How Do I Use My New Steel?

L

lear

Joined
Jul 23, 2000
Messages
29
I purchased a 10" sharpening steel today along with 2 kitchen knives. I have never used a steel, and after reading the brief instructions (which don't make sense) I need help.

Do you run the knive down the steel in the same direction you would sharpen (as if slicing) or do you run the knife as with stropping?

How many times?

How much pressure?

How often?

Thanks for the advice.
lear
 
Presuming your steel is a smooth one, not a ceramic stick or cylindrical "sharpener" :

- Slicing motion, about 20 degrees (don't fret over degrees too much - just not steep enough to bite nor shallow enough to miss the cutting edge).

- You are realigning the edge, not removing material, only "fixing" the micro-dents, rolls, etc...

- Do it regularly, light pressure, a few swipes (about 4 or 5 per side - same number per side). Reduce pressure to almost "feather" the final stroke. If you're a rightie holding the knife in a regular grip, slice away from you to do the left-hand edge, towards you to do the right-hand edge on the top side of the steel. It'll just "feel" right after a while.

- Steeling will significantly reduce the amount of "sharpening from scratch." It is preventative maintenance.

- With practice, you can incorporate a twist to the steel and touch up the larger Spyderco style serrations.

- Finish with a strop, if you're good at that
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Cheers,

RLR

[This message has been edited by RLR (edited 09-15-2000).]
 
Usually steels that come with sets of kitchen knives have ridges running lengthwise down the shaft. These have a potential to damage your edge so you need to use this type of steel lightly. When stroking an edge on this type of steel the edge will be rubbing along small contact areas at the peaks of one or two narrow ridges. This applies high pressure on the edge with two risks: one is that you will push the edge over too hard start to chip the edge after a few strokes, the other risk is that if you stroke with the edge forwards (slicing motion) the edge may start to cut into the steel ridge and damage the blade.

My solution when using this type of steel is to use light stropping strokes (edge trailing) and only a few strokes at a time. If your edge has rolled-over spots the stropping action will tend to pull the edge back into line with minimum effort. I do this type of stroke by holding the knife with the edge towards me and stroking it outwards along the steel. I know that this is not the commonly illustrated approach, but it works for me. Illustrations I've seen are exactly opposite to this and never felt comfortable (or safe) to me. I would only slice edge first along the steel if it were ridgeless and very hard relative to my knife alloy. I have cut into steels with some of the harder alloys used in premium hunting knives. While trying to fix a ding in a titanium nitride coated hunting knife I've actually shaved metal off of a steel.
 
The steel I bought does have light ridges that run lenghtwise. I think I would feel more comfortable using a stropping motion. If the purpose of the steel is to re-align the blade, I don't see what difference it would make as to which direction the blade is drawn. Then again, I don't know enough about this subject to trust what I think, so I appreciate all recommendations.
Thanks. lear
 
I bought a smooth steel from Razor's Edge and it works great. I use a slicing motion as often as possible and as light as possible (small diameter steel puts on more pressure per contact area). It also has a nice large hand guard and a cone at the end to use as an angle quide. BTW, I learned a lot from The Razor's Edge book of sharpening.

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A knife is by default a tool, it's only a weapon when a human chooses to make it so.

 
If you do a search here on our wonderful forums you should find info on it. I honestly don't remember how I ordered it. It was recommended to me by forum members.

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A knife is by default a tool, it's only a weapon when a human chooses to make it so.

 
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