Chef's Choice Professional Knife-Sharpening Station

For DECADES (literally) I have been wanting a knock-your-socks-off knife sharpener, but up until recently, I could never get myself to pull the trigger on spending the more than $100 it would require - especially when plenty of other knife sharpeners were available out there for $5 to $20. So over the years, I tried maybe a dozen different cheaper sharpeners, and whenever I saw a new one in a store, I had to go check it out. Ask my wife. When you ask her about me and knife sharpeners, she'll smile and nod and probably roll her eyes. First, it is much more important than most people realize that your knives be sharp. I don't mean just kinda sharp, I mean really sharp. Not only do sharp knives work better, they are also much safer. Because with a sharp knife, you can let the knife do the work and not have to press so hard. If you stop to think about it, you should agree that most knife injuries are caused by kinda-sharp knives where you had to press too hard to make it cut, then it suddenly did, and ... OOPS! Ouch! For me, the two main things that make a knife sharpener useful are (1) how sharp does it get the knives; and (2) will you actually use the thing? I finally got to the position where I was fed up with all those cheaper sharpeners, and did the research (thankis to all Amazon reviewers!) and decided on this Chef's Choice 130 sharpener. And I must say, I am DELIGHTED! The booklet that came with the unit did an outstanding job of not only explaining HOW to properly sharpen a knife, but also WHY it needs to be done that way. I learned more about the theory behind knife sharpening from this booklet than I ever expected, and am very happy to know this. When the device arrived, I couldn't wait to use it. But I read the booklet first, and I'm glad I did. Once I unpacked the thing and turned it on, I was pleased to hear it runs fairly quietly, and is heavy and sturdy enough to sit solidly on the counter while doing its job. I got out all the supposed-to-be-sharp knives in my kitchen - the good ones I use regularly, and the older dull ones from the bottom of the knife drawer. The long ones, the medium ones, even the short paring knives and the huge meat cleavers. I dived into the knife-sharpening task, and had a blast. I didn't count, but there were probably close to two dozen knives all together. It took me two knives of sharpening to begin to feel natural and comfortable with the process, but once I got going, it didn't even take two minutes per knife - maybe about a half hour total for all of them - to complete the task. So how sharp did it make my knives? The product information says it will make knives sharper than when they come from the factory, and I have no reason to doubt that. This device put an amazing edge on every single one of my knives, from the meat cleaver to my 1 1/2" pocket knife blade. The booklet says the way to test an edge is (NOT WITH YOUR FINGER) to hold up a piece of paper by the edge, and try to slice it with the blade, about half an inch from where you're holding the paper. Every single one of the knives I sharpened, including the meat cleaver, went through the paper like it wasn't even there. Needless to say, I am hugely pleased with this device. I will probably get it out twice a year and redo the edges on all my knives. And if anyone asks if they should get this, I will answer with a resounding YES!