Picking a knife sharpener can be tough. Depending on which sharpener you go with, there can be quite a learning curve. When I started buying knife sharpeners, finding one that was easy to use was a pretty big challenge. I ended up buying a bunch that were hard to use and ended up dulling my knives–not making them sharper!

So, I’ll go ahead and give you what I think is the best knife sharpener for beginners:

When it comes to the easiest and fastest knife sharpener, I’d recommend the Work Sharp Mk.2. It’s easy to use, fast, and will work on a bunch of different knives and tools, like pocket knives, serrated knives, kitchen knives, axes, scissors, and shears. Here’s the link to check it out.

If you’re just looking for a quick answer, there it is. If you’d like to see what exactly makes it a good knife sharpener–and want to see other options–then let’s keep going.

What Makes a Knife Sharpener Good?

There are a couple of features that make a knife sharpener good–and while there can be a lot of them–there are really just a few core features that make a top-tier, easy-to-use knife sharpener.

A Blade Guide

In my opinion, a blade guide is one of the most important features of a knife sharpener.

Without a blade guide, it is really easy to get an uneven bevel on either side of your blade. If that happens, it can make your knife duller than when you started, defeating the whole purpose of sharpening your knife.

So, if you’re a beginner or just want something easy and fast, look for a blade guide.

Versatility

Having a versatile knife sharpener is also super important. If you have something that can work with multiple different types of knives and tools, it makes everything so much simpler.

For instance, if you want to sharpen serrations but your knife sharpener can’t, then you have to buy a whole new knife sharpener. Or go somewhere to have it sharpened. That seems to defeat the purpose of having your own knife sharpener.

So, if you have a lot of different types of knives and tools to sharpen, make sure your knife sharpener is versatile enough to sharpen them all.

Portability

If you’re going to be backpacking in the woods, you can’t exactly use an electric knife sharpener if you need a touch-up in the field.

So, one thing to consider is portability. If you’re going to be traveling a lot with your knife sharpener and need something small, light, and non-electric, you might want something other than the Work Sharp Mk.2.

Coarse and Fine Side

If you want a super sharp knife, then you’ll want to have both a coarse and a fine side.

On a knife sharpener, the coarse side is for big changes in the blade, like removing burrs and nicks in the blade. From there, you move up to medium grit, to more finely hone the edge into something that can chop. 

If you only use the coarse one, for instance, you’ll have a gritty blade. It’ll either feel like a block or almost like it has (really bad) serrations–which you don’t want.

So, if you want a super sharp knife, go for something that has multiple grits, like a coarse (usually 80-120 grit), medium (usually 400-600 grit), and fine (usually around 1800 grit) grit.

Be Cautious About Buying Non-Name Brand Sharpeners

Non-name brand sharpeners aren’t always what they advertise. It can be pretty easy to get either a fake (as in, not made of the material it should be) or a shoddy sharpener.

If nothing else, be cautious when buying non-name brand sharpeners.

Best knife sharpeners for beginners

There are a ton of knife sharpeners out there, and out of the ones we have tested, here are the ones we like most for a beginner:

Work Sharp MK.2

The Work Sharp MK.2 is a plug-in electric knife sharpener. This sharpener is easy to use, fast, and works great. It comes with a coarse and fine belt for knives and a medium belt for tools. 

The sharpener has multiple (specifically 20-, 25-, 40-, and 60-degree) blade angles for all types of knives, scissors, and shears. You can even sharpen tools like axes and machetes with the medium grit belt. Really, with this sharpener, you can sharpen pretty much anything easily and quickly.

The belts are also super easy to change. You just pop off the guide, slip the old belt off, and put the new one on.

The only con is that you have to have power to use it, which isn’t a huge deal, but you can’t take it backpacking in the mountains.

So, if you’re looking for a super easy to use, fast, and versatile knife sharpener, then definitely check this one out. Here’s the link to check it out.

But if you’re looking for a knife sharpener you can use out in the field, then check out this next one instead.

Benchmade Guided Field Sharpener

The Benchmade Guided Field Sharpener is a lightweight field sharpener that is made to be carried in the woods, so it’s nice and light and portable.

One of the best uses for this is something like elk hunting, where you hike miles away from the road and have to pack out an elk. If you ever need to touch up your knife, this sharpener will be the one to do it.

The guide will help you get the right bevel on your knife so that it’s nice and sharp. In addition to a guide, you can sharpen serrated knives, scissors, broadheads, and fish hooks.

Overall, this one is very versatile and portable. If that’s what you’re looking for, here’s the link so you can check it out.

Conclusion 

If you buy a guided, versatile knife sharpener from a name brand, it’ll be pretty hard to go wrong. If you do your research and just try to keep it with the criteria mentioned above, you’ll have a good quality knife sharpener. Or you could just buy the ones we mentioned and it’ll make your search a lot faster. 

If you’d like to see more blog posts on knife reviews, blade steel comparisons, knife company reviews, and more, just click the link here.