GerberBear Grylls Field Sharpener (31-001270)

I normally sharpen my survival gear on semi professional systems, the problem with that is you can't easily carry such kit with you.This item has four parts to sharpen with, 1 carbide jaw for drawing blade through as a rough edge, 1 ceramic jaw for a finer finish, and two different grades of abrasive rod along the sides for either drawing the blade down as if cutting a slice, and because the side bars are round you can sharpen curved serrated blades. The main reason I got this was portability, I can attach it to my other essentials easily. I still need to test this on stainless steel which can be very hard to sharpen as some grades of stainless are super tough.I ordered two of these, decent price for decent kit, the second is for a friend who has no account on here and he's mad on bear grylls products, I personally could live without "Bear's brand" but Gerber make excellent stuff. "Fend for yourself" as Gerber says!Comes with small paper survival guide, item well built, should last years.

This thing is near perfect; fits in your pocket, has replaceable sharpeners, one is carbide (rough) and the other some very tough ceramic. This sharpener got a knife sharp enough to treetop hairs on my arm, I use straight razor to shave so tomorrow I'm going to try to shave (or at least begin the shave) with the knife I sharpened up, I tried a bit without any lather and it took the stubble clean off, with a shower and some lather (and maybe some more stropping) I'll see if I can manage even a passable shave with this cheap, £15 knife, then finish off with my much more valuable (I hear, it was a gift that was given to my mother for free and passed onto me), it doesn't seem to be getting the drop point on the knife as keen as the straight edge so it may not be sharp enough for gutting and skinning, but a razor sharp blade from something that only cost a few pounds and carried the name of that fraudster Bear Grylls (Maybe the BG stands for Big Grifter?) who has a full medical support crew with him at all times and nearly everything he does is essentially on an 'open set', I've even heard of prey animals being bought then killed in what is essentially a canned hunt. Nicely though the BG on the casing came off with some isopropanol and some fine sandpaper.But I digress; the diamond rods are the real deal too and can be used to sharpen your pocket chainsaws if you own one (the ones with two wrist loops and a chipper chain from a chainsaw, like the popular 'sabercut' saw (or whatever the webtex one I got for cheap on ebay is called); these things work much better than wire saws but use more energy (this is debatable since wire saws bind in wood so easily that they should only be used in the bow saw config.It's of stronger build than the 'pocket knife sharpener' and safer to boot (I've had no less than four cuts from the pocket one, one slicing into my thumb artery and despite elevation and pressure for 20m all I got was a cloth you could wring the blood out of. My CAT (military surplus emergency tourniquet) had to be used to cut off the blood flow entirely, a saline wash was given, the wound (which would have needed stitches) was pushed together and any excess blood mopped up, then I superglued the thing shut; before it was sold for consumer use it was used by field medics in 'nam and (maybe) WWII to seal shut shrapnel cuts or knife wounds so the soldier would be good to go until he got to s medical station. Now they sell medical glue (the only difference is the applicator) for a bargain at £12 for 6 vials (sarcasm)I can see me keeping this sharpener in my go bag (in an old WWII surplus container for what I think must have been binocs, due to it's kidney bean type shape where I store my essentials, except my fixed blade knife as it's too big) , definitely useful for a variety of applications, can sharpen serrations and has the handy code for SOS (in-case you don't know it) on the back of the sheath in nice UV florescent paint (UV lasers make a good part of your kit as they can pick up on things like blood trails, or the glow in the dark spray paint you used to blaze a trail on a wilderness getaway, they (with an appropriate splitter that makes the beam much wider and round) can always be used to signal for help if needs be used, a green laser UV is less visible can be used to shine an SOS message miles (along the ground; do not point a 'raw laserbeam' at any aircraft unless you want to end up in some serious trouble, even if you are signalling that you're lost, stranded or badly hurt, dazzling pilots could down the plane, potentially killing many more.Tl;DR - This wonderful piece of kit gets knives literally razor sharp, sharpens pocket chainsaws, serrations, some serrated saws, etc, is safer than the black 'pocket' one and could even be used in the kitchen, oh and the sharpeners are user replacable.. All in all a great piece of kit, the only reason it gets four stars is because Bear Grylls gets paid when I buy one and the fact that it came with that useless guide on survival; suggesting you use your underwear as a filter for water as Bear had to (along with a "that got you smiling now didn't it") all BG's party piece is eating silly things and drinking from elephant dung. All in all; for what I paid, she's a fine piece of kit, which can't be said for all the other BG branded Gerber items, such as half tang fixed knives.

I have been looking for something like this for years. I have tried various different types of pocket knifesharpener and quite frankly they were all crap. Now a true outdorrs expert has endorsed one WELL DONE!!!!!.I used it immediately on receipt and it produced wonderful results for sharpening my pocket knives etc.If you are in to the great outdoors or long distance traveling and have any form of pocket knifethen this piece of kit will be an essential accessory.10/09/2014Had this item for some time now and it still works as good as the first day we received it.since additing it to our outsdoor kit we have never experienced a dull knife or pair of scissors.I can highly recommend this in addition to the multi-tool also endorsed by Bear Brylls

I should perhaps qualify that headline. The sharpener is a good product. I like the size and weight, holdings he unit is easy, even for arthritic fingers like mine. I also like the flashes of orange, always useful to track tools down when dropped out in the field. However, it is only really suited to the BG Gerber survival knives, which is not entirely unexpected. The 2 rounded shafts are only really useful for serrated knives, and I personally steer clear of, I simply never have had a use for them. Combined with this that the unit is totally useless for any scandi-grind knife pretty much leaves it out in the cold. An addition of a flat diamond surface between the serration sharpeners would in my opinion have made this perfect in all respects. Oh, and the angled sharpeners we're miss-aligned, meaning a gouge out of the plastic between these was the first issue.

Not as good as a sharpening stone but works perfectly well whilst out and about.

I received my knife sharpener today and will have to say I am very impressed. I do like my knives sharp and for years have been looking for something small enough to take on my travels with. At home I use a stone or a steel but these are not practical to carry in my rucksack.This knife sharpener is small and light enough to do that.Just because it’s small it doesn’t mean it doesn’t pack a punch. It has two sharpening steels, one thick and one thin for a serrated blade. I’ve just run one of my bluntest kitchen knives up on the thicker one of the two and with no more than half a dozen strokes on each side it is now sharp enough to take the hair off the back of my handFor those who can’t use a steel very well it also has a course and fine preset pull through bit at the end. And to cap it all it slots sercurely into a solid waterproof case.Would I recommend this yes I would, I only wish I had found this product years ago