Kitchen knife steels

vltor17

vltor17

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I have an excellent F Dick honing steel, it works as advertised. My sharpening steel is a two dollar beauty from the thrift store. What do you guys use for light kitchen knife maintenance? Specifically looking for a decent “sharpening” steel. Thanks!
 
Steels are designed to re align the edge when it rolls out of alignment and most don't actually "sharpen". I have used them on softer western style knives and they work well. The older ones seem to work better than the newer ones?

Ceramic rods will actually remove material and sharpen, so that may be a better way to go if you want to sharpen a knife?

For maintenance, I use a double sided leather strop with 2 different diamond compounds.
 
I use a ceramic rod. Cheap and effective and it works better on harder steels than a honing steel.

Plenty of options out there. I use the white ceramic, which is the finer of the 2 grits I'm aware of. Brown is a little courser but would still work.

I currently have one that has a ribbed section and flat section on the rod, I don't think the ribs make any difference other than make the knife feel different passing over the rod. Doing it again, I would just a regular one, but even this one wasn't too expensive (kyocera brand, maybe?).

For my pocket knives, I've used the little 6" rods for years for touch ups. The rods are like $1.50 from various places and I just hold the rod and use it. For kitchen knives, being much larger blades, I prefer a handle for a little more safety.
 
vltor17 said:
I have an excellent F Dick honing steel, it works as advertised. My sharpening steel is a two dollar beauty from the thrift store. What do you guys use for light kitchen knife maintenance? Specifically looking for a decent “sharpening” steel. Thanks!
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Fdick micro is pretty much the best you can get. Once that stops working just go to the stones.
 


Look into the sharpening steel Scott Gossman sells on his site...
G Gossman Knives

He didn't come up with the idea, I think it's an Ole timey thing from a long gone era.
His is D2 tool steel. I know it's hard, but off hand I don't remember what HRC?

I have the large one, and I wish it was larger.
But, I still love it and use it All the time.

It kinda hones, sharpens, and trues the edge all at once. Described as slightly more aggressive than stropping.
 
Crag the Brewer said:


Look into the sharpening steel Scott Gossman sells on his site...
G Gossman Knives

He didn't come up with the idea, I think it's an Ole timey thing from a long gone era.
His is D2 tool steel. I know it's hard, but off hand I don't remember what HRC?

I have the large one, and I wish it was larger.
But, I still love it and use it All the time.

It kinda hones, sharpens, and trues the edge all at once. Described as slightly more aggressive than stropping.
Click to expand...
According to Scott, they’re 63 HRC. Love mine.
 
I have an old Schrade flat steel. It works great on some knives. Anything with hrc. over 55-58 gets the strop for touch ups. Chicago Cutlery and Old Hickory is fine for the flat steel. I don’t even consider it for Konosuke, Gehei, etc.
 
xsharp said:
I have an old Schrade flat steel. It works great on some knives. Anything with hrc. over 55-58 gets the strop for touch ups. Chicago Cutlery and Old Hickory is fine for the flat steel. I don’t even consider it for Konosuke, Gehei, etc.
Click to expand...

It's probably heat treated differently....but
I use my GST (I think that's how it's spelled?) in the knives I make up to and a hair over 64HRC
 
This steel has survived just about 30 years in the restaurant industry, used every working day. It would be a long day without this trusty sidekick.

Smooth but with grooves and oval in shape this model is called the Multicut Flat Oval Steel. This particular one is from the mid-80s though now I believe the smooth model is no longer available; they all have the 'micro-grooves'. 😒

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Chefget said:
This steel has survived just about 30 years in the restaurant industry, used every working day. It would be a long day without this trusty sidekick.

Smooth but with grooves and oval in shape this model is called the Multicut Flat Oval Steel. This particular one is from the mid-80s though now I believe the smooth model is no longer available; they all have the 'micro-grooves'. 😒

View attachment 2752815View attachment 2752816
Click to expand...
I was at my friend Richard McCann's shop, when a man came in to get a new metal scabbard made for his knife and steel. He worked someplace where he broke down beef/cattle. He had a commercial knife and a F. Dick steel like this , but the smooth one, he swore by it. John
 
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Chefget said:
This steel has survived just about 30 years in the restaurant industry, used every working day. It would be a long day without this trusty sidekick.

Smooth but with grooves and oval in shape this model is called the Multicut Flat Oval Steel. This particular one is from the mid-80s though now I believe the smooth model is no longer available; they all have the 'micro-grooves'. 😒

View attachment 2752815View attachment 2752816
Click to expand...
Thanks for the pics and story! She looks like a survivor. My grandfather was a meat cutter. I had the privilege of processing many animals with him over the years. He used the cheapest carbon knives he could find. Sharpened them by hand on stones, but always maintained with a polished steel as we were breaking down. I was maybe 7, I tried to emulate him steeling a knife. He had to explain that it wasn’t speed, it was the angle. Imagine a 7 yr old kid, whacking a knife against a steel, trying to be cool like grandpa. Sorry, I got lost in this story. Good memories.
 
Only steel that should be in the kitchen is 12C27. Those morrell looking rods people scrape knived across are crap. Throw them in the bin and spend $5 on a ceramic rod. Or get fancy like me and keep a very fine finishing stone in the kitchen. I used the big purple yesterday on my kitchen knives. Sliced up a pork loin effortlessly afterwards. The funny thing about knives, once you properly finish a good edge, you can keep it up with just a fine finishing stone and it never really gets dull.
 
Contrary to popular belief fdick micro works well on even very hard low alloy steels such as 1.2519 @ 65 hrc and ApexUltra @66-67. Of course it can’t replace stones, but it prolongs the time between sharpening and saves some knife steel in the process.
 
I’ve got a couple messermeister rods to straighten edges and if I actually have to sharpen i use dmt plates…but I go years between using the plates, honing rods do the job.
 
This works great in the kitchen.

www.worksharptools.com

Ceramic Honing Rod

Keep your kitchen knives sharp and always ready for action with our Ceramic Honing Rod. Unlike traditional honing rods, our innovative design features built-in angle guides, ensuring a consistent and precise 20° angle every time you hone your knives. The fine ceramic hone quickly removes a small...
www.worksharptools.com www.worksharptools.com

honing-rod-hero-2.jpg
 
For quick touch ups & all but reprofiling these three are my go-to sidekicks. From coarsest to finest: black handle diamond rod (Mercer I think), white handle Dexter diamond rod that seems to have gotten finer over the years, fat-boy ceramic rod I flattened a couple sides of the handle on to keep it from rolling off the table. Both diamond rods are flattened ovals. The Dexter has fairly sharp creased edges on the rod shaft, whereas the black handle one has more rounded/radiused corners. The black one came with a steel plate bolster (WTF!?!?!?!!) that I removed and replaced with JB Weld epoxy filling the handle face voids to insure the handle doesn't fall off, fronted with a patch of gasket material from the auto parts store. I cut a pair of cross-shaped slits in the gasket to slip it over the rod. Not fancy, but it works.
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I seldom go as coarse as the black handle rod. The white Dexter will yield a very capable edge without further refinement. The fat ceramic rod is actually used mostly when I'm doing flimsy newsprint testing. As noted by others, once you get a knife sharp it is very easy to maintain. A handful or two of strokes on that Dexter on each side of the blade will typically get me going again.

ETA: Here's a picture of the cross-sections of the Dexter and the black handle rod. The Dexter lost its plastic tip years ago, so I need to be careful not to start my sharpening stroke too high or I'll mash the edge onto that exposed steel end of the rod. Which I've done a few times. 😖 Maybe time for some Plasti-Dip or some such thing.
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And always get a diamond rod or honing steel with generous finger protection to guard your digits from strokes that over run the length of the rod.
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I use the Wustoff steel that came with a three knife original Grand Prix set that I've had forever. Sharpen the knives with a couple Spyderco bench stones and keep the edges aligned with the steel. Works for me.
 
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