Polished edges and steels ?

I have a question I kind of semi know the answer to but thought I'd post it on here to get a better answer.

It you have a knife suitable for steeling . Lets say a nongent carbon sabatier. And polish it up to say... 5k
But your only available steel is a 1.2k ceramic honing rod .

How much polish does it remove?
How quickly does it remove it?
Is there any point in polishing it past the grit size of the steel?

My guess is the polish would last for a short while but the more steeling the less polished and the more toothy it would become.

Am i on the right track?

Geo87 said:

I have a question I kind of semi know the answer to but thought I'd post it on here to get a better answer.

It you have a knife suitable for steeling . Lets say a nongent carbon sabatier. And polish it up to say... 5k
But your only available steel is a 1.2k ceramic honing rod .

How much polish does it remove?
How quickly does it remove it?
Is there any point in polishing it past the grit size of the steel?

My guess is the polish would last for a short while but the more steeling the less polished and the more toothy it would become.

Am i on the right track?

Click to expand...

Polish and Striations.. The final edge will be the 1200 grit with some 5K grits in between the bigger/wider (1200grit). .. I may be wrong....

I generally use my 1600grit as a deburring tool adn followed by a few strokes on a higher grit stone. Once in a while, I will also strop a low as possible to "thin" the secondary bevel. By itself...the edge on 1600 grit is very acceptable too

rgds
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There's a difference between steeling with a smooth rod and honing with an abrasive one. Knives like the Sabatier respond best to a smooth steel or a borosilicate rod used to true the edge. In this case, the polish would not be affected much. Using an abrasive rod will result in an edge that is equal to whatever grit the rod happens to be, which is usually sufficient for most kitchen tasks.

Rick

I was under the impression (wrong perhaps) that the Idahone 1200 was rated on a different scale than JIS...In other words isn't the Idahone alot finer than say a 1200 Bester??

I seem to remember reading that the Idahone was rated on the ANSI or CAMI scale, but it's been awhile. If that is true that would put it close to 3k JIS.
One site that list it as close to 3k JIS. http://www.paulsfinest.com/Idahone-Ceramic-Sharpening-Rod-Fine-10-26cm.html

Pensacola Tiger said:

There's a difference between steeling with a smooth rod and honing with an abrasive one... ...Using an abrasive rod will result in an edge that is equal to whatever grit the rod happens to be, which is usually sufficient for most kitchen tasks...

Click to expand...

+1. An abrasive rod is generally best used as a quick and dirty way to "reinvigorate" an edge that has lost it's toothiness/aggression and can be used on pretty much any double bevel blade. A smooth one is only suitable for softer steel (<60 hrc or so). A rod is a relatively poor choice for sharpening versus a bench stone which generally cut faster and allow the use of two hands to better control the blade.

bahamaroot said:

I seem to remember reading that the Idahone was rated on the ANSI or CAMI scale, but it's been awhile. If that is true that would put it close to 3k JIS.
One site that list it as close to 3k JIS. http://www.paulsfinest.com/Idahone-Ceramic-Sharpening-Rod-Fine-10-26cm.html

Click to expand...

Thanks for that.. This is excellent to know.


Tk59: I completly understand what your saying , I would prefer a borosilicate rod.
However as far as I'm aware they are very much unavailable.

The idahone is my only option ATM other than stones . Is it really that aggressive? I'm aware it still removes metal but at 3k JIS that's fairly smooth. I'm happy with that as a general purpose grit.

My main question was how fast would it remove the polish of a 5k finish.
I get the impression pretty fast.

Thanks again for all your replys

By the time it needs to be touched up with a rod that 5k polish is long gone.

If you really want a borosilicate rod, they're easy to make. Google borosilicate glass supply in your city. It gets used for glass blowing to make chemistry equiptment, or decorative glass beads. I was able to pick up a 1.2 mt rod 16 mm diameter for thirty five dollars. Get the supply store to break it into the right lengths for you.

Epoxy it into a handle, I'm not crafty, so I bought a small bed leg from bunnings, took out the screw, drilled the hole a bit bigger and stuck it in. I then sanded in some striations. I had the best result using garnet sandpaper, but that is just what I picked up from the hardware store, if you wanted it superfine, perhaps some of the 3m diamond sandpaper would work well. It is pretty hard to sand. Also this is an outside job. Superfine glass powder and burnt sandpaper is messy.

You don't even need to sand in striations if you don't want depending on the knife you are honing and what you want to achieve.

I'm on a train and aren't going to find it now, but Dave wrote a good post about putting these together with some good pointers.

Thanks dusty,
I'm sure I can find daves post.
That actually all sounds pretty affordable and not too complicated.
Ill definitly give it a go.