I have the lansky kit, the only kitchen knife I use it on is a serrated edge one, for which you can get a triangular honing stone. For most large knives, it is all a bit of a faff. Pocket knives and small blades it is ideal for.
Ah, that's useful information.
... if you can tolerate a blunt knife as you appear to be able to, those cheap sharpeners used regularly will keep any knife adequately sharp ...
Fair comment. I'm not an avid cook, just mildly enthusiastic. I'm as likely to use a knife to open a packet of cheese, as I am to use it to chop up piece of meat! I guess I need something that's easy enough, that I'll use it relatively regularly, and as necessary. As you say, the relatively cheap sharpeners are probably going to do a better job than my current, almost zero, sharpening.
... I'm curious to see it has a "serrated" knife setting, that really won't work without taking the nibs off the high ends, I know of no other way than using a slip stone of some sort ... I would take any suggestion that it could be successfully used with a pinch of seasoning.
Yes, I wondered about that too. I can't see any practical easy way that you could sharpen a serrated edge. I presume large scale manufacturers use machines adjusted to the "tooth" pattern, which would be impractically complicated and large for normal household use. I can't see how a simple drawing process would not kill the nibs, as you say.
Have a shufti at the Nisbet's selection https://www.nisbets.co.uk/search?sort=max-price-asc&q=knife+sharpener&show=All&view=list you won't go far wrong with any (and they have a whetstone guide for £5 if that's the way you want to go)
I do wonder how critical the angle is, especially with fairly random kitchen knives from Sainsburys and their ilk. Some articles seem to suggest that being a few degrees out would be a bad thing, but I suspect it's actually very difficult to achieve anywhere near that accuracy with any tool, which is largely handheld. Within 5° is probably optimistic. I guess that's why many of the tools designed to allow you to simply pull the knife through, don't tend to be adjustable (or even specify the angle!) Somewhere near 20° seems to be considered the appropriate angle, for most general kitchen knives.