HORL Cylinder Sharpeners - What they don't tell you...

HORL-style roller or barrel sharpeners have become increasingly popular. They look beautifully engineered, have slick social media info-mercials and are simple to use to put an edge on a knife. But there are serious limitations that aren't always obvious from the advertising.

The Bolster Problem

The biggest issue is with traditional chef's knives that have a full bolster which account for around 50% of all knives received in to our workshops.

As the circular sharpening cylinder travels along the blade, it eventually reaches the bolster—and stops.

This means the heel of the blade cannot be progressively sharpened in the same way as the rest of the cutting edge.

Over repeated sharpening, steel is removed from the edge while the bolster remains at its original height. Eventually, the bolster will become proud of the cutting edge, creating a concave profile near the heel. HORL don't tell you this.

What's the result?

Place the knife flat on a chopping board and part of the cutting edge may no longer make contact with it.

For a chef's knife designed for chopping and slicing, that's a significant problem.

The fine abrasives of the HORL can't do everything. It certainly can't reshape the bolster.

There is another issue , blade geometry changes over time.

Every time a knife is sharpened, the cutting edge moves slightly farther into the blade, where the steel is naturally thicker. Eventually, simply polishing the existing bevel with a relatively fine abrasive isn't enough.

The knife needs to be thinned and correctly reprofiled, which requires more substantial steel removal.

This is why owners can find that a roller sharpener that initially produced impressive results becomes less effective after prolonged use. The knife hasn't suddenly become impossible to sharpen—the geometry has changed.

Sharpen Less, Maintain More.

At Blade & Butler, our advice is simple.

For everyday maintenance, learn to use a good-quality honing steel. A steel can maintain an existing edge without continually grinding significant amounts of material from your knife.

Eventually, however, every regularly used knife reaches the point where honing alone can no longer restore its performance.

That's when it needs professional sharpening and, where necessary, thinning, reprofiling and bolster correction to restore the geometry of the knife rather than simply working on the very tip of its cutting edge.

We do all this work at no additional cost to our standard flat sharpening fee. We are the only knife service company in the UK to do this.

Roller sharpeners may look like clever devices but maintaining an edge and properly servicing a knife are two very different things.