I have a ceramic sharpener I got at Harbor Freight that works well for touch ups ... Its one of those you get what you pay for things ... Easy and fast ... WPT ... (YAC) ...
I purchased an electric one from Edge Craft. It's called "Chef's Choice HYBRID 250". It's a diamond hone machine with 2 angled slots for coarse grinding and 2 for fine, plus a non electric straight slot for touch ups. The cost was under $50.00 It sat in the drawer for about a month until I got around to using it but when I did it was pretty amazing. I had a dozen older knives that were really dull. You couldn't have cut yourself if you wanted to with some of them before I ran them through this machine. 5 or 10 strokes on the coarse station and then 5 or 10 on the fine and the knives were like new. Better than new actually. I'm the biggest doubter when it comes to anything working the way it's supposed to now a days but this thing really did the job on them. Just a heads up, I think a lot depends on the steel in the knife. Cheap steel? Probably going to take a little longer to get the edge you are looking for and it might not last as long as a really good knife. When I noticed the edge on my really good one was not cutting the same as the day I sharpened it all I had to do was give it a few swipes through the touch up slot and it was perfect again.
After throwing away a lot of junk sharpeners through the years I finely pulled the trigger and purchased a model 120 Chef's Choice three stone sharpener. You pays the money and you get's the best....Over $100 but well worth the money. Turns knives into scalpels.
