Kota Japan 12 in. Diamond Carbon Metal Skilled Knife Sharpener Rod | Kitchen, House or Looking | Grasp Chef, Hunter or House Gourmand Blade Sharpening Rod or Stick

Left me with a smile on my face
I have wanted a diamond steel/sharpener for a while. This one seemed to have good reviews overall and the price was right at 16 dollars. I have had it for only 2 days so I don’t know what longevity will be.I have sharpened 43 knives with it with blades 1.5 inches up to 13 inches in length. Stainless to carbon steel butcher knives to paring knives and a lot of in between sizes, I even sharpened 5 ceramic knives I have had knocking around in a box after they got dull years ago (ceramic blades took twice as long to sharpen). Maybe 30 seconds to 2 minutes each and they are close to or shaving sharp. So far I am impressed, this thing sharpens 10x faster than my stones and the form factor for me lets me sharpen the length of the blade in one swipe that helps me get it right each time the full length of the blade, short or long. The knives were all pretty dull, there might have been 2 or 3 of them that would have sliced a tomato before I sharpened them. Now they all will go through the skin without even dimpling it.Just to be clear this was a full on sharpen dull knives session. I think that from now on just a single maintenance swipe once in a while will maintain that edge. For the person with only one or two knives I can already say this should last you several years at the least. I’m a knife nut and push the boundary of my wifes sanity with all the knives I have in the kitchen. She would get rid of all but 4 or 5 if it was up to her. :), however I’m the cook and get the say so on that in the kitchen. I use 8 or 9 knives a day in the kitchen so am a pretty heavy user. So we will see how long this lasts for me.I found that different areas on the sharpener seemed to have different levels of aggressiveness. The smaller radius sides felt like they had a lot more friction than the wider flatter sides. I found my self changing where I was sharpening on it as the blade got sharper to give it a finer edge. Not sure what the grit equivalent this thing is made to be as it is not listed anywhere but I am happy with it. I also think that I noticed a little reduction in the aggressiveness between when I started and finished sharpening all 43 knives. However it is still sharpening with, to me, no perceived reduction in sharpening ability.Cleaning it is a must. After sharpening about 20 knives without cleaning it, I ran water over it and hit it lightly with a soft bottle brush and the water ran almost black from all the metal that washed off of it. After that I washed it every 3 or 4 knives.Downside, which to me is an upside. It feels like a fine grit surface on this thing but it is aggressive in removing metal from the blade. What would take me 10 minutes with my sharpening stone took a minute at most with this. I know some people that baby their knives and don’t like this aggressive a sharpener. I’m of the utility and time school of thought. Knives are a tool and I like them razor sharp, I also don’t want to spend a lot of time sharpening them. I have a lot of various knives and I use and abuse them a lot. Meat one minute and opening a box the next. If it is close to hand I will use it for whatever I happen to be doing. About the only undue care I take of my knives is to not do anything that could break the tip or chip or ding the blade.In the past as a knife dulled I would move on to the next knife I could grab that was sharp and only when frustrated drag out the sharpening stones and do a several hour sharpen the knives session. It was a pain. Once I got a decent steel that I could swipe the blades with before each use real quick this took about twice as long before I had to do the sharpening session. I love my steel more than my older school sharpening stones. It is easy and quick to use to maintain an edge. This sharpener combines the loved form factor of my steel with a super quick true sharpening ability. (just a note, though I didn’t do this with all the knives I sharpened, there were a few that I had issues getting real sharp, a swipe or two with the steel brought those up to the almost shaving stage. I would hazard a guess that those are the knives kicking around that had the softer metal in them. Though I have some really nice knives I also have a bunch of decent thickness but unknown provenance knives picked up at yard sales and resale shops that I know to be of a cheaper/lesser quality.So between my new sharpener and my old steel I don’t think I will ever have a marathon sharpening session ever again. Can we say happy!Off to dig up some of my non kitchen knives now 🙂

Great for bread knives
Our bread knife left a lot to be desired so I bought a new bread knife, thinking it would solve the problem – the new bread knife was just as frustrating – more so actually as it was a larger knife, and still wasn’t up to task.Since I’ve gotten pretty good at sharpening non-serrated knives after practicing and watching a lot of sharpening videos, I wondered if I could do the same for our bread knives. I picked this one because all the diamond rods seemed to be about the same, and found that the diamond coating is not as uniform as, for example, my Sharpal diamond whetstone, and it seems to be less durable, but what I cared about was the result.I used the rod on the small, cheap bread knife first, and ohmygosh what a diference; after a few passes on the rod I got the hang of aligning the serrations with sections of the curve of the rod, and made only 1-2 passes, and since stropping isn’t much of an option, I used vegetables to try to remove the burr, and then did a test cut on some soft bread.It was a game changer. The cheap faberware bread knife worked.Now, for the larger, “good” bread knife: I sharpened it in the same manner, only with this knife I made a few passes for each serration, did what I could to remove the burr by slicing up some harder veggies, and did a cherry tomato drop test; it sliced most of the way through a cherry tomato held a few inches above the blade. I then sliced some soft bread and a bagel. Delightful; it cut right through with little resistance, and made few crumbs.Bottom line: The rod was well with the purchase. Will it be durable? Well, I already see wear on the rod after sharpening just two knives, so I’d have to say no, it is not durable, and the reviews mentioning chipping and peeling plating does tend to confirm my findings, but this rod is cheap, and it solved the problem with our bread knives, and serrated knives need sharpening so rarely that even as cheaply as these are made, the rod is likely to last us at least a few years. Docking 1 star due to the un-uniform diamond coating, but otherwise the rod is fantastic for the price.