Oval Ceramic Sharpening Rods

[Uath]

These aren't a primary sharpening tool. I prefer a medium Arkansas stone for that. The ceramic sharpening rods are meant as a substitute for a chef's steel. IMHO, ceramic rods are much better than steel for their purpose.
I've had both a round ceramic rod and an oval one. I like the oval one better. It's more instinctive and works super well with a minimum of effort. If you regularly touch up your blade with a ceramic rod, you'll need to sharpen much less. They're pretty "Gentle" on the blade.

Get an oval ceramic rod and try it out. I think you'll agree.

 

[midnight flyer]

SNIP
I've had both a round ceramic rod and an oval one. I like the oval one better. It's more instinctive and works super well with a minimum of effort. If you regularly touch up your blade with a ceramic rod, you'll need to sharpen much less. They're pretty "Gentle" on the blade.

Get an oval ceramic rod and try it out. I think you'll agree.

I have been using them for about 20 years now. I started with diamond rods I bought at the local restaurant supply when I started doing more cooking. First oval rod was a 12" Russell in 600gr. Great for my meat cutting efforts. Found another rod somewhere that was 800gr and like the edge better. Still wasn't touching my carry knives with the rods, but it was great for my kitchen stuff.

Then I found a 1200gr diamond rod that is excellent. You can sharpen just about anything on it and get a very nice edge. Now I touch up a lot of my knives with the 1200gr rod and refresh the edges on my kitchen knives every time I use them whether they need it or not. In an earlier thread I commented that I use them to sharpen my friend's karambits or heavily recurved blades. As a free hand sharpener myelf, the rods took about a week to master.

Like you, can't recommend these as a tool in the box enough. I only use the diamond rods, and no rod under 12" as the short ones are too hard to manipulate.

Robert

 

[marcinek]

The ceramic sharpening rods are meant as a substitute for a chef's steel.

Nope. A steel and a stone have different functions. Steels merely realign an edge. A ceramic rod creates an edge.

What you are saying is similar to saying "A ceramic rod is meant as a substitute for a loaded strop hone."

That said, ceramic rods, like the ones in a Sharpmaker, are excellent sharpening tools. Chef's steels I find more suited to thinner, softer butchers knives, which have very little to do with modern chef's knives. Though you can do the "shing shing shing" routine with them and impress people who don't realize the steel is doing nothing.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Good steels are perfectly capable of maintaining modern chef's knives of appropriate hardness, and most steels do remove some small amount of metal, as evidenced by the common buildup of metal fines at the tip, which becomes magnetized through repeated use. It's like a very fine file with the teeth 90° to their usual orientation. Steels that don't remove material have a polished, smooth surface and are called "slicks". Ceramic rods can be used as a steel for similar realignment of the apex and a very light honing action, like a steel does.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

For typical kitchen stainless knives at mid-high-50s HRC, I actually prefer a simple chef's steel or a 'slick' (polished) steel. Can go a long while to maintain edge alignment on these knives, using these tools, with minimal removal of metal. The polished steel will also gradually polish the bevels on these knives, if one prefers a polished edge for some kitchen uses (great for fruits, veggies, etc).

Ceramic rods are nice, but are less tolerant of slightly heavy pressure, which can introduce more burring issues on the simpler stainless blades. And they'll remove metal with even the lightest touch, whether the edge actually needs that or not. Even when I've used ceramics to refresh some of my kitchen knives, I've always found it advantageous to follow with the 'slick' steel to align the somewhat burred edge coming off the ceramic.

More often than not, when it comes time to fully reset an edge that's been maintained on a steel for a while, I'll use a simple aluminum oxide oilstone ('India', etc) for that. Following that, I'll again de-burr and/or fully align that new edge on the 'slick'. Works impressively well, done this way.

 

[honer1]

These aren't a primary sharpening tool. I prefer a medium Arkansas stone for that. The ceramic sharpening rods are meant as a substitute for a chef's steel. IMHO, ceramic rods are much better than steel for their purpose.
I've had both a round ceramic rod and an oval one. I like the oval one better. It's more instinctive and works super well with a minimum of effort. If you regularly touch up your blade with a ceramic rod, you'll need to sharpen much less. They're pretty "Gentle" on the blade.

Get an oval ceramic rod and try it out. I think you'll agree.

 

[honer1]

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, but I don't find many references to ceramic sharpening (honing) steels. I use a 12" Messermeister ceramic steel in place of the steel one I used previously. It just (at least in my hands) seems ro give a sharper, more durable edge. My kitchen knives are mainly Wusthof, but I have a few FB Dick's as well. My questions are about the cleaning of the ceramic. Are the dark streaks from the knives of any hindrance in continuing the steeling process? Intuitively, I would think that they do, and have periodically cleaned mine with Barkeeper's Friend. Not a perfect cleaning, but better than other products. I am hesitant to use anything more abrasive, and would like some suggestions.
Thanks for your time. Please let me know if I should post elsewhere.
Mike Acord

 

[mycough]

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, but I don't find many references to ceramic sharpening (honing) steels. I use a 12" Messermeister ceramic steel in place of the steel one I used previously. It just (at least in my hands) seems ro give a sharper, more durable edge. My kitchen knives are mainly Wusthof, but I have a few FB Dick's as well. My questions are about the cleaning of the ceramic. Are the dark streaks from the knives of any hindrance in continuing the steeling process? Intuitively, I would think that they do, and have periodically cleaned mine with Barkeeper's Friend. Not a perfect cleaning, but better than other products. I am hesitant to use anything more abrasive, and would like some suggestions.
Thanks for your time. Please let me know if I should post elsewhere.
Mike Acord

Barkeepers friend ought to be all you need, i shake some on a wet scotchbrite and have at it...

Russ

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, but I don't find many references to ceramic sharpening (honing) steels. I use a 12" Messermeister ceramic steel in place of the steel one I used previously. It just (at least in my hands) seems ro give a sharper, more durable edge. My kitchen knives are mainly Wusthof, but I have a few FB Dick's as well. My questions are about the cleaning of the ceramic. Are the dark streaks from the knives of any hindrance in continuing the steeling process? Intuitively, I would think that they do, and have periodically cleaned mine with Barkeeper's Friend. Not a perfect cleaning, but better than other products. I am hesitant to use anything more abrasive, and would like some suggestions.
Thanks for your time. Please let me know if I should post elsewhere.
Mike Acord

On a use-by-use basis, after 'steeling' a knife or a few on the rod, a pink pencil eraser works pretty well to clean up the streaks left. I've been in the habit of rubbing down ceramics with the pink eraser more often than not, immediately after using them. If you don't let the rods get too full of the swarf (dark streaks), they're easier to clean up this way, and that's usually enough. If the rods do get a little too dirty for the eraser to adequately clean up, then the BKF treatment works better to 'deep clean' them to (nearly) 'as-new' shape.

BTW, another incentive to keep pressure light when using ceramics, is they'll be easier to clean up afterward. Heavy pressure, I've noticed, seems to embed the swarf more firmly, and rods used with too much pressure are more difficult to clean up.

 

[JD Spydo]

I own several sharpening steels (not ceramic) made the F. Dick Co. out of Germany and I've had really decent results with those over the years for different finishing type jobs>> and I highly recommend any products made by F. Dick Co. I do own a couple of ceramic sharpening rods but both of mine are round and not oval. Now most of my F. Dick sharpening steels are oval so I'm sure there are advantages to that shape for most sharpening/aligning jobs. I would like to get some more ceramic rods and would love to try some in the oval shape but not sure who makes top quality units. Now F. Dick is now making a couple of ceramic models and I think one of them is oval. Who else makes high quality ceramic sharpening rods? The ceramic rods I have now are both made by Lansky/Crockstick. So who else makes high quality ceramic sharpening rods?