Miyabi 5000 MCD-B maintenance

[KekkeBGreen]

Hello BladeForums.
I have a question regarding my newly bought Chefsknife.

Should I use an ceramic honing steel. Or not use any honingsteel at all, and just send it to the local smith each year. Their recommendations is whetstones. But I don't have the balls to do anything to that blade involving whetstones.
So please help me!

Thank you in advance answers!

 

[MusicSmith]

First, what needs to be accomplished? Realize that honing rods and whetstones do two very different tasks. A honing rod will be useful for lightly touching up the edge, making it feel sharper by re-aligning any microscopic rolling of the edge. Stones establish a new primary cutting edge. For a knife that hard though (HRC~63), the tendency of the steel will generally be to chip before rolling, so a ceramic rod may not be very useful, and could damage the edge if used improperly. Stones require a lot of practice, but wont damage the edge if you set up at the wrong angle.

If you really don't want to use stones (I highly recommend learning), send it to a professional sharpener. I personally don't use a hone on my knives. If they begin to get dull, I touch them up quick on a 6000 grit waterstone. It takes maybe 2 minutes to get them back to screaming sharp. This could probably be done using a hone, but I'm used to my consistent results on a stone. Every so often I'll reset the primary edge on a 1000 grit stone.

 

[jdm61]

Or you can get a "guided" stone based system like an Edge Pro.