Knife Robot Takes the Guesswork and Effort Out of Sharpening

There’s no shortage of knife sharpeners out there that provide easy sharpening experiences.

The new ViperSharp offers precision sharpening by tackling some of the shortcomings of other infinite angle models (as I will cover in a forthcoming review). The Work Sharp Combo Sharpener is something you can keep on your workbench and swipe a few times for a quick touch up at 20 degrees. Then, of course, there’s the legendary Spyderco Sharpmaker and the always available option for free hand sharpening.

But the latest sharpener aptly called the Knife Robot takes all the guesswork and effort out of sharpening.

The Knife Robot Auto Sharp is a fully automated sharpening system originally released as a crowdsource funding project on Indiegogo. You basically set the knife in the robot, hit go, and it’ll be professionally sharpened to perfect angles within minutes.

Here’s a quick video showing how it works:

Seems mighty impressive. The project raised a whopping $116,321, which was more than 500% over its original goal. There’s a portable version of the robot for consumers and a built-in version for professional chefs. Although the project was funded, you can still get the portable version for $299 before it retails for $700. That’s a hefty amount of money, but it has the potential to be great.

Normally I scoff at things like this, but the great Ed Schempp (who is known for things like the Spyderco Schempp Bowie and the Spyderco Rock Salt) has endorsed the product.

While an endorsement is not always indicative of a good product (remember when NBA legend Charles Barkley endorsed Weight Watchers and then called it a scam), I respect Schempp quite a bit.

The makers of the Knife Robot say it can sharpen knives with all types of steels and knives with blade lengths up to 10 inches. It can apparently do serrated and partially serrated blades as well as a variety of blade profiles.

Here’s an excerpt from a press release talking a little more about its inner workings:

The Knife Robot has seven motors that sense the knife shape in 4 DoF (degrees of freedom forward, backward, side to side) and with its precision sander it detects the burrs, removing them based on custom input of angle, speed, and pressure. The portable version for home cooks and hobbyists allows you to choose the sander motor speed and the angle (10 to 45 degrees per side). You can also choose a different angle on each side and the amount of pressure (light, medium, hard belt pressure), and watch on the portable’s screen courtesy of a microscopic camera

The price tag  right now is only about $100 or so more than some of the other popular knife sharpeners available right now, and if it can do everything it says it can, then that’s a darn good deal.