F. Dick German made Sharpening Steels?

That is a magnificent collection! Simply beautiful, and must be a treasure to own! I applaud your dedication to your collection and hope you continue to help it grow!
But for the home kitchen, I've found nothing beats a borosilicate glass rod. Although certainly too delicate for the slaughterhouse floor, borosilicate glass is harder than 99% of the steels used in modern kitchen knives, never looses its smooth surface, and easy to keep clean in the kitchen.

"HandAmerican" tried selling these 20 years ago, but with a fancy handle, and priced at $70. Too expensive for a very cheap piece of glass. I had mine made for me at a Chemical Supply shop for less than $5. (Of course, I don't have a fancy wood handle.) Borosilicate glass is used for all Chemical Lab glassware such as test tubes and retorts. You probably know 'borosilicate glass' as 'Pyrex,' for it's used in all kitchen baking dishes, glass pie plates, most glass measuring cups, etc., etc., etc. This means you could use the edge of any of these glass kitchen items as a 'steel' without paying the $70 once asked for. A glass baking dish can be had at the Dollar Store! The downside is that no one wants to collect measuring cups...


Stitchawl
 
stitchawl said:
That is a magnificent collection! Simply beautiful, and must be a treasure to own! I applaud your dedication to your collection and hope you continue to help it grow!
But for the home kitchen, I've found nothing beats a borosilicate glass rod. Although certainly too delicate for the slaughterhouse floor, borosilicate glass is harder than 99% of the steels used in modern kitchen knives, never looses its smooth surface, and easy to keep clean in the kitchen.

"HandAmerican" tried selling these 20 years ago, but with a fancy handle, and priced at $70. Too expensive for a very cheap piece of glass. I had mine made for me at a Chemical Supply shop for less than $5. (Of course, I don't have a fancy wood handle.) Borosilicate glass is used for all Chemical Lab glassware such as test tubes and retorts. You probably know 'borosilicate glass' as 'Pyrex,' for it's used in all kitchen baking dishes, glass pie plates, most glass measuring cups, etc., etc., etc. This means you could use the edge of any of these glass kitchen items as a 'steel' without paying the $70 once asked for. A glass baking dish can be had at the Dollar Store! The downside is that no one wants to collect measuring cups...


Stitchawl
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Based on info I was able to pull up, borosilicate glass is actually 580 Vickers, which is a little under 53 Rockwell C. But steeling doesn't work quite the same as conventional abrasion, and while with materials that are harder than the steel of the knife you can get some material removal, you're mostly dealing with pressure, and it's much like how a lead bullet can pierce a car door despite the door being made from steel. But a well-hardened steel should actually be harder than than the glass, and if it's hard chrome plated, as most are these days, it should have a Vickers of 800-1000. I typically finish my scythe edges by using a "whipping stick" made of pine, but it still produces a marked improvement in edge condition despite not being loaded with abrasive of any kind other than trace amounts of silica in the wood (which produce negligible effect.) You can steel knives on a piece of mild steel rod if you want and it'll produce results. It's mostly the cut of the steel that depends on the hardness to function effectively, as that both increases pressure and creates a file-like cutting action on any rolled portions of the edge.
 
Smooth glass would do sweet FA to pick up the edge of a butcher's knife... basically any completely smooth polished steel is useless. Needs to have lines in it.
 
Old-School said:
Having been a slaughterman pulling 5-6 day weeks for the last 17 straight years on what's probably Australia's fastest single chain slaughter floor operating at 178 head/hour, there's only 1 brand of steel I use and it's F. DICK and if it ain't pre-war it ain't worth using. "They don't make 'em like they used to" rings true here, I have a small collection of pre-war steels, 14', 12' rounds and a 12' flat and they'd be worth more to me than a millionaire's collection of sport cars. As for knives, I have 3 favourite makes... 1. Victorinox Swibo, 2. F. Dick and 3. Solingen. High carbon all the way, easy to sharpen and holds an edge all day... also, I'm not one for hollow grinding my knives. I work with a lot of blokes that are hollow grinding those New Zealand made VICTORY skinning knives... I've used them and yeah... if you really want to work for your $$ then be my guest but I like my knives to do the hard yards and I'll stick with Victorinox Swibo, F.Dick and Solingen for the rest of my working life. As for steels, I won't touch those fancy new modern Replicas. Pre-war all the way!
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The reason I quote you is that you have stated in No3 that Solingen is a brand of Cutlery along with further in your post It’s a town that makes many brands/lines.. That why. Take care!
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
The reason I quote you is that you have stated in No3 that Solingen is a brand of Cutlery along with further in your post It’s a town that makes many brands/lines.. That why. Take care!
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I stated that I use Solingen branded knives... that is all... :)
 
Old-School said:
Smooth glass would do sweet FA to pick up the edge of a butcher's knife... basically any completely smooth polished steel is useless. Needs to have lines in it.
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Twenty years of using a smooth glass rod in my kitchen have always produced excellent results. Time enough to discover the reality of using a smooth glass rod. How many years have you used one that you can state so positively that it doesn't work? Or are you just making an assumption and stating that as a fact?

FortyTwoBlades said:
Based on info I was able to pull up, borosilicate glass is actually 580 Vickers, which is a little under 53 Rockwell C. But steeling doesn't work quite the same as conventional abrasion, .... (snipped for brevity)

Quite correct. It doesn't work the same way as abrasives. One doesn't need to use abrasive action when steeling a knife UNLESS one wants to REMOVE metal. When I want to remove metal, I prefer to use a stone. Much more control and much more effective for me.
The Borosilicate glass rod works by pressure, as you state, and does so very nicely. However, it does have two drawbacks;
1. It is more fragile than a steel rod, certainly not suited for industrial use.
2. It is not aggressive, in that it does not remove metal. So long as one's knives are sharp to begin with, it is very effective at maintaining that edge.


Stitchawl
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stitchawl said:
Twenty years of using a smooth glass rod in my kitchen have always produced excellent results. Time enough to discover the reality of using a smooth glass rod. How many years have you used one that you can state so positively that it doesn't work? Or are you just making an assumption and stating that as a fact?
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Sure, using a piece of glass to straighten the edge of a little factory sharpened blade that you use to chop onions on a cutting board may very well seem effective... do my job for 5 mins, on a slaughter floor processing 178 head of cattle per hour and you'll quickly see a glass rod for keeping a knife sharp is about as useless as windscreen wipers on a submarine. LOL
 
Steels with a completely polished and groove-free surface are known as "slicks" and are one of the many options that F. Dick has produced both historically and currently. You don't need to have a grooved surface for a honing rod to produce results, it's just going to be optimum for different contexts than different kinds of grooved steels will.
 
I work with over 1000 slaughterman and butchers daily... trust me... none of them use smooth or polished steels... they're useless. Almost all of them will buy smooth or polished steels and then cut lines in them with either 400 or 600 grit sandpaper and then lightly smooth that over with a single pass of 1200 grit. Blokes will also get factory lined fine or rough steels and completely sand them smooth either by hand or with a belt sander to remove all the factory lines and then cut their own with sandpaper or pit them in acid. But no one uses a polished completely smooth steel... they do nothing except look pretty.
 
jose65 said:
or pit them in acid?
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Yeah... some blokes prefer pitted steels over lined... basically you leave the steel in acid for about 2 weeks, it eats tiny pits into the steel.. hence the term "pitted steel" those pits perform much like lines do when honing a knife edge. :)
 
A pitted steel has the advantage that it lasts a lot longer than a lined steel... blokes like me that cut lines in with sandpaper do it weekly to once a month depending on use. A pitted steel only needs to be periodically cleaned my taking a handful of sand and dishwasher liquid and gently rubbing the steel under running water... personally I don't use pitted steels, I cut my own lines.
 
Spideyjg said:
I got an ancient 14" F Dick round I'll have to dig out and put a pic up of it.
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Nice! I've got about a dozen of those big 14's and still collecting them... have bought 7 now in the last week for restoration. They're beautiful to work with.
 
Old-School said:
I work with over 1000 slaughterman and butchers daily... trust me... none of them use smooth or polished steels... they're useless.
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Yes, they are useless to slaughtermen.
They are very effective in the kitchen. You choose the correct tools for the job at hand. :)


Stitchawl
 
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Old-School, I never thought I'd be impressed by steels, wow. Those are beautiful! About how long does it take you to get the steel polished that way assuming it's been neglected for a long time?
 
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