I rarely write reviews, but it would be inhumane not to warn people of such a horrible product -- especially when there are so many positive reviews (really people!). First, everything is made of very cheap metal. Trying to straighten the rods to get them level is very frustrating. Knives do not fit in the clamp well at all, and in this model it's closed with thumbscrews, leaving you no way to tighten them with a screwdriver (which you have to do because the clamp is so weak). Once you put the clamp on the post (sold separately), it wobbles A LOT -- you have to hold it as you move the stones, and it's very tiring. And forget about the "angles" that are marked on the clamp. Do any of these people who wrote good reviews understand simple physics? Of course different knives have different widths and curves. Once you get it clamped, you can choose one of the "angles," but that is not in any way the actual angle. Because when you move the stone farther away from the clamp, the angle changes. So if you sharpen a knife any longer than a few inches, you'll see the edge is much flatter at the ends. The only solution to that is to completely sharpen a few inches, and then reclamp it, and then go through the process all over again. In any case, your edge will definitely not be consistent, although you might be lucky if the tip of the knife is rounded so that the distance to the base of the clamp doesn't change much. Basically, if you use this "system," you will probably destroy the original angle, lose gratuitous amounts of metal, and be left with a very unprofessional edge. You can actually get a sharp edge (which I did on my test knives), but it will take you a long time because it's so labor intensive, and the edge will not be consistent. If you value your knife or your sanity, it's NOT worth it.
I rarely write reviews, but it would be inhumane not to warn people of such a horrible product -- especially when there are so many positive reviews (really people! ). First, everything is made of very cheap metal. Trying to straighten the rods to get them level is very frustrating. Knives do not fit in the clamp well at all, and in this model it's closed with thumbscrews, leaving you no way to tighten them with a screwdriver (which you have to do because the clamp is so weak). Once you put the clamp on the post (sold separately), it wobbles A LOT -- you have to hold it as you move the stones, and it's very tiring. And forget about the "angles" that are marked on the clamp. Do any of these people who wrote good reviews understand simple physics? Of course different knives have different widths and curves. Once you get it clamped, you can choose one of the "angles," but that is not in any way the actual angle. Because when you move the stone farther away from the clamp, the angle changes. So if you sharpen a knife any longer than a few inches, you'll see the edge is much flatter at the ends. The only solution to that is to completely sharpen a few inches, and then reclamp it, and then go through the process all over again. In any case, your edge will definitely not be consistent, although you might be lucky if the tip of the knife is rounded so that the distance to the base of the clamp doesn't change much. Basically, if you use this "system," you will probably destroy the original angle, lose gratuitous amounts of metal, and be left with a very unprofessional edge. You can actually get a sharp edge (which I did on my test knives), but it will take you a long time because it's so labor intensive, and the edge will not be consistent. If you value your knife or your sanity, it's NOT worth it.