Chris, not that you asked me, but I can understand about "bad luck sharpening knives". Getting a really good edge is anything but intuitive. If my own sharpening troubles are any guide, I'd guess that you may be having trouble with the angle. It's really hard to begin sharpening at exactly the right angle and it's also really hard to maintain that angle throughout the sharpening process. In fact, outside of a survival situation, I wouldn't attempt to sharpen one of my good pocket knives unless I had a sharpener with some built-in way to control that angle (i.e. not a simple flat stone or single rod).<br><br>The simplest angle-control method is the one used on any common crock-stick sharpener. Crock-sticks normally have two rods that splay upward like the top of the letter "Y". You hold the knife blade perfectly straight up and down and carve down each rod alternately sharpening each side of the blade. It takes almost all of the guess work out of it and you can quickly get a great result, almost razor sharp, every time with any decent crock stick. <br><br>Once you get used to getting good edges with a crock-stick, It is a lot easier to use a flat-style sharpener (like many include with survival gear) because you would just be trying to duplicate what happens when you use the crock-stick.<br><br>I'm not familiar with the Tri-Seps sharpener. It may be a wonderful sharpener, and it may have an angle-control method, which would be great. But my point is that you don't need the world's best sharpener to get a razor-sharp edge. You just need to get the angle right.<br><br>Good luck!<br><br>