with micron sized monocrystalline diamonds which not only hone your blade but re-aligns the cutting edge. This means you not only get the edge of a knife straight which is what a regular steel does but it also sharpens the edge.
In order to understand this you need to understand what a knife edge is and how a steel works, a knife edge has a v shape to it along the knife but up close it is not a perfect line. When you get really close, closer than you can with the naked eye, you can see the edge has nicks and the edge can even bend to one side or the other.
The breaks or nicks are smoothed out using a whetstone and the major bends to one side or the other is also smoothed out using a whetstone or abrasive sharpener. The nicks come from general use of a knife and hitting the cutting board, bones or other things with the knifes edge.
The bend back and forth of the edge also comes from use as well as just hitting the knife edge against other hard surfaces like serving utensils or pans. A steel further hones a blades edge and gets rid of bends to one side or the other using the finer steel rod or a diamond rod in the case of the Smith's Sharpening Rod.
To use the Oval Sharpening Rod simply place the tip on a counter or table and run the knife edge along the flat part of the oval much as you would a regular steel. The cutting action you use down the rod and along the length of the blade ensures the full length of the blade gets attention while sharpening.
The cutting motion you use to sharpen the blade also makes sure you are cutting away from yourself and toward the counter or table for safety. The action is quite easy to learn and using an old knife or a cheaper one for practice will quickly get you in tune with how to use the sharpening rod.
The Sharpening Rod does a great job of fine honing and getting that razor sharp edge with just a little practice using the steel. It does not take all that much work to get a sharp knife like new using a steel and if you do have a rough knife edge a better sharpener like the Santoku from Smith's can get the start to that edge you need.
Using some type of rod sharpener for knives like the handheld Santoku Knife Sharpener will give you the precise angle you need using the built in rods that will sharpen any steel knife. Most standard knives have a 46 degree angle which is 23 degrees on each side and the two rods are permanently mounted at this angle.
The other set of rods on the Santoku Knife Sharpener are angled at 30 degrees or 15 degrees for each side of the edge specifically for a Santoku blade. Each set of rods are permanently mounted at the perfect angle to sharpen the particular knife the sharpener was designed for as well as being colored for easy identification.
The Santoku Sharpener has a nice handle and design to hold the sharpener tightly on on a counter or table and easily sharpen a knife by simply pulling it straight out the side of the sharpener. The sharpener is marked for quick identification for which sets of rods to use as well as being the same on each side of the sharpener so left or right handed chefs or cooks can sharpen their knives.
The 10" Oval Diamond Sharpening Rod gives your knives that razor sharp final edge with its diamond impregnated interrupted surface to speed the sharpening of an edge. The interrupted ovals of the steel gives a unique advantage over the regular sharpening steel adding the benefit of a honing and final edge sharpening.
The Santoku Knife Sharpener gives either regular angled blades or the newer Santoku blades of kitchen knives a great sharp edge ready for that final touch up of a steel that the Sharpening Rod can give it. Smith's has two great products with the 10" Oval Diamond Sharpening Rod and the Santoku Knife Sharpener.
The 10" Oval Diamond Knife Sharpener and the Santoku Sharpener are available widely in local stores such as Wal-Mart and KMart as well as several internet sites and of course from Smith's website. I highly recommend the Smith's Sharpening Rod and Santoku Knife Sharpener for a great set of kitchen knife sharpeners.