what do you guys use for between your sharpening sessions

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
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.
 
Robz,
If you're getting good results with your steel rod then keep using it. A gentle touch will help you to avoid serious issues.

I think you would like ceramic hone quite a bit. And you could use it as an intermediate step. When your steel rod stops working, try the ceramic rod. When that stops working go back to your stone. They are pretty cheap. Mac makes a white one that's available for $30USD in the states. Idahone is another reliable option. They make them in different grits. I prefer finer ones.

Another option is to get a piece of soft Arkansas. This is a natural stone that can be used splash and go and is very cheap. Quicker than having to soak a soaking stone. Plus it can refresh the apex without raising much of a burr.
 
@Bobby2shots
thank you very much for your very informative comment and for the wonderful story!!!!

I have a few questions if you don't mind

you mean a steel honing rod yes?

When I say "steel", I'm referring to an all metal rod. When I'm talking about a ceramic honing rod, the word "steel" is not used.

edge trailing strokes on the steel honing rod?
I use edge leading strokes on the steel, do you know what is the advantage of edge leading vs edge trailing strokes on a honing steel?


Yes, many people suggest to use edge-leading only,,,, and I totally disagree. Edge-leading may be fine for folks who want to remove a prominent burr,,, but I NEVER allow my knives to dull to the extent where a burr is formed. I hone as soon as I notice even the slightest drop-off in cutting performance.

Whenever I need honing, it's usually only a small portion of the blade that is less sharp, so I start out by "finding" that duller area by veryyyy lightly dragging my ceramic honing rod along the edge of the blade. The dull area might feel like it has a tiny burr or imperfection which "catches slightly" on the honing rod. By drawing away that imperfection with an edge-trailing stroke (known as "feathering") I can continue full-length honing,,, and, by varying the angle of my strokes, I can get a nicely convexed edge.


sorry for my English but i couldn't find on the internet what a recurve on the knife means.

Just imagine that a new knife has a perfectly straight cutting edge,,, and when you apply that new edge to a dead flat surface (cutting board etc), you get complete contact along the entire length of the blade. If it doesn't have complete contact,,, usually somewhere along the middle of the blade, that usually indicates that you have "recurve"; in other words, the front and rear of the blade are touching the flat surface, but the middle is not,

Recurve is often caused by excessive uneven wear, due to incorrect sharpening or honing techniques where people have concentrated on removing metal from a small portion of the blade's length. When honing or sharpening, you have to work on the entire length of the blade.... not just a small area in the middle of the blade, otherwise, you get uneven wear,,,,or "recurve".

Recurve is not necessarily a problem, depending on what you're doing with the knife,,,, for example, slicing a tomato, or virtually anything else. If you're rock-chopping very thin herbs on a cutting board however, it can be a problem, because the cutting edge can't cut completely through those herbs. When this happens, you have to stroke the knife back and forth in a sawing motion to complete the cut,,,, which is very inefficient and frustrating.

I hope that helps. Click on where it says "click to expand" to see my responses to your questions.
 
yes but in the sentence below I think he is referring to a honing steel made out of steel and not a ceramic one this is what I wanted to know from him
is he referring to a honing steel made out of steel or
a ceramic rod made out of ceramic


he was talking about both a ceramic honing rod and a steel honing rod



I wanted to know what rod was he referring to in that sentence: "touch-up on a steel."

Bobby2shots said:
For the first two years, I basically used an Idahone ceramic rod exclusively, and in the last year or so, I have to do the occasional touch-up on a steel.

Rubz, sometimes using a "fine" ceramic rod alone, is not enough,,,,, the ceramic rod is actually a "sharpening rod",,, it actually removes metal., but, very little metal. Since the honing rod is cylindrical, the point of contact where the cylinder meets the straight blade-edge is ultra-tiny. With a steel however, you can press the side of the steel against the wider side of the bevel, and sort of "scrape out the bumps" (for lack of a better term).

The 'steel" however, is not used so much for the removal of metal, but rather, for straightening the edge. Most people refer to this as straightening the "teeth". In actuality, there are no 'teeth",,,, just tiny fluffs of metal that are so tiny that you can't see them with the naked eye.

I vary the pressure I use depending on which rod I'm honing or sharpening with. Generally, I use much lighter strokes when using the ceramic rod.
 
Rubz, sometimes using a "fine" ceramic rod alone, is not enough,,,,, the ceramic rod is actually a "sharpening rod",,, it actually removes metal., but, very little metal. Since the honing rod is cylindrical, the point of contact where the cylinder meets the straight blade-edge is ultra-tiny. With a steel however, you can press the side of the steel against the wider side of the bevel, and sort of "scrape out the bumps" (for lack of a better term).

The 'steel" however, is not used so much for the removal of metal, but rather, for straightening the edge. Most people refer to this as straightening the "teeth". In actuality, there are no 'teeth",,,, just tiny fluffs of metal that are so tiny that you can't see them with the naked eye.

I vary the pressure I use depending on which rod I'm honing or sharpening with. Generally, I use much lighter strokes when using the ceramic rod.


I use the honing steel and get decent results but from what @Benuser said about when you use a steel honing rod "With little pressure you create a wire edge, a special case of a burr, on top of the old edge. Very sharp, until it comes into contact with the board and folds over the edge, which is instantly blunt like a butter knife, or breaks leaving a moonscape-like edge behind"
 
I use the honing steel and get decent results but from what @Benuser said about when you use a steel honing rod "With little pressure you create a wire edge, a special case of a burr, on top of the old edge. Very sharp, until it comes into contact with the board and folds over the edge, which is instantly blunt like a butter knife, or breaks leaving a moonscape-like edge behind"

That could be the case if you're referring to honing "after" sharpening on stones. In my case, I'm not sharpening my Victorinox on stones,,, I'm using only the steel or ceramic rods. By using a trailing-edge stroke, I'm also sort of stropping as I sharpen, simply by varying the tilt-angle of my rods.
 
Last edited:
That could be the case if you're referring to honing "after" sharpening on stones. In my case, I'm not sharpening on stones,,, I'm using only the steel or ceramic rods. By using a trailing-edge stroke, I'm also sort of stropping as I sharpen, simply by varying the tilt-angle of my rods.
what I do is hone on the steel rod with edge leading until it isn't working anymore only then
I go to do a full sharpening at my 800 gritstone
 
Here's a picture of pretty much everything I've tried for touch up stones. Most of these are natural stones. I use them in hand. My 3 favorites are:
1. Aizu
2. Washita
3. Coticule
View attachment 155578

when touching up on stones I find it a lot easier to do it with edge trailing strokes will it work as well as what you are doing with edge leading ?
 
For softer steels (Wüsthof, Zwilling, Victorinox, etc.), I get by with using a honing rod (grooved steel) for quite a long time (weeks or months, depending on use). Eventually, the edge won't come back to life again with just the honing rod, so then I re-sharpen them, usually just on a 1000-grit stone, followed by a few passes on a strop loaded with green compound.

I don't ever use a honing rod with harder steels. Chances are that the knife is harder than than the honing rod, and I'd end up just taking chips out of the edge.
 
@r0bz,

Let's try a different approach...

You already know what you use and how you use it right? And you know the results you get from that process. Now you're wondering if there might be a better way.

So, put your honing rod away. Pick a different method to test, say edge trailing on the back of a a belt, cardboard or newspaper. Use that media (or whatever you choose) in place of the honing rod and stay with it until you feel you need to sharpen the blade again. Then ask yourself if it performed better or worse, how you liked using it, etc. You said you already know how to sharpen so if dulls quicker, no big deal.

You can keep trying different things, go back to your rod if you want, or just adopt something new.

The point is to go try stuff. You have a baseline to compare to so go see what you discover.
 
@r0bz,

Let's try a different approach...

You already know what you use and how you use it right? And you know the results you get from that process. Now you're wondering if there might be a better way.

So, put your honing rod away. Pick a different method to test, say edge trailing on the back of a a belt, cardboard or newspaper. Use that media (or whatever you choose) in place of the honing rod and stay with it until you feel you need to sharpen the blade again. Then ask yourself if it performed better or worse, how you liked using it, etc. You said you already know how to sharpen so if dulls quicker, no big deal.

You can keep trying different things, go back to your rod if you want, or just adopt something new.

The point is to go try stuff. You have a baseline to compare to so go see what you discover.
I tried to touch up on the 800 grit stone with edge trailing worked nice but I am not sure if I'm supposed to be using edge trailing or leading as I mentioned in the thread touching up and deburring edge trailing vs leading
 
If you have a clean edge and it cuts like you want and it doesn't create a wire edge, then it works for you. If it doesn't then try edge leading or compination of things. Only way to try it yourself, there are many styles that works and there isn't one ready made answer to work for us all. Happy sharpening and touch ups, you'll figure it out
 
I typically use a loaded leather strop but for my beater knives I do a few slow and even passes on a ceramic honing rod with light pressure. There are also times where I do a few passes on my Spyderco Sharpmaker with ultra fine stones at 30dps for touching up a micro bevel. In the end if that does not work then back to the 3000 stone. Still working to perfect my sharpening skills so I start with a higher grit whenever possible for basic edge maintenance in order not to screw up my midline knives. Midline for me means Yoshis and HSC/// gyutos.
 
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.

Those "smooth butcher steels" are burnishing rods. You can burnish with a screwdriver shaft for example,..... hard smooth steel.
 
I tried to touch up on the 800 grit stone with edge trailing worked nice but I am not sure if I'm supposed to be using edge trailing or leading as I mentioned in the thread touching up and deburring edge trailing vs leading

Rubz,,, it simply doesn't matter. Just do whatever works to your satisfaction for the moment, and over time as you gain more experience and gear, you can try different techniques.. I'm not suggesting for one moment that my way is "the PERFECT way" or "the ONLY way",,, it just works for me with the experiment I'm conducting.
 
I sharpen customer's knives; Cutco, Calphalon, Wustoff, Henckels, Shun and lots of others. I can tell in an instant on looking at a blade with a reverse S curve shape that the owner is using a steel rod like they do in the Brazillian restaurant "for show" in front of the table before slicing of pieces of meat of a large shank. They literally whack the knife edge with the steel making a bunch of noise for show with the blade in the air. Craaazzzeee.

Some people see that and tell themselves and think "Even I can do that" and go home and whack the edge making lots of noise like in the Brazillian restaurant with the steel rod and it seems like it sharpens OK; at least in the beginning.

That type of use results in more pressure near the heel which takes off more metal there than the tip and eventually results in the S shaped edge, which ruins the knife if done for a long time. Every holiday season I see one or two boxed carving sets that have been used for a decade or two that have been steeled into a Arab Simitar shape that can't be repaired.

One other thing that happens, is the person runs the steel "straight down the edge" in one spot on the steel causing chips to fill up the little V's in the steel and then the steel bounces down the blade creating a godawful bumpy mess on the edge. I use my NIkon microscope to check out some edges where odd things 'pop-up.' Edge cracks toward the spine, corrosion, inclusions from manufacturing the blade, rust, sharpening grit size, grit direction and such are readily seen and are instructive.

Great post ... you're confirming what's been shown by electron microscope, which contracts conventional wisdom: honing rods work by removing metal. The belief that they just do gentle orthodonture on the edge looks and feels plausible, but just isn't the case.

I still like to use a bing honking grooved butcher's steel on my German chef's knife and Victorinox utility knives. It works really well on those, and leaves a nice toothy edge. But I use it much more gently than a t.v. chef—very little pressure. I hold the steel vertically against a cutting board, and glide the knife edges downward, keeping the angle steady. My favorite feature of this kind of knife is that they're so easy to maintain.
 
Great post ... you're confirming what's been shown by electron microscope, which contracts conventional wisdom: honing rods work by removing metal. The belief that they just do gentle orthodonture on the edge looks and feels plausible, but just isn't the case.

I still like to use a bing honking grooved butcher's steel on my German chef's knife and Victorinox utility knives. It works really well on those, and leaves a nice toothy edge. But I use it much more gently than a t.v. chef—very little pressure. I hold the steel vertically against a cutting board, and glide the knife edges downward, keeping the angle steady. My favorite feature of this kind of knife is that they're so easy to maintain.

Bingo!!!!
 
Back
Top