Edgeware Knife Sharpener Review & Giveaway CLOSED

We were recently given the following items to review.

Counter Safe Deluxe Knife™ & Scissors Sharpener – $17.99

Edgeware’s Counter Safe™ Deluxe Knife and Scissors Sharpener is specifically designed to sharpen the finest cutlery, as well as right or left-handed scissors.  This unit has an exclusive flip down counter guard to protect tables and countertops from damage during sharpening.  Plus, it is the first manual sharpener to offer Coarse and Fine sharpening slots for both knives and scissors.

The knife sharpener features carbide blades for quick edge setting and triangular shaped ceramic stones for final edge honing.  Because of the ceramic stones special shape, they can be used on both straight or serrated blades.  The carbide blades and ceramic stones use pre-set sharpening angles to get the proper sharpening angle and guaranteed results every time you sharpen your knife.

The scissors sharpener uses a patented “FLOATING” ceramic rod that adjusts to fit the precise bevel of the blades every time.

Diamond Edge Gourmet™ Electric and Manual Knife and Scissors Sharpener – $124.99

The Diamond Edge Gourmet™ Electric and Manual Knife and Scissors Sharpener was the first electric sharpener of its kind to offer the flexibility of both electric and manual sharpening together in one household product. This product can easily sharpen extremely dull blades, maintain razor sharp edges on both straight and serrated edges, and sharpen common household scissors.

The unit’s unique features include: interlocking diamond abrasive wheels for fast and precise sharpening of both sides of your blade at the same time, and a manual finishing slot for polishing a freshly ground edge or for sharpening serrated blades.  The unit assures equal treatment of both sides of the knife blade and incorporates a retractable scissors sharpener.  Edgeware’s Diamond Edge Gourmet™ Electric/Manual Knife and Scissors Sharpener guarantees factory edge results every time no matter your blade type or edge condition.

About Edgeware

Long established as a leading supplier of knife sharpening tools, US manufacturer Smith’s® introduces the new Edgeware™ branded kitchen tools collection.

The Edgeware™ brand offers consumers high performance manual and electric knife sharpeners and beginning in 2010, high-end food preparation kitchen tools. Synonymous with exceptional value, Edgeware™ was created for home cooks and cooking enthusiast looking for superior products with innovative designs offered at the best value possible.

“We believe the new Edgeware™ name fully communicates the core strength of the products we offer to consumers, and are excited to continue offering our customers exceptional products, value and services under this new brand,” says Dan Glidden, CEO of Smith’s.

Widely regarded as a world leader for sharpening tools since 1886, Smith’s® lays claim to the design and manufacture of the broadest line of knife and scissors sharpeners currently available. The company’s product offering includes both manual and electrical sharpeners ranging from the very simple to the sophisticated. It incorporates a wide variety of abrasive materials including diamond, carbide, ceramic, bonded synthetic abrasives and natural Arkansas stones.

Nestled in the hills outside Hot Springs, Arkansas, Smith’s®, was founded in 1886 by company president, Richard Smith’s, great-grandfather, James Archer Smith. Smith’s product offering now includes more than 200 products and they have built a reputation as the single-source supplier of knife sharpeners that meet all sharpening needs in all the major sharpening categories: Arkansas Stones, Carbides, Ceramics, Diamonds, and Precision Sharpening Systems.

From their humble beginnings as an Arkansas stone company to becoming one of the world’s largest producers of handheld and electric knife and tool sharpening products for the Housewares, Sporting Goods and Hardware markets, Smith’s® continues to bring innovation to the marketplace while providing quality products and unprecedented service.

Recently we were fortunate enough to review and compare two products by Edgeware, their Diamond Edge Gourmet Electric Knife & Scissor Sharpener and their Counter Safe Deluxe Knife & Scissor Sharpener. To start off the review I’ll say this: our kitchen knives were in dire need of a new edge and honing. We’ve had them for about 7 years and in that time they’ve been put through the gamut. Slicing tomatoes ended up being a big mess of squishiness, attempting to trim the fat off a cut of meat was a chore, and let’s just say that it was easier to eat a steak caveman style than to cut it up in nice bite sized pieces. I was tempted to grab my Arkansas stone out of the tool box and see what I could do, but I have no delusions about my blade sharpening abilities. Sure, I can put an edge on an axe or a lawnmower blade, but I do more butchering than sharpening, and the edge doesn’t last very long. And don’t even get me started on how I fail miserably while trying to hone and get a fin on my old straight razor! Needless to say, I was more than excited at this opportunity.

The Diamond Edge Gourmet™ Electric and Manual Knife and Scissors Sharpener grabbed my attention the moment I pulled it out of the box. The brushed metal on black color scheme was a perfect match for our kitchen decor, the shape and footprint of it doesn’t make it an eyesore to leave sitting on the kitchen counter, and the all around aesthetics of it are pleasing. I couldn’t wait to test it out, so I set aside the typical “man” way of doing things and read the instructions for a change. It took all of about 30 seconds to go through the directions, making the Diamond Edge Gourmet Electric Knife & Scissor Sharpener an easy to operate machine, as can be seen in the video provided. A few swipes of the blade through the diamond cutting wheel and a couple of  runs across the honing stone put a very nice edge to the steak knife. You’ll see in the video how easy it was, and how well the knife went from dull and worn out to slicing through a plum with ease.

After the ease of getting results from the Diamond Edge Gourmet™ Electric and Manual Knife and Scissors Sharpener, I didn’t think that the the Counter Safe™ Deluxe Knife and Scissors Sharpener would impress me. I was wrong. I figured it would be too much trouble compared to what I just went through in order to get a good sharp edge on a blade, seeing as how it is completely manual. So I folded down the counter guard, grabbed a dull serrated steak knife, and ran the blade across the ceramic sharpening stone… impressive. The serration wasn’t damaged at all, and the blade had a nicely honed edge. You can see the demonstration towards the end of the video. I wasn’t done yet though, so I grabbed the kitchen shears and gave them a run through the specially designed scissor sharpening openings. Once again, I was impressed.

I had a lot of knives to go through so I ended up using the Diamond Edge Gourmet™ Electric and Manual Knife and Scissors Sharpener to add new life to all of my steak knives, butcher knives, scissors, camping knife, pocket knife, and whatever else I found that needed to be sharpened. I have no doubts that the Counter Safe™ Deluxe Knife and Scissors Sharpener would have done just as good of a job (except maybe on my old and worn out Italian stiletto, which was as dull as a maple twig), at the expense of a little extra time. But now that all the knives we have are razor sharp, I can use the Counter Safe model to keep them that way.

To give a comparative summary of the two products, the Diamond Edge Gourmet™ Electric and Manual Knife and Scissors Sharpener is just plain awesome, aesthetically pleasing, fast, easy, fool proof, and is great for someone like me who had 3 score of different blades that were in dire need of sharpening. The Counter Safe™ Deluxe Knife and Scissors Sharpener did just as good of a job sharpening knives. However, it does take a bit more work. I have no doubts about either of these two knife sharpeners fulfilling the needs of anyone for home use. But the Diamond Edge model would work for restaurants, or even adding a great edge to a forged knife blank.

About the video. I’m no Billy Mays or Chef Tony. I can’t slice a tomato into 20 thin slices in 3 seconds flat. And I can’t juggle an entire selection of Ginsu knives while screaming into a TV camera. But I did my best to demonstrate how the products work and the results gained without any camera tricks. I even tossed in the tried and true paper slicing test (Rambo would be proud). Yes, the video is boring, but it gets the point across.

Disclosure: I would like to thank Megan from Edgeware Products  for providing me with the two sharpeners for the purpose of this review. All opinions are that of my own.

The Giveaway

Megan has graciously offered to give one of Shawn Ann’s World readers their very own Counter Safe™ Deluxe Knife and Scissors Sharpener.

To Enter:

Valid for Residents of the U.S. and be age 18 or older. Please no PO Boxes.

Mandatory Entry:
This is required and must be done before the extra entries count!

• Go to Edgeware Products and let me know what other products from Edgeware you like.

Extra Entries:
You can do any of these for extra entries, each entry must be in a separate comment to be counted.

• Follow me on Twitter.  Leave your ID in your comment.
• Subscribe to Shawn Ann’s World via email (way down there at the bottom of the page) for two (2) extra entries.  Please use Subscribe # 1 & Subscribe #2 as your comments.
• Tweet about this Giveaway. You may tweet up to ten (10) times a day until the end of the giveaway for ten (10) extra entries each day. Leave the link to your tweet in your comment for each entry.
• Like Shawn Ann’s World on Facebook. Leave your ID in your comment.
• Follow Shawn Ann’s World publicly via Google Friend Connect (way down at the bottom of the page).
• Place my button on your site.  Please leave a link within your comment.
• Like Edgeware Products on Facebook.  Leave your ID in your comment.
• Follow Edgeware Products on Twitter.  Leave your ID in your comment.

This Giveaway will end on Monday, July 12, 2010 at 11:59 PM EST.

The Winner will be chosen by Random.org. I will post the winner here on Shawn Ann’s World, as well as by email. The winner will then have 48 hours to claim their prize.