It couldn’t have been easier to use, works on all knives and produced super-sharp blades in no time. The tungsten carbide sharpener is perfect for sharpening small tools, including those with curved or straight edges. You’ll find it easy to move the sharpener along the curved edge of secateurs or swipe it down a straight knife. The handle ensures your hand stays a safe distance away from the blade area, and the suggestion of adding water to lubricate the wheels worked a treat. It can have a flat sharpener for sharpening flat and curved blades, sharpening slots for double bevelled knives and angled sharpeners for single bevel blades on scissors and shears.

If necessary, the diamond grinding disc can be unscrewed and thoroughly washed in warm water, with a little washing-up liquid and a brush.Pull the knife blade along the sharpening steel towards you, with enough gentle force that you can hear a grinding noise.

Its integrated grooves ensure a smooth knife edge and eliminate any loose metal particles that remain.Then tilt it halfway between that and the stone, and you'll be at around the correct angle you need. The best type of sharpener depends on the kinds of gardening tools you have and the results you want. As a rough guide to the useful life of a pencil sharpener, it is usually advisable to replace your sharpener after it has sharpened around twelve fully used up pencils. Lots of knife enthusiasts swear by a traditional steel for sharpening, but in actual fact, this metal rod ‘hones’ a knife, which essentially means it realigns the blade – this, strictly speaking, doesn’t sharpen it. While our practical tub sharpeners have a plastic case, they feature a robust metal sharpener insert.

It might be one of the smallest sharpeners we put to the test, but the AnySharp knife sharpener lived up to the hype. But be sure not to overdo it, too much sharpness will result in a very artificial and unnatural look. A versatile sharpener will have different sharpening surfaces to handle different types of blade angles, curves and shapes. To grind particularly broad blades, where the cutting edge stands higher than the grinding disc, elevate the sharpener with a suitably thick cutting board to ensure contact with the cutting edge is within the radius of the diamond grinding disc.

Whether you're heading back to school, or the office, we have everything you need for your pencil case .