After the Tormek T-1 Saved My 14-Year-Old Knives, I’d Recommend It to Any Home Cook

First, its design: Rather than the typical pull-through sharpener style, the Tormek T-1 features two wheels—one with a fine-grained diamond coating for grinding, the other a composite for honing. It looks like it belongs in a chic, minimalist workshop, but more importantly, it allows you to hone and grind separately. That way you can hone your knives to maintain their edge between sharpenings.

Second, it’s heavy-duty enough that it serves as a step above standard home sharpeners, able to regrind while maintaining a compact footprint (and buzzing quietly enough, about 45 decibels, so that you don’t need to go outside to use it).

FAST FACTS

• 600-grit diamond grinding wheel delivers professional sharpness
• Up to 8-year warranty (5 years + 3 more if you register it online)
• Available in four colors (carbon black, zinc gray, linen, ash green)
• Electric sharpener

I sharpened and honed three different stainless steel kitchen knives, testing how they sliced through limes, onions and other produce before and after. During testing, I focused on how easy it was to use, the quality of the finished product, the sound and mess levels and overall value, given the price tag.

That’s where one feature came in really handy—the Tormek comes with a permanent marker for marking the bevel of the blade, which can serve as a visual guide to let you know that you’ve got the right angle set. Mark the blade, slip it into the grinding guide and give it a pass or two. If the marker is disappearing, you’ve got the right angle. If it isn’t, adjust. (This ensures you sharpen to the same angle every time, so you remove less metal from the knife and have a faster sharpening process overall.) From there, the grinding process is simply a gentle sawing motion, following the shape of the knife, until the burr is raised along the edge of the knife (and all of the marker is gone). Many knives need five or six passes, though the number varies, depending on how dull the knife is and whether you’re changing the angle of the blade. Just be sure to use the same number of passes on each side.

When you switch to honing the knife, it’s absolutely critical to follow Tormek’s instructions to hone with the blade facing away from you, both for your safety and so you polish off the burr. You want to pass it slowly along the honing wheel, back and forth, holding the knife almost flat against it, rather than at a steep angle (which would remove the sharp edge you just created—the opposite of progress!).

Once you get the hang of it, the process is oddly meditative, as you watch the knives gradually sharpen.

A magnet on the machine’s angle guide helps collect metal dust as you grind knives, making the process pretty much mess-free (though, of course, you should still clean the knives thoroughly before using them). The guide also has built-in pads to protect your knife as it’s being sharpened.

At 45 decibels, it’s not as loud as running the microwave; more of a gentle hum akin to the sound of the fridge cooling.

It Sharpens Like a Dream

As for my KitchenAid knives? I’d lost all hope for their recovery—until I used the Tormek T-1. They’re back to their former glory, slicing through produce cleanly (when they used to slip and get stuck). Now, I can’t wait to use it on my more expensive knives when the time comes, and I even find myself offering to sharpen friends’ and family’s knives as well.

If you really get into cooking and you’ve invested in quality knives, the Tormek T-1 makes for a great investment. There’s enough of a learning curve—and a steep enough price point—that occasional cooks may be better off using a more budget-friendly option, or using a knife-sharpening service instead.

However, for the grill master or weeknight Gordon Ramsay, there’s a certain pride in sharpening and maintaining your own knives, and the Tormek T-1helps you do it like a pro.