Scooter
Active Member
what are the carbon ?
you mean knifes with a high rockwell hrc ?
what brand of honing steel do you use ?
My ss knives are Wusthof. My "carbon" is a Blenheim Forge Gyuto (blue steel #2 core) and, recently added, a Togashi ss clad white #1 Nakiri. I don't know the rockwell numbers for any of them but my humble sharpening skills can get the carbons noticeably sharper than the Wusthofs, and the edges last longer, so I suspect they are significantly harder.
My steel is a Victorinox. I had a hard time finding smooth steels in google searches but the phrase "smooth butcher steel" seems to find some. My thinking was that if honing was mostly to straighten bent and mushroomed edges, than I'd rather have a smooth steel and not take off metal unnecessarily. But maybe a mild abrasive like a ceramic rod would hone and sharpen slightly to give a better touch-up edge.
I've found honing, like stropping I suspect, to be easy and fast and I don't mind giving my ss knives a quick onceover when I'm done with them.