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- Jun 29, 1999
- Messages
- 9,995
A valve stem makes a great smooth honing steel. Check your local engine repair shop; they probably have a bucket of old valves for free.
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Kitchen knife steels
- Thread starter vltor17
- Start date
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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The leather finger guard hilt is a great idea RokJok - Well Done ! - I have a cheapie ceramic rod, an old vintage Sheffield steel and a triple cut Sheffield Egginton steel which is brilliant because it does touch ups on my softer steels because it can hone as well; remove steel - it's hard at HRC 64.
If the steels are rough they act like a very fine file; removing a fraction of a micron of steel with a couple of strokes depending on pressure applied obviously.
Mostly I use the bottom of a coffee mug or give a knife a dance on my diamonds - a double-sided 400/1000 grit 8" x 3" plate that gets used throughout the day - it's been hammered though; used a lot in two years.
I have a diamond plate next to my sink with magnets on it so I can quick change diamond grits - that gets used all the time for knife maintenance - "A stich in time saves nine" HaHa
That reminds me - I must get some finer Atoma diamond stones; I only have the #140 grit which is a bit rough for daily use HaHa!
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I have collected the oval shaped knife steels for many years. There were only a few manufacturers that made these and I think they were unique to German knife makers who were targeting the industrial users. I mostly have F.Dick and Gustav Emil-Ern made ovoid steels. F. Dick is still in business and still make an excellent flat or paddle shaped steel. The older steel were usually grooved with both fine and course grooves found. The really rare ovoid steel are the smooth ones. As has been said one can steel an edge on alot of surfaces, I have used glass bottles, the bottoms of stoneware and porcelain dishes, even a galvanized steel water pipe but my experience has been that the object being used should be smoother and harder than the blade steel.
I should add that I use ceramic rods almost daily and a Smith diamond flat rod occasionally. The ceramic rods get gummed up with steel so I use Barkeeper's friend scrubbed on with the abrasive side of a wet 3M kitchen sponge. Let the ceramic dry in the sink with the Barkeeper slurry on it and then an hour or so later rinse it off. The ceramic rods are fantastic.
Aardvark
Gold Member
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2002
- Messages
- 5,070
I'll try that method on my rods. Been trying various ways on them, with only partial success.
The trick with the ceramic rod is to keep the surface slick and perfect. Imperfections in the ceramic defeat the purpose. As has been stated the ceramic is more of a mild sharpening as it does rub off some steel. The results with the ceramic rods are excellent and they are not as aggressive as diamond rods.