Lansky QuadSharp Portable Knife Sharpener

If you’re looking for a sharpener - get a line of Lansky stones first. Get their complete set - from extra coarse, to Blue Diamond, and a few leather hones if you also want your blade to look beautiful. That’s the setup that makes your blade sharp. This particular tool is a great FIXER, a good pocket size helper when you’re outside. Call it a heavy duty bandaid. It’s a bit too aggressive, even on a tough blade - but it’s build to last. You can use it on almost any cutting / chopping tool, and finish it with ceramic benchstone. It’s a great find in your pocket when you’re out there and need to bring back a good edge, quick. It’s a bit heavier than most - but it’s a solid aluminum build, with real carbide teeth. HOWEVER, it would take all the time and patience to actually re-profile the blade with this tool. It wasn’t meant to do that. But, as far as the edge goes AFTER their stones set - you need no more than 10 strokes to bring it back to life. Good buy. Works on anything - from a funny envel-opener, blade, fishing hook, scissors, axe. Will recommend (already did). Definitely well worth it’s price.

I’ve had a Lansky 5 stone set since the 80s and this little sharpener is a worthy addition to the kit. It’s very good at touching up the blades during and after use. Great for the field, keep it in your pocket or pack, and slick up a blade quickly. The multiple blade angles correspond to the angles with the Lansky 5 stone kit allowing you to maintain the same edge geometry.

This little thing does work. The carbide sharpening slots seem more than capable of doing their job -- unless you're trying to sharpen some sort of legendary hand-forged 1000 fold crazy blade or something --I'm pretty sure this is going to manage it. It's fairly aggressive, so be sure to apply light-to-moderate pressure only or it's going to bite deep. No ham hands! As for sharpening in 3 to 4 strokes? Sure, with the caveat that this is true for blades with an already decent edge that need only a bit of work. If your edge is very dull or flat out needs to be reset, it's going to take more. And if you're starting with a decent edge, you're probably better off using the ceramic bar -- handily included on this thing. You have to do that by eye though, so it may take some practice, but it does work very well and is probably the best part of the tool for simple maintenance of an already decent edge or polishing after the more aggressive carbide bits. The carbide bits are really better for giving new life to a bad edge than anything else -- especially if... ...you happen to be out in the field somewhere and notch, nick, or dull your blade and you need to get the thing back in proper form quickly. This is a very portable unit that you can stick in a pocket, pouch, or clip to a bag with pretty much no thought at all. In short -- this is a solid workman's sharpener for getting a blade back to working order when on the job or in the field. It's also going to be good enough for most folk's typical set of kitchen/house knives who just want to get those handled without learning how to use a stone. It comes with slots for 30, 25, 20, and 17 degrees. All seem to be properly set on mine. I personally wish the 17 degree option had been 15 degrees, but oh well. Be sure to check your knife's specifications to know what edge it's at before you start sharpening or you may wind up putting an entirely new edge on the blade. Anyway, it's a good and very handy product for the home or on-the-go, whether you're a workman or you're just looking to touch up your kitchen/household knives. Of note, the Q-Sharp is part of a series (D, Q, and C-Sharp) that all have the same form factor and range from very aggressive sharpening (D) to fine-edging (C). If you're looking to get a blade from bad to good shape, you'd run it through all three of these. The Q-Sharp is a great middle ground if you're just looking to own a single product that gets the job done and can handle the role of all three in a pinch. So, as the middle ground sharpener in a system of sharpeners, I give the thing 4 stars for overall versatility and handiness.

Small, compact and does a great job of sharping my knifes

I grew up with knives and using whetstones, but the last whetstone I tried didn't work well for me. This is super handy though, especially with older kitchen knives. It makes a good edge and when it's done it's job, a leather strap will fine tune the edge to razor sharpness...I could genuinely shave with my large machete now, if I wanted to. This tool is a good value, no matter what you're trying to sharpen.

Very good sharpener. Very well made and great for in your home or camping

Needed something with multiple angles because not every pocket knife is the same thickness. I kept using the same cheaper ones with 1 ceramic and 1 steel side. As soon as I used a slightly thicker blade on it consistently, hard to sharpen anything thinner. Worked like butter, got 5 knives sharp as a razor in about 10 minutes! For anyone who doesn’t know when you use these, clean your knife first. Draw your blade back in a straight consistent line. Smooth movement. Mostly use only the weight of the knife, don’t press into it you’ll F you’re knife up. And make sure not to press hard on the end with the tip. Don’t tilt down in it too much try and keep it level with the tool. Hope this helps guys!

First saw this at a trade show and then decided to get one after seeing it offered via Amazon Prime. QuadSharp is small but quite durable. The weight might not be great for ultralite backpackers, however it is handy for backpacking with others when they need to dress-up their knife edges. While I typically use more expensive Lansky sharpening stones or a DMT diamond assortment for my best knives at home, I've found the QuadSharp to be a nice addition to my EDC and for camping. Because it has 4 different sharpening angles, it can be used on most knifes. I tested first on several kitchen knives and found most needed only 3-4 passes to make them sharp enough for the "paper edge" test. The worst of the knives needed 5 passes. With this type of sharpener it's important to only apply light to medium pressure on each pass. I've found that first time user's tend to press much too hard on passes and are then not happy with the results. After showing them it only takes light pressure they got great results with only 3-4 passes. It has two Phillips screws that appear to allow changing of the sharpening blades if needed. Because they are so durable I had no need to try opening the QuadSharp to see if this was true. Why only 4 star rating? There were no directions on how to use of the QuadSharp. Although this was not a problem for me, the people I allowed to use my QuadSharp had problems because they started out pressing too hard when sharpening. Pros. - Easy to use - Good results with minimum of passes - Minimal space required to store & carry - Very sturdy - Handy lanyard hole - Color makes it easy to locate when packed with other items Cons. - No sharpening directions provided - Weight could be issue for ultralite backpackers