Honing on Shibata Kotetsu Bunka R2

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Racheski

Racheski

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Purchased this Kotetsu about 1 month ago and it is still super sharp, but I was wondering if it is advisable to hone every once in a while on a ceramic rod, or if that is pointless given the high HRC. Or is it better to use a leather strop for touch ups?
 
no, i would not hone any japanese knife *unless its a global (soft steel)* on any rod. Rods are designed to be very hard and since they are round and your knife edge is flat, all that impact on 1 spot would likely cause chipping. Also, due to the hardness of your typical japanese knife, they're better served with sharpening stones to remove a small amount of material for general maintenance (Shapton 2000.) Before taking the knife to the stone, you can also consider a leather strop loaded with green compound for daily/weekly maintenance depending on how much you use your knife.

I'm a home cook and i use 3-4 knives so i strop only once a week to every other week. I sharpen the knives whenever they're an 8/10 sharpness on my scale and take it to the shapton 2000.
 
I've heard many times that story of you should not hone your japanese knife but I think is not true or at least with the knives I own.
I do it all the time with a ceramic rod and gives great results, I know a Wheatstone might be the better option and I'm not saying the rod is best, just that it works for a quick refresh.
As a matter of fact I own Shibata bunka and I've use a rod on it, just don't go "Gordon Ramsey style".
 
A ceramic rod should be fine to use if that is your preferred method. The ceramic will be much harder than the steel of the knife. A traditional steel made of steel should not be used for high hardness knives as it will often be softer than the knife steel.

Being round is not a problem so long as you run the edge continuously down the rod. Smooth ceramic rods should not remove enough material to be concerning. They are just for realigning edges, not creating them.

That said, I prefer a leather strop to rods. Purely personal preference. I just never really got used to the angle and consistency with rods.
 
there's a difference between "fine" and "advisable"

a strop loaded with some diamond compound at your desired finish isnt a huge investment and will simply do a far better job, plus it's useful while sharpening. I personally use a diamond spray that's about 1 step finer than I like to finish on stones (so since I like ~6k on stones, I use 8k diamond)
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
A ceramic rod should be fine to use if that is your preferred method. The ceramic will be much harder than the steel of the knife. A traditional steel made of steel should not be used for high hardness knives as it will often be softer than the knife steel.

Being round is not a problem so long as you run the edge continuously down the rod. Smooth ceramic rods should not remove enough material to be concerning. They are just for realigning edges, not creating them.

That said, I prefer a leather strop to rods. Purely personal preference. I just never really got used to the angle and consistency with rods.
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I've always learned that a ceramic or diamond rod are ment to 'sharpen' aswell.
A rod made out of steel is purely ment for realigning the edge, and since a Japanese knife is so hard (compared to european style), that edge won't roll. So it's of no use to hone with a steel rod.

Is it adviceable to use a rod on a Jknife? I don't think so.
- Most Jknives have a higher finish then your ceramic, diamond or steel rod. So you nullify the work you have done on your stones.
- If done wrong, you might chip your knife.
- Most knives that i see that are regularly honed (butchers knives), all get a strange recurve near the heal over time, since that is the first contact point (and appearently the most pressure is put there)

The only positive I can think of, it's faster in the field to grap and use a rod than a strop or a stone.

1st job for a rod is alligning the edge. A Jknives edge doesnt need to be alligned.
 
Racheski said:
Purchased this Kotetsu about 1 month ago and it is still super sharp, but I was wondering if it is advisable to hone every once in a while on a ceramic rod, or if that is pointless given the high HRC. Or is it better to use a leather strop for touch ups?
Click to expand...

A kotetsu bunka was one of my very first Jknives, it took a lot of abuse including MANY touch ups on diamond rod :facepalm:. It's not good to do so but the knife is still here, still take an amazing edge. When the rod couldn't bring the knife back to super sharpness I sharpened it on stones and brang it back to life every time. (I did this for years)
I'm not saying it's a good thing to do but I can't say that it ever caused any major problems, probably better use a leather strop.

I've stopped doing that a long time ago, I now keep a splash and go stone with me in the kitchen at all times and everything is great.
 
What do you notice differently now, only using a stone compared to using a rod aswell?

Because, what I just told, is purely theoretical (all but the recurve part after lots of honing, that I did see multiple times, but might also be bad honing?)

In other words, if a rod was bad, but didnt do any harm or damage, what makes you feel youve chosen a better path now?
 
To be clear, I use a stone also to give the main edge when is needed (when rod won't help anymore) and I don't say a rod will make a stone obsolete, but I think they complement each other.
I work in a professional kitchen and there's times you cannot go and spend minutes on a stone a rod is just so much faster, if you have the time to go to a stone by all means do it.
My final point is the rod won't cause irreparable damage to your knife if you use it properly and won't do a recurve if you combine with stone.
 
Kawa said:
What do you notice differently now, only using a stone compared to using a rod aswell?

Because, what I just told, is purely theoretical (all but the recurve part after lots of honing, that I did see multiple times, but might also be bad honing?)

In other words, if a rod was bad, but didnt do any harm or damage, what makes you feel youve chosen a better path now?
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Well I never had any "recurve" problems as I was always careful of the pressure applied on this thin blade.
But you are right about the fact that this can happen of course but I only ever saw this on european steel/blade. Probably because the rod is very often the only thing used by people to sharpen these blades and the fact that it's lower HRC than Jknives and therefore much more incline to reshape through time and use.

As for why I prefer using stone now,
well, rod didn't do any harm to the blade that couldn't be easily fixed. And there certainly are no visible traces of the use of rod on the blade now, either in shape, geometry, edge or anything. The problem for me is that the rod is useful to bring the knife back to sharp but the more you use it the less sharp the knife will be. Lets say the knife if freshly out of the stones on day 1, you start using the rod on day 3, it's gonna be perfect day 3 and 4, day 5 it's gonna start to be difficult to bring back the edge and day 6 you'll need the stones again.

It just is easier to use a stone for a few minutes every day.

And I also like the fact that you have perfect control over the kind of edge you get out of stones.
The diamond rod doesn't give you the choice, it's gonna be a low grit feeling edge some would say "toothy".
 
There are rods that will sharpen. They can be steel, ceramic or diamond. But smooth ceramic honing rods are just that, honing rods. They are not meant to sharpen just realign the edge This is essentially the same function of a strop, which again, I prefer.

Recurve edges off of rods are typically caused by sharpening rods and are often seen on knives with full length bolsters. They can also be caused by not running the full length of the edge across the rod. This is why you see a lot of butchering knives developing recurves over time. Sometimes it is due to the handle interface with the blade, the blade shape itself, and/or because the user makes several fast passes over the rod.

For daily maintenance, you should put the tip of the rod on your board so it is vertical, draw the entire length of the edge slowly across and down. Very lightly and being mindful not to pop the top off the rod. It should only take one or two passes per side and done.

Again, this is for smooth ceramic honing rods in the 6-10k range.

As I said, I prefer a strop but there a lot of people who successfully use honing rods for maintenance.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. After reading the thread, I want to go with a leather strop for quick touch ups instead of a ceramic rod. Can anyone recommend a good strop and compound to purchase for this knife? I do not have any desire to make my own :)
 
Racheski said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. After reading the thread, I want to go with a leather strop for quick touch ups instead of a ceramic rod. Can anyone recommend a good strop and compound to purchase for this knife? I do not have any desire to make my own :)
Click to expand...

Lots of options out there. I wouldn't go any shorter than 8" long. I like a combination suede/smooth strop. I also like a bench style over paddle style.

I've been using one of these for years: Sharpening Supplies Strop

I don't have any R2. I want some though! I would be inclined to get a quality 1um diamond spray and use it on the smooth side of the strop. You can of course start out without and see how you like it.
 
Racheski said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. After reading the thread, I want to go with a leather strop for quick touch ups instead of a ceramic rod. Can anyone recommend a good strop and compound to purchase for this knife? I do not have any desire to make my own :)
Click to expand...

in an ideal world you could get Dave Martell's spray. since that's out of stock, Ive been using CKTG's and it's fine.

there's also Bark River's CBN compound. I like that too, but prefer the diamond spray.
 
Racheski said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. After reading the thread, I want to go with a leather strop for quick touch ups instead of a ceramic rod. Can anyone recommend a good strop and compound to purchase for this knife? I do not have any desire to make my own :)
Click to expand...
Take the info with care as I don't strop myself and don't even own one but I heard that these are one of the best if not THE best that exist.

Grooming - Kanayama Cordovan Strop - Japanese Natural Stones
 
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