Warthog WHSME220

The top part is a 6 star======German Quality. The bottom part is a 3 star=====Chinese Quality. The top is all metal but the bottom is plastic. Maybe this was used so the sharpener could be used with waterstones.......but they could have used better and thicker plastic. It takes a while to set up and watching some YouTube videos is helpful. But once it's up it sharpens knives very fast with its diamond stone. I find the strop to be too messy for me. Green powder gets everywhere. Its stones are made of thin metal and feel flimsy but do sharpen blades fast. I don't know how long they will last but South Africa has a lot of diamond dust so they should not be stingy with it on their stones. I plan to attach the metal parts to a wooden base and use a universal rubber sharpening stone holder with my DMT large diamond stones and use it in a desk setup situation. Or maybe pair it with the Bob Kramer Adjustable Bamboo Sink Bridge. That way I can have a 6 star system. I also feel that it will be useful in training my brain-muscles to learn to sharpen freehand...By the way, the box is nothing to be proud of. It does work but I don't think the latches would hold very well if carried about....but then I did not buy it for the box. I bought it for the precision guide.

In the beginning this product looked like a good idea. I purchased it primarily to sharpen my kitchen knives. However in practice it proved fiddly to set up properly and the overall low construction quality led to inaccurate results. First, the clamp is not able to hold knife blades to sharpen at very shallow angles e.g. 7.5° per side. Next, a design fault, to sharpen the other side of the blade you are instructed to loosen the angle-setting screw and rotate the the clamp to the opposite side - at the same angle you had before. Given the very coarse angle guide painted on the clamp it's impossible by eye to reclamp it on the other side at exactly the same angle it was before - only by trial and error can you get it right. Maybe for some blades this is good enough but I was looking for something a lot more precise for my kitchen knives. Finally, after about a year the spherical ball, which is made from polycarbonate, swelled out of shape and no longer rotated in its socket. At that point the sharpener went into the bin.

I just received it today. Although the product looks great, The problem is that the instructional DVD is produced in PAL. This is not usable in the USA. Moreover the warranty information is not for the USA. I have not yet set it up because I need a USA type DVD plus assurance that The US importer will honor the warranty. I intend to contact Warthog in Louisiana to request a valid DVD and assurance that the USA warranty is valid. This is not the way to do business.

Came damaged twice, returned for refund. Both times shipped in bubble envelope and the item is heavy!

The diamond stone is way to coarse for sharpening very nice knives. There doesn't seem to be any options for a finer grit stone and this is a disappointment. The top pieces of the sharpener seem well made but the base is dodgy plastic.