alternative way of sharpening with chef's steel

B

badkuk

Joined
Feb 14, 2016
Messages
4
Hi All,

Does it make sense to sharpen knives in this manner:

1. stand chef's steel on table at desired angle
2. place blade at 90deg and drag it down

sorta like what you'd do with a Lansky Turnbox?

i just thought that it would be easier to maintain the angle this way vs. what you'd usually do with the chef's steel. tia
 
I suppose it will work.
But just one correction - a true steel does not sharpen, it re-aligns the edge. You're just buying time until you have to sharpen. Though now there are things like the Idahone that are abrasive that you can sharpen with.
 
badkuk said:
Hi All,

Does it make sense to sharpen knives in this manner:

1. stand chef's steel on table at desired angle
2. place blade at 90deg and drag it down

sorta like what you'd do with a Lansky Turnbox?

i just thought that it would be easier to maintain the angle this way vs. what you'd usually do with the chef's steel. tia
Click to expand...

Your better off using it the traditional way,a sharpening steel doesn't remove much metal at all and that's a concept most people get wrong,a sharpening steel just realign's the edge more then anything.
If your trying to touch up your blade you'd be better off getting a good quality diamond paste or emulsion,if you look at a thread I just did about diamond paste you can see where you can pick up some stuff at a really good price and also a very high concentration of diamonds.

Depending on what grit you stopped sharpening at will depend on what paste you should get,you can find conversion chart's online that convert Micron's to grit,I often use a paste 2 micron's what I stopped sharpening at then use a paste that convert's to as close to the same grit as I stopped sharpening at.
 
badkuk said:
Hi All,

Does it make sense to sharpen knives in this manner:

1. stand chef's steel on table at desired angle
2. place blade at 90deg and drag it down

sorta like what you'd do with a Lansky Turnbox?

i just thought that it would be easier to maintain the angle this way vs. what you'd usually do with the chef's steel. tia
Click to expand...


Most of the time it is recommended to hold the steel dead vertical and align the edge to a degree. Alternatively you can just practice holding the steel and running the knife along it, which works a lot better for speed.

Grooved steels work like a file, so the knife should be low Rockwell hardness or it just won't work well no matter what else you do. You should apply firm pressure to start for the first handful of passes, once you feel the steel begin to catch you'll know its removing metal. A Sharpie can be used to help with this so you get more of a feel for where you're at.

A smooth steel only works by plastic deformation and cannot really sharpen an edge, though it can draw it out into a wire.
 
Good quality grooved steels are hardened into low/mid-60s HRC, just like files as mentioned above. Using one with light pressure removes a little bit of metal from edges intended to be maintained with these steels, i.e., typical stainless kitchen cutlery hardened to mid/high-50s HRC. Those knives can truly be sharpened with such a steel. Using a good steel with heavy pressure can pretty well shred an edge, just as can be done with a decent file.

Old kitchen knives that've been solely maintained on hardened steels for a long time develop some recurve in the edge profile, due to metal being removed by steeling over a long period of time. That induced recurve makes it impossible to ignore or deny the abrasive effect of steeling.

Cheaper kitchen steels, like the ones included with many inexpensive knife block sets, may not be very well-hardened and may not quite live up to the cutting, file-like performance of the good ones.

The whole key in using a steel is to keep the touch very light. If that can be done as described in the suggested method, then it could work.
 
Last edited:
The guy who had the Victorinox franchise in Edmonton some years ago told me the proper way to steel is to hold the steel horizontally and draw the edge across it. He said that's how European chefs steel their knives.
 
My own reservation about using the angled-rod approach is, in my own hands, I feel there's a greater tendency to roll or excessively burr the apex this way. If the held angle for the rod is just a little bit wider-angled than the geometry of the knife edge, then more lateral pressure will be exerted against the apex. With the full weight of the spine-up blade behind the edge, there's more tendency to exceed ideal pressure exerted against the apex, if the held angle of the rod is a little too wide relative to the edge geometry.

With the rod held essentially horizontally (as I usually do it), my own tendency is to hold the knife's edge slightly 'shallow' to the rod at first, meaning first contact will be behind the cutting edge or at the shoulder of the bevel. Then, as I draw the knife along the steel (edge-leading), I very subtly raise the spine of the blade a tiny bit, to bring the 'cheeks' of the apex into contact. Done this way, the contact with the apex is always lighter and more subtle, and I have less of a tendency to roll or burr the edge in making the stroke.
 
badkuk said:
i just thought that it would be easier to maintain the angle this way vs. what you'd usually do with the chef's steel. tia
Click to expand...
Hi
Do whatever makes sense to you
An angle guide is just a bit of folded paper, tape optional
angle-guide-for-honing-rod.1661832/#post-19010690
5diaErh.jpg
 
Razor Edge products made a angle holder guide that fit on a steeling rod and then you just moved the blade downward, using light pressure. DM
 
Alberta Ed said:
The guy who had the Victorinox franchise in Edmonton some years ago told me the proper way to steel is to hold the steel horizontally and draw the edge across it. He said that's how European chefs steel their knives.
Click to expand...
Long time meat cutter here. That's the way we all did it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top