I couldn't resist, despite the price. I bought the new electric rotary blade sharpener.
before you continue reading my personal thoughts, please keep a few things in mind:
i am ridiculously picky about my blades. i ask more of them than most people do, i suspect. i will set a blade aside in a heartbeat when it stops cutting through at least 8 layers of fabric like a hot knife through butter. (needles to say, i go through a lot of blades. :lol: ) for that reason, i haunt ebay so i can buy humongous piles of blades at once for dirt cheap.
i have tried all sorts of blade sharpeners over the years. while some work "as well" or nearly "as well" as the round plastic sharpeners with the replaceable sandpaper circles, those are the ones i think give the best results. the problem is that it takes a lot of "elbow grease" to sharpen a blade with one of those. and ... well ... i'm pretty lazy about such things. :lol:
the electric sharpener will not return a blade to factory sharp. none of them will, and they all admit to that on the package.
however, after testing it on several blades i think it does as good a job as the round plastic sharpeners i described above. it costs about 4 to 5 times as much (depending on where you buy which), but ... and this is the selling point to me ... i can use it to sharpen blades with just a touch of a button instead of a gymnatic workout for the old upper arms and wrists.
it's pretty noisy but ... again ... just press a button.
even starting with a brand new blade and sharpening frequently, once it loses the "8-layer" edge, i can't get that back more than once or twice. but i am able to keep it at a 4 to 6 layer edge. i estimate that i will be able to double or triple the useful (to me) life of each blade at minimum. i feel fairly comfortable assuming it would perform even more satisfactorily for a person who is not quite as insane as i am about my blades. :lol:
i can't decide for anybody else whether it's "worth the price". it is for me because ... did i mention? just press a button. no need to put on my gym clothes. :lol: