The system consists of a knife clamp with guide slots for four bevel angles (17, 20, 25 and 30 degrees), four honing stones (coarse, medium, fine and medium-serrated), guide rods to help maintain your selected sharpening angle, honing oil and complete instructions, all in a handy carrying case. Additional stones are available for purchase, but I found that the included stones are fine for most sharpening applications.
The key to the Lansky Universal Sharpening System is the knife clamp with guide holes. This allows a user, even one with limited skill, to maintain a consistent angle throughout the sharpening procedure. Better yet, there are four guide holes, giving the user the flexibility to select any one of four angles– fine angles for fillet and Asian knives, wider angles for sport knives and hatchets. This kind of flexibility is lacking in all but the most expensive electric knife sharpeners.
Operating the Lansky Universal Sharpening System
Operating the Lansky Universal Sharpening System couldn’t be much easier. Clamp the blade (the non-sharpened side) into the clamp and tighten. Then attach and align the guide rod to the sharpening stone of your choice. Very dull blades will probably require the coarse stone, but relatively sharp knives in need of a tune-up can get by with the medium stone for the first few passes. Insert the guide rod into the selected angle (20 degrees is appropriate for most kitchen knives) and begin sharpening the blade with firm sweeping strokes into the blade. Once you see a burr form (a thin sliver of metal), you should flip the blade over and repeat on the other side. After feeling the the burr again, you can switch to the next finer stone. Repeat the same process (without waiting for a burr) with each stone, using less and less force with each successive stone. Of course, for more complete guidance, please consult the very rigorous manual included with the set. More advanced multi-bevel techniques are also possible with the Lansky Universal Sharpening System. You may find this short, basic instructional video useful.
It is also possible to sharpen serrated blades with the included triangular stone. Keep in mind that this is much more time consuming that straight blades. On the other hand, serrated knives need sharpening much less often than straight knives. Another caveat is that longer knives will require resetting the clamp to reach the extremities of the blade. Failing to do this results in too much variability in bevel angle. This requires more time and more effort. Given that most people do not sharpen their longer (think 8″+) blades too often, this probably will not be a huge issue. Also keep in mind that similar products that do not require resetting (like those from Edge Pro) cost 2-4 times as much as the Lansky Universal Sharpening System. Only you can make that cost-benefit calculation, but be mindful.
Since the Lansky Universal Sharpening System is very simple to operate with no moving parts, it is quite durable. Even so, there is a one-year warranty on materials and workmanship for added security. In closing, we give the Lansky Universal Sharpening System our recommendation, with some of the caveats listed above.