Better option than Dickoron Micro for German knives?

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badbeat1

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I have Zwilling Pro knives. I have searched a lot on the forum, and most seem to recommend the Dickoron Micro to use for honing German knives. Many of the post are a year or two old, though.

Do you agree that this is the best option, or have anything better been released in the mean time? Price should not be considered.
 
I don't know if there's better, but the fine cut Dick steel works great.
 
Some smart*** is eventually going to come along and say "a Japanese knife," so it might as well be me
 
If you want to hone often to keep your knives consistantly sharp, Dickoron Micro it is. Though I prefer it for finer and harder edges. If you want to hone only occasionally to get back quite some sharpness, if you want the best go Dickoron (classic). More budget friendly I can recommend
Wüsthof honing steel 4470 Wüsthof Wetzstahl 26 cm | Wüsthof, pretty good and pretty much the only honing steel by Wüsthof which I like.
But honing won't replace sharpening. Sooner or later you will need to get your knife sharpened. You see it at the latest if you need way to many honing strokes to get it back to sharpness or when you see strange shiny reflections along the edge. Your edge gets more susceptible over time with honing, takes way longer with German knives though.
Do not overdo honing, don't hone every time using your knife, only when you need it. Don't put too much pressure, try to stay consistant, also anglewise and do it slowly rather than fast.
 
No arguing it is a very popular honing rod but you asked if it is the best option and I'd say no to that. I prefer a strop for maintenance. Even bare leather or cardboard is pretty effective on the softer steels but a little compound will go a long way.

A couple swipes and done.

Might seem a tad more tedious but for me the trade off is greater angle control and edge contact. And no concern of accidentally hitting the side of the rod, etc.

If you're a pro cook this might not be the best option though just for the quickness of a rod.
 
imo learnin to use stones is not rocket science so recommend stones. you can get by with just a shapton pro 2k if you want.
 
Because of the (very) heavy bias on this forum in favour of Japanese knives, you might get the mistaken impression that nobody cares enough to actually answer your question. That isn't the case.

Do you sharpen your knife yourself already? If so, how?

The reason I ask is that the product you're considering can only work when your knife is already sharp. As the knife loses sharpness, using the honing steel on it becomes a futile procedure. Nobody wants you to be stuck in weeks or months with a knife that cuts poorly because it's dull, and a new tool that can't fix it.
 
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Quite sure the Dickoron Micro is the best steel rod you may get. Used properly it's absolutely safe with any knife up to some 61Rc.
Please be aware though, it does not abrade any fatigued steel, i.e. steel that has failed.
Nor does it add any steel fatigue as a coarser steel does.
As a home user, careful use once every week should do. You will notice it doesn't work any longer after a few months. Time to have the knife to be sharpened, that means fatigued steel to be removed and geometry to be restored.
To remove the fatigued steel you may use a fine ceramic rod as the Sieger LongLife. It takes some use to have it remove the burr it creates. Let the last strokes be sur place.
Use of a ceramic rod does not restore the edge's geometry. The edge is slightly moved to a thicker part of the blade, resulting in a thickening behind the edge.
A good stone sharpening implies some thinning behind the edge before reaching the very edge. No luxury, as the modern German stainless already are rather fat behind the edge.
 
For Zwilling Pro knives, any smooth steel will be fine for honing. Don't use the super rugged ones they generally toss into knife sets or sell at department stores. This includes Zwilling's own steel honing rods, of course. I have a Fisher for my euro knives from before my stone-sharpening days, and it's perfect.
 
big_adventure said:
For Zwilling Pro knives, any smooth steel will be fine for honing. Don't use the super rugged ones they generally toss into knife sets or sell at department stores. This includes Zwilling's own steel honing rods, of course. I have a Fisher for my euro knives from before my stone-sharpening days, and it's perfect.
Click to expand...
Have you been able to compare the Fisher and the Dickoron Micro?
 
Benuser said:
Have you been able to compare the Fisher and the Dickoron Micro?
Click to expand...

Nah, I don't have the Dickoron and don't know anybody who does near me. I've used one before, but it was a while ago on another continent and not head-to-head. I certainly remember it feeling good enough for a steel: but to me, that just means smooth and consistent enough not to mess up my blade, with a comfy handle. I don't know that I'd want to pay the cost for it, given that it runs more than double what I picked that 30cm Fisher up for a while back.
 
Thinking back on this, to the OP's question, were I in the market for a hone, I would probably start looking at smooth ceramic hones over steel ones, just for the flexibility they provide.
 
My Fisher, complete with a family of admirers...

steel.jpg
 
I like my DMT fine ceramic rod but honestly, accept for the extra length of the DMT the one IKEA sells works just as well.
 
inferno said:
imo learnin to use stones is not rocket science so recommend stones. you can get by with just a shapton pro 2k if you want.
Click to expand...
but i would argue that a proper minimal abrasive rod is the easier and more sustainable method to keep your softer steel knives sharp ;)
Of course you need to go to stones eventually, but you can keep the edge sharp for a very long time without really removing any material, that's one of the reasons they use softer steels with high toughness for these knives in the first place.



And yes, I think the dick micro is the best option I know of/I tried..

Put a good 1k edge on them with a stone and you can keep them sharp with the dick micro for months without removing Hard any material
 
inferno said:
imo using a steel does the exact same thing as a stone does, but worse.
Click to expand...

Of course, that's why I said 'minimal' abrasive. A dick micro is comparable to a 10k+ stone or so in terms of how much material gets removed. Now try to touch up your 56 hrc Zwilling knife on a 10k stone and compare it to using a dick micro, especially in a pro kitchen and tell me wich works better from a practical standpoint.

In the same way I could argue that free hand sharpening does the same as sharpening with angle and pressure control, but worse. That doesn't mean that there aren't practical use cases where free hand sharpening might make more sense to some users 😉
 
Eloh said:
Of course, that's why I said 'minimal' abrasive. A dick micro is comparable to a 10k+ stone or so in terms of how much material gets removed. Now try to touch up your 56 hrc Zwilling knife on a 10k stone and compare it to using a dick micro, especially in a pro kitchen and tell me wich works better from a practical standpoint.

In the same way I could argue that free hand sharpening does the same as sharpening with angle and pressure control, but worse. That doesn't mean that there aren't practical use cases where free hand sharpening might make more sense to some users 😉
Click to expand...

Well, as scienceofsharp shows in the links above, the rod (pretty much ANY rod, steel or ceramic) isn't actually doing much with abrasive, but with adhesion. It's hard to argue with SEM images of the edges in question.
 
What does that have to do with my point about practicality and use cases?
 
Eloh said:
What does that have to do with my point about practicality and use cases?
Click to expand...

You specifically mentioned abrasive with the Dick Micro. I was just mentioning that abrasive doesn't have much to do with the function of a steel.

There was nothing to do with the practicality aspect - the Micro would be a great tool for honing a blade in that fashion obviously.

EDIT: I wasn't challenging you or anything. :D
 
Benuser said:
With ribbed steels or ceramic rods you will find traces of abraded steel. I didn't observe the same with the Dickoron Micro, even with very soft carbons with their low abrasion resistance.
Click to expand...

More information is always good. :)

And if you're going to steel with a steel steel, then this steel is a real steal steel at any price.
 
The key factor here is the OP's status in Pittsburgh as a dual agent, involved both in pro football and in a very DISorganized crime syndicate calling themselves the Pittsburgh Stealers. The football team approves only one method of knife maintenance, and the thieves made off with the one they used to have. When the Stealers steal the Steelers' steel, they always make the same mistake - they give it to their friend the well-dressed preacher. He hides it in his stole. And when someone swipes that, you know the story is in trouble.

(Hint to unravelling the mystery - the military chaplain got involved. Check the Army surplice stores.)
 
I currently have this Zwilling ceramic sharpening rod: ZWILLING Ceramic sharpening rod | Knife sharpeners
It does seem to be very rough, and don't really know if it's good enough to get my knives as sharp as they should be. I got it before I started looking into all of this too much. But the idea was to start by getting the best honing rod and then start researching about knife sharpening. I might just get them sharpened by a store. But I assume it's better to get a very good honing rod and get them sharpened / sharpen them myself using stones, rather than using a sharpening rod that does something in between?
 
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