Gear Review: Edge of Glory Knife Sharpener

This was an interesting little item I picked up at a local Walgreens.  It was in the "As Seen On TV" section and was interesting enough looking that I decided to pick it up.

This is the "Edge of Glory" knife sharpener $9.  I've been looking for a decent sharpener for a while now, there aren't very many outdoor stores in my area of the island.  I know there are some good sharpeners and I'll probably end up ordering one at some point, or trekking around the island to find a good one, but this was cheap and I figured I'd give it a shot.  

This isn't a ground breaking design, it's pretty similar to a lot of the general "kitchen knife" style sharpeners, two sharpening edges in an overlapping V shape.  It also has a suction cup that can be locked down onto a flat surface.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that this is as good as the commercials say (I haven't seen those commercials but it's safe to assume that they claim it performs miracles, the package said it could sharpen a credit card enough to cut a tomato), but this little sharpener does a pretty decent job. 

I ran five different knives and blade styles through this thing, it doesn't give them a razor's edge, but it does touch up the edge nicely.  Obviously, the blades that had serrations didn't work as well, it only works for the blade portion.  The other blade that was a little more difficult was my Karambit.  

Because it has a concave blade shape, instead of convex, it took a little more maneuvering but it still worked. 

Concave Buck knife, Convex Karambit

This thing sharpened all the different knives I ran through it without fail.  About five minutes with this thing was all it took to run all five knives.  Some, like the Karambit, took a little more wrangling than others, but all were sharper afterwards.  Some of these started out pretty dull, I ran them through the "Edge of Glory" 3 or 4 times and there was a drastic improvement.

Is this cheap sharpener the solution to all your knife woes?  Definitely not.  But for how easy it is to use, how quickly it improves the edge, and how cheap it is, this is not a bad deal.