A very quick and close look at 'steeling'

FWIW - I did a quick steeling test on my knives using idahone fine ceramic rod: a) gentle steeling 10 strokes perside b) 3x more pressure 5strokes perside. note - b) is compound ontop of a) - save time (aka lazy).

1) Endura vg-10 hrc~60 ~26deg inclusive, finished: 0.1u polydiamond then plain horsebutt leather. It quietly slice/push newspaper.
1a) Result -still slice/push but not as quiet, I can hear some tear.
1b) Result -chunky slice, push=tear.

2) CF Stretch zdp-189 hrc~64 ~34deg incl, finished: 0.5u CBN then plain horsebutt leather. It quietly slice/push newspaper
2a) still slice but not as quiet as before, some section can still push cut.
2b) won't even catch the paper.

3) BM Rant Pardue D2 hrc~60 ~40deg incl, finished on 12K stone. Slice newspaper smoothly.
3a) Won't even catch the paper
3b) Some microchips - Carbides pull out I guess

4) SKD(D2) kitchen knife hrc~64 ~22deg incl, finished: 0.1u polydiamond then plain horsebutt leather. Slice TP smoothly.
4a) small microchips - no more slicing thru tp, slice newspaper quietly, can't push cut.
4b) oh golly much bigger chips - a few are over 1mm tall.

5) 420HC (Buck 119) hrc~59 ~40deg incl, finished on 4k stone. Slice&push newspaper smoothly.
5a) Slice&push newspaper smoothly.
5b) Developed some burr, after deburred - slice&push paper fine.

I've a few more high end alloys I can test but no need since the results are quite clear - Steeling works well for soft(high ductile) and low density (and soft?) carbide steels.

Frankly, I gave up on using my idahone 5+ years ago but hey, now I've 4 knives need sharpen. Nowaday, I addicted to md/pd/cbn/cro loaded-strop:p.
 
bluntcut said:
FWIW - I did a quick steeling test on my knives using idahone fine ceramic rod: a) gentle steeling 10 strokes perside b) 3x more pressure 5strokes perside. note - b) is compound ontop of a) - save time (aka lazy)....


I've a few more high end alloys I can test but no need since the results are quite clear - Steeling works well for soft(high ductile) and low density (and soft?) carbide steels.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you can make a call on that from a ceramic rod. The Idahone doesn't sound much smoother than a Lansky sharpstick, neither are much like a smooth steel/glass 'steel'. You might want to try the underside of some Pyrex cookware or something else hard with a much smoother surface - since you have to do some grinding anyway...:)
 
Lagrangian said:
Hi HeavyHanded,

Thanks! Very interesting :)
Even if your father-in-law was not interested in metallurgy, he must have had very deep hands-on knowledge and very deep practical experience about how to do highly refined sharpening and cutting. I would've loved to have talked to him about cutting and sharpening in whatever context he would wish to chat about (any blades in any context, even if not everyday cutting).


Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
Click to expand...

He's still around, though (aside from me) he doesn't generally indulge in technical discussions with folks that don't have advanced degrees (I'm serious). Most of his practical knowledge involves shearing operations with two cutters in contact, but he did work on a number of straight cutting blades and burst cutting systems. Much of the grinding/honing was done by other engineers, his expertise was in selecting the right tool for the job and how to control the results better, so understanding the material to be cut is just as important as understanding cutting strategies/tools. From his standpoint, the cleanest "cuts" in some cases result from tearing, as it releases the least amount of loose material from whatever substrate is being reduced. He's one of the sources that convinced me the highly refined edge has its place, but so do other edge prep strategies - described a number of applications where blades were deliberately dulled somewhat or left unrefined to achieve the best results both in terms of cut quality and longevity of the cutting tool.

His depth and breadth of knowledge is staggering, covering everything from cartography to optics to mechanical engineering to electrical engineering to propagation of tropical plants in Northern latitudes...Almost everything but the social graces.:)
 
Those social graces, my wife will tell you are a challange for me at times. We're just people we can't be everything to everybody. DM
 
HeavyHanded said:
He's still around, though (aside from me) he doesn't generally indulge in technical discussions with folks that don't have advanced degrees (I'm serious). Most of his practical knowledge involves shearing operations with two cutters in contact, but he did work on a number of straight cutting blades and burst cutting systems. Much of the grinding/honing was done by other engineers, his expertise was in selecting the right tool for the job and how to control the results better, so understanding the material to be cut is just as important as understanding cutting strategies/tools. From his standpoint, the cleanest "cuts" in some cases result from tearing, as it releases the least amount of loose material from whatever substrate is being reduced. He's one of the sources that convinced me the highly refined edge has its place, but so do other edge prep strategies - described a number of applications where blades were deliberately dulled somewhat or left unrefined to achieve the best results both in terms of cut quality and longevity of the cutting tool.

His depth and breadth of knowledge is staggering, covering everything from cartography to optics to mechanical engineering to electrical engineering to propagation of tropical plants in Northern latitudes...Almost everything but the social graces.:)
Click to expand...

Hi HeavyHanded,

From what you've told me, I think I wish I could meet him (except maybe for the social graces part). As for advanced degrees, I have an undergraduate degree in physics from Cornell University (Magna Cum Laude), I went to UC Berkeley for physics grad school and passed my qualification exams, then switched fields to get a Masters of Engineering in Computer Science at Cornell, and then a Ph.D. in computer science from Dartmouth in computational biology. I've been a science junkie for most of my life.

It is my experience that a background in physics gives a solid basis for exploring other technical fields. So based on experience and enthusiasm, I'm naively (over)confident in my ability to understand other technical fields at the undergraduate level. This is why I'm starting to read technical books about metallurgy, abrasives, and cutting. Over the last millennia, a ton of knowledge has been discovered and recorded, much of it (but not all of course) as engineering. Because it is recorded and public (either in books or journal papers), it is relatively easy for me to access. Especially now, with the Internet, many journal papers and even books can be viewed, downloaded, and indexed/searched online. All of that knowledge is sitting there, just waiting to be experienced and understood, so long as you are willing to search for it, and do the _hard work_ of understanding it. But the deeper experience-based knowledge of grand-masters and field-engineers, those are virtually impossible to find, let alone acquire or experience. In many ways, deep experienced-based knowledge is more rare and more precious.

Graduate level materials that are outside of my areas of specialization, those are a different story. In particular, I don't feel much confidence in understanding graduate-level mathematics that is outside of my area. But, in general, even for graduate-level material outside of my area, I think I've done fairly well, considering. I'm someone who likes to rely on physical intuition to understand things, which is why I choose physics over mathematics. It's also why graduate level quantum mechanics was hard for me to digest; quantum is pretty darn weird! There's a joke in physics, that classical mechanics is the part of physics where the more you think about it, the more sense it makes. And quantum mechanics is the part where the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. In my experience, yes, partially true! :)

I very much like his point about the right tool for the right job. The properties of materials are incredibly varied, and a high performance cutter must be optimized to the material and to the application. I'm reminded of cooking, where it is suggested that to shred lettuce, one should tear the leaves, so that the break is along natural weakness in the leaves that reduce things like wilting along the edges. I don't know the details of why this is so (I don't know enough plant science).

Glass, metal, wood, leaves, rocks, and bone are all incredibly different, and they way they are best cut are also extremely different. But engineers and craftsmen have been learning about how to cut these over a huge span of history, and much of what they learned they recorded for the future, which includes us.

I just wish Roman Landes' book was recorded in English rather than German.

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

P.S. Note to me2: Thanks for your post. If you end up reviewing/remembering more about Kic, I would love to hear about it. Even if it's a bit complicated. Stuff like deformation of discs, and the associated mathematics (including Bessel functions and/or spherical harmonics), yeah that is super messy math. Honestly, I did not enjoy much, graduate electricity-and-magnetism where we had to slog through such stuff. But conceptually it does not scare me.

P.P.S. HeavyHanded, perhaps you could take a few stories from your father-in-law (about cutting/engineering) and post them to the forums? I'm sure they would be fascinating and much appreciated. Perhaps you could think of it as saving a a few pieces of what he learned and experienced.

P.P.P.S. I think I'm trying to say this: Engineering is also an art, a craft, and a tradition with its own culture and history. Just like other master crafts and traditions. Perhaps the only difference is that engineering is a tradition with technical emphasis.
 
Last edited:
My knife is so sharp, it can double slit the quantum eddy with scatter uncertainties (hopefully this joke doesn't sounds too gonky). I think, it is possible to write a simulation prg to calculate the outcome from collision between 2 objects. Perhaps, keeping variables matrix dimension under 20 and limit operator functions/equations to a handful. Why death-match my ERP app when I can reward with procrascination apps now.

HeavyHanded said:
I'm not sure you can make a call on that from a ceramic rod. The Idahone doesn't sound much smoother than a Lansky sharpstick, neither are much like a smooth steel/glass 'steel'. You might want to try the underside of some Pyrex cookware or something else hard with a much smoother surface - since you have to do some grinding anyway...:)
Click to expand...
Microbeveling (rescue) my endura & stretch & pardue by steeling on the lip of a pyrex measure cup. Endura - slice & push newspaper again. Stretch - got worse, chunky slice newspaper. Pardue - no improvement, scratched my pyrex cup. I am wary of D2 huge hard vanadium carbides.
 
Last edited:
Do you think I could 'steel' my kitchen knives on the narrow side of my X fine ceramic stone? I looked and can't find a steel anywhere in the house. DM
 
As far as I know, the Idahone ceramic steel, is a ceramic rod with grit of only 1200.

"This Idahone ceramic rod has a natural wood handle on it. Comes with metal ring for easy hanging. 1200 Grit."
--ChefKnivesToGo.com
http://www.chefknivestogo.com/id12cerodwna.html

So it cannot, by quite a long shot, be considered to be a smooth steel. Using the Idahone is more or less equivalent to using a 1200 grit ceramic benchstone. Not exactly, of course, since it is round and not flat. I would expect it to have the same effect as an abrasive stone, and not do much, if any, "burnishing".

I myself am more curious about the steels which are round and smooth rods, which have no apparent texture to them at all. Presumably, it is these very smooth steels which would be doing the "burnishing/plastic-flow" we've been wondering about.

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
 
Last edited:
imho, the abrasiveness of the rod isn't what degrade his edges, i guess he wouldn't get microchips on his skd kitchen knife (yoshikane?) if he used a 1200 grit ceramic. the test here was more about plastic deformation encountered on a hard rod. the ceramic ads some abrasive action to this ...

i'd love to have amix between HH's review and bluntcut's post. i mean pictures of various knives, with high end steels, hard steels, steeled with a smooth steel or borosilicate rod. i highly doubt the results are going to be as good as HH's test.

anyway in my experience with japanese kitchen knives it's just terrible. very thin edges on very hard steels don't benefit at all from this even on a smooth steel or boro rod. and i can say i tried as i've been trained to use a steel for some years (like any cook) before switching to japanese knives.
 
pwet said:
imho, the abrasiveness of the rod isn't what degrade his edges, i guess he wouldn't get microchips on his skd kitchen knife (yoshikane?) if he used a 1200 grit ceramic. the test here was more about plastic deformation encountered on a hard rod. the ceramic ads some abrasive action to this ...
Click to expand...
:thumbup:Pwet - excellent insight! 1.2Kgrit is about 6micron and those numberous microchips on Yoshikane gyuto are in the range of 100-500 (some are over 1000) microns and clearly visible. SKD (D2) is very rigid (low ductility) + some big V carbide (a whole lot of Cr carbide), which endup fractured instead of seeing plastic-flow. Steeling on the lip of a drinking glass also microchips my SKD, however this time most microchips are less than 100 microns. If I steeling only 1side with slightly raise angle, (using 20x mag) I see burrs & microchips. for 100% plastic-flow, I would see a bend-over wire-edge.

Well, for tiny bit fun/pain, I steeled my V2 & cpm-m4 hrc62-63 and ~22deg incl, against the neck of a wine glass (nice rod) at slightly raise angle. Resulted in burrs and sub 30u chips. Keep in mind that, m4 high density V & T carbides are much harder than ceramic and glass.

Ductile vs rigid steel<=> mud vs dry dirt. Science is cool, so as chips :D
 
I've been taking a look at my steels under magnification and all show radial scratches from the finishing process, including the one that came from the factory. In all cases they are much smoother than a couple of chromed tool handles/shafts I examined that had a huge number of pits, voids, and high spots. I'd love to have an authentic smooth steel from Dexter Russell or similar to compare. So far I've tested Sandvic,154cm, carbon, and AUS8. The Aus8 showed the least change optically, though still experienced a marked improvement in cutting.

There's more to this than plastic flow...
 
Hi HeavyHanded,

That's very interseting about Aus-8. Will be looking forward to more of your investigations.



Here's a brief summary of we've been considering as possible effects steeling:
(1) Plastic-Flow and/or burnishing
(2) Work-Hardening
(3) Change of geometry of the knife apex (possibly a micro-bevel created by the steeling process)

Anything else we should add?

I think we should be able to observe (1) optically. As for (2), I don't know how to test/measure this. I don't know, but in theory we could see (3) optically, but it might be very hard to measure the actual sharpness (ie: burr/radius-of-curvature) of the knife edge. Perhaps we could only test for (3) indirectly by cutting tests?

What happens if you have the microcope looking right at the cutting edge? ie: if you pushed the microscope lense too close to the knife, it would be cut by the knife edge. Is it possible at all to focus on the very apex of the knife edge? I wish we could take (electron) microscope photos similar to those of Prof. Verhoeven's, and like him, measure the actual geometric sharpness of the knife.

I would like to suggest using the following terminology which created by Singularity35:

(1) _Sharpness_ is defined purely in terms of geometry.
So sharpness tells us how pointy the knife edge is, but does not tell us how well the knife cuts. For example, it may be possible to make a very sharp knife out of soft lead. But it would be a terrible cutter.

(2) _Cutting Ability_ is a defined purely in terms of cutting tests.
There are many types of tests and many types of materials to cut. So cutting ability is the true test of performance of a knife, but in prinicple does not tell us how sharp the knife is.

Neither term, sharpness nor cutting ability, is precisely defined here, so they're both informal. We don't necessarily have to use this specific set-up, but I would like us to distinguish between knife geometry and knife cutting ability. Suggestsions would be great.

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

P.S. I'm not sure that steels are actually designed to be ultra-smooth. I have a very small smooth steel from the company that John Juranitch runs
http://www.razoredgesystems.com/pro...lvm_fly2_grey.tpl&product_id=21&category_id=5
I should look at it under magnification... But even just by eye, I can see it deliberately has some kind of micro-texturing. But I don't think that micro-texturing removes metal and I'm pretty sure the ceramic rod does remove metal (because I see grey lines being drawn on the ceramic rod when I use it). I think this is because the texture in the steel is something like mountains with rounded and smoothed off peaks.

I bought a 0.25" inch diameter tungsten-carbide rod to play with. I may try polishing it to a mirror finish, then using it as a steel. Unfortunately like almost all "tungesten carbide" it really is tungsten-carbide particles cemented together in a cobalt binder. So, it certainly has a particle/grain structure, and I don't know what "grit size" it would be. I could have, but didn't want to spend the money, on a super-high-grade tungsten-carbide rod with sub-micron tungsten-carbide particles. So I bought a cheap one, which probably means the tungsten-carbide particles are several to many microns wide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemented_carbide
 
Last edited:
My ceramic stone is rated at 15-1600 grit. This stone's surface effect I can raise some from resurfacing it, perhaps up to 18-1900. Would this be in the neighborhood of a good steel? Thanks, DM
 
Lagrangian said:
Hi HeavyHanded,

That's very interseting about Aus-8. Will be looking forward to more of your investigations.



Here's a brief summary of we've been considering as possible effects steeling:
(1) Plastic-Flow and/or burnishing
(2) Work-Hardening
(3) Change of geometry of the knife apex (possibly a micro-bevel created by the steeling process)
Click to expand...

I'll take a closer look after repeating the entire process just to make sure - the knife is straight from the factory and that was the first sharpening at my hands. I just gave it a second go around and it seems much sharper.

To the comments about cutting ability - this will depend on starting grit (or finishing as the case may be) immediately before steeling. I'm only using a fine Crystalon and stropping on some oil and swarf from a file (that makes the 'before' pics). It can swat TP no problem without using the tip, and just push cut tho it catches some. Following ten passes on the steel it takes a touch more speed to swat the TP but it pushcuts with noticeably less hitching. I have to include this - following a moderate number of passes I have yet to see any burr formation - usually the edge appears to be cleaner at 15x or to the unaided eye.
 
David Martin said:
My ceramic stone is rated at 15-1600 grit. This stone's surface effect I can raise some from resurfacing it, perhaps up to 18-1900. Would this be in the neighborhood of a good steel? Thanks, DM
Click to expand...


DM, I'm not sure anything can be done to a ceramic stone to make it behave as a steel - I made one last night from a long shank paddle bit (14" Irwin) - I rummaged around till I found one that a hack saw blade couldn't bite on with casual pressure and polished it up. It looks under magnification to be nearly identical to my Foster Bros smooth steel.
 
I think most ceramic benchstones and ceramic rods are made by binding alumina powder together. (Alumina, also known as aluminum-oxide is more commonly known as sapphire and ruby.) This might be done with a binder (extra substance), or the alumina powder might be sintered together. For abrasives, these alumina pieces are usually at least semi-porous, meaning they did not squish the particles together to form a fully dense part. So even if you polish the surface, I think they effectively still have a relatively coarse grit number. I could be wrong about this, but I'm fairly sure....

There are parts that are 100% fully dense alumina. For example, you can buy sapphire/ruby ball bearings as well as optically clear sapphire parts. I don't know, but I think the optical parts are manufactured by a process different from sintering. For jewlery, the rubies are made by some kind of crystal growth process (or at least this was true 10 years ago according to a documentary). Optical sapphire parts are incredibly expensive. Some watches (like ones which cost over $400) often have a synthetic sapphire watch crystal. This is used because sapphire is more scratch resistant than mineral glass, but the down-side is sapphire is more reflective. So sometimes these fancy watches have some kind of anti-reflection coating on their sapphire crystals.

If you are rolling in money, it would be interesting to steel a knife against an optically clear and smooth sapphire rod or plate. Or if you are willing to sacrifice an old broken $400 watch. Just kidding of course! :)
 
Last edited:
Most ceramic sharpening implements are sintered. The fine and ultrafine "rods" for the Triangle Sharpmaker are certainly sintered. I suspect there is a little bit of "steeling" going on when using them especially with heavy pressure.

When I looked at the very soft blade I steeled, it didn't really show anything, but again I was at only 40x, and using very light pressure. Who knows what it looks like at 500x or greater.
 
me2 said:
Most ceramic sharpening implements are sintered. The fine and ultrafine "rods" for the Triangle Sharpmaker are certainly sintered. I suspect there is a little bit of "steeling" going on when using them especially with heavy pressure.

When I looked at the very soft blade I steeled, it didn't really show anything, but again I was at only 40x, and using very light pressure. Who knows what it looks like at 500x or greater.
Click to expand...

FWIW, I took a first look at the knife in the pics at 64x and all I could see was a bright patch along the apex. At 160 I said "hmm this is interesting", at 640x I said "what the..."

As a side note, I'm getting really good at prepping edges using just the fine side of my combination stone.:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top