Using Only Steel Strops/Hones To Sharpen A DULL Knife

panella

panella

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Using Steel Hones/Strops To Sharpen A DULL Knife

I was going through my kitchen drawers today and sharpening some of my many neglected chef’s knives. They are an accumulation from over 30 years as a working chef.

As I explored my knife drawers I noticed that there were quite a few “steels” gathering dust too. A couple were “diamond” impregnated, one was ceramic, several others were fine cut, and one was a beautiful polished steel hone. One of the knives I found was an old, unused 10” high carbon Dexter Connoiseur. (see pic) I love the deep belly on those old Dexters. But it had no edge profile and would not slice paper, much less a tomato. It wouldn’t even tear into the edge of a sheet of printer paper. It was a dull knife.

As I was getting ready to profile the edge I decided to see what would happen if I used only the steels to sharpen this old dinosaur?

Now the disclaimers:
I sharpen with an EdgePro, freehand with stones, and often use a Ken Onion Work Sharp to reprofile. I also know that a steel, “sharpening steel”, or steel hone really only realigns the microscopic “wavy” edge on an otherwise sharp-ish knife. But I also had one ceramic and two diamond steels and I was determined to see if I could bring a serviceable edge to the blade using nothing but various steel strops and hones.

Game on.

I first used my old Eze Lap diamond steel. About 30 strokes per side. Then the ceramic steel 30 strokes per side. Then tested paper cutting. I did this three times until the knife began to tear the paper. Then I tried following the diamond and ceramic steels by stropping on a fine cut steel (bit of an improvement) and finally on the polished steel (bit more of an improvement).

Steel Hones.jpg

I repeated this process until the Dexter would smoothly slice paper. It was a fun experiment and didn't take much more than 30 minutes of actual stropping. Will it shave hair? No. But I think that in a few more repetitions it would – which is a relief because it means I can put back those bastard files. (=
 
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Glad you got it sharp.
I would have used the term, 'burr'. Instead of 'wavey' edge. DM
 
Thanks Dave. It was fun as an experiment, but couldn’t have been done without the ceramic and diamond hones.

In normal use steel hones don’t remove any metal from the cutting edge of a blade. They just bring the edge of a sharpened blade quickly back into alignment. A steel neither flops the edge, like a burr, from one side to the other nor removes it. That’s why I used the term “wavy” in my original description of what a steel does. I thought it more apt.

If you are saying that all edge dulling is from burrs or all edge deformities initially present or acquired, even on a freshly sharpened, stropped, and unused blade (like rolling or chipping) are burrs then I guess you have a point.

I can see how the term “burr” applies to the sharpening process that I used, but that wasn’t normal use of a steel.
 
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With a lower RC kitchen knife (about 48-52) a heavily grooved steel will definitely remove metal. I maintained a couple of kitchen knives for years using only a grooved steel to repair and a relatively smooth one to refine. Works just like a file. A fair amount of pressure needs to be applied initially to get it cutting.

The trend toward higher RC and higher carbide content steels for kitchen knives has all but rendered the grooved steel useless. The smooth one still comes in handy for refining and maintaining an edge.
 
I have noticed that on my carving knives of 440C. ^ When I stroke it on a steel to straighten the burrs back in alignment it
requires more passes. Than a sabatier (like the Dexter above) made from 420 steel. DM
 
panella said:
Thanks Dave. It was fun as an experiment, but couldn’t have been done without the ceramic and diamond hones.

In normal use steel hones don’t remove any metal from the cutting edge of a blade. They just bring the edge of a sharpened blade quickly back into alignment. A steel neither flops the edge, like a burr, from one side to the other nor removes it. That’s why I used the term “wavy” in my original description of what a steel does. I thought it more apt.
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Take cleanser and a brass brush to scrub the steel tip to butt and you would be surprised how much material comes out. They align more than remove metal but do remove some. Diamond rods fill up quick with material. Ceramic are in between steel and diamond.
 
I've noticed even knives of low-alloy stainless in mid-high 50s HRC can be abraded, therefore truly sharpened, using a grooved steel of reputable quality. This means blade steels like 420HC (Case, Buck @ HRC 55-59) and Victorinox (HRC 56) can be abraded by them. As with any decent file hardened to something above & beyond the typical hardness of mainstream stainless kitchen cutlery, as long as the 'file' teeth are hard enough, it'll cut softer metals. Not necessarily the most efficient cutting, depending on the hardness difference between the two; but it can still cut it. Decent or better grooved steels are often hardened into the low-60s HRC, just like good files.

Cheaper kitchen honing steels, such as the ones included with inexpensive/economy-priced block sets, aren't all that good from what I've seen. Those ones are probably still capable of simple realignment of a curled edge, but don't seem to take much metal off, otherwise. Trying to use them at heavier pressure, presumably to grind off metal, just results in some horribly ragged & heavily burred or rolled edges. And the honing steel itself will show more obvious wear as well, if it's not very hard or just not well-made.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
I've noticed even knives of low-alloy stainless in mid-high 50s HRC can be abraded, therefore truly sharpened, using a grooved steel of reputable quality. This means blade steels like 420HC (Case, Buck @ HRC 55-59) and Victorinox (HRC 56) can be abraded by them. As with any decent file hardened to something above & beyond the typical hardness of mainstream stainless kitchen cutlery, as long as the 'file' teeth are hard enough, it'll cut softer metals. Not necessarily the most efficient cutting, depending on the hardness difference between the two; but it can still cut it. Decent or better grooved steels are often hardened into the low-60s HRC, just like good files.

Cheaper kitchen honing steels, such as the ones included with inexpensive/economy-priced block sets, aren't all that good from what I've seen. Those ones are probably still capable of simple realignment of a curled edge, but don't seem to take much metal off, otherwise. Trying to use them at heavier pressure, presumably to grind off metal, just results in some horribly ragged & heavily burred or rolled edges. And the honing steel itself will show more obvious wear as well, if it's not very hard or just not well-made.
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I have a couple of grooved steels that i use as files and they work well :thumbsup:
I also found one in a box of stuff i bought at an Estate sale and when I tried it, the knife shaved metal from the steel rather than the other way around :confused: Definitely not all are equal.
 
chiral.grolim said:
I have a couple of grooved steels that i use as files and they work well :thumbsup:
I also found one in a box of stuff i bought at an Estate sale and when I tried it, the knife shaved metal from the steel rather than the other way around :confused: Definitely not all are equal.
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In the last few minutes, I've been fiddling with two honing steels of my own. In the case of one of them, I use the term 'honing steel' very, very loosely. It's one I found at the Goodwill Store a couple years ago. I'm not even sure it originated for this purpose, as it looks homemade, with a rod in what appears to be simple stainless, satin-finished steel; and the handle on the thing is in some sort of plastic/lucite, faux-pearl material with an aluminum guard and cap on the handle. I think I paid something like 50 cents for it when I found it at the Goodwill Store. Just HAD to bring it home for it's sheer tackiness, if for no other reason. It seems to be very good at removing any & all 'bite' from any sharpened edge. Tested it on my Buck 4-dot 112 in 425M steel, which ordinarily sharpens up beautifully on something like a Norton Fine India stone. The aggressive, bitey edge coming off of that (the India) was rendered 'biteless' with a few passes on this rod, to the extent it had a hard time cutting phonebook pages.

Following that, I brought the bite back to the Buck's blade with a few passes on a tiny grooved steel marked 'Sheffield' that came with one of my Victorinox SAKs. That little tiny rod (2.5" working length, minus the handle) has continued to amaze me in how quickly it puts 'teeth' back into an edge of such a blade steel (Case, Buck 420HC, Victorinox, etc). Can actually see the new scratches on the bevels after a pass or two. I keep it on my keyring, and use it fairly often to touch up my pocketknife blades (Buck, Vic & Opinel, most often). That's the one that convinced me, all honing steels are definitely not created equal.

I've pretty much decided, the faux-pearl-handled 'honing rod' I found at the Goodwill Store will be my designated 'poking stick' for anything I might find on the ground that I otherwise don't want to touch with my hands. Seems it's likely not much good for anything else. :D
 
Good article. Lots of informative material and answers. It’s easy to see the accumulated metal on my ceramic and diamond impregnated steels. Less so on my fine and polished steels although I don't dispute that it's there. The original purpose was to see if I could bring a very dull knife to a sharp edge using steels instead of stones or belts. The feedback has been enlightening. I don't know how long it might have taken had I not used diamond and ceramic steels even though the blade was high carbon and likely low Rc. A long time I imagine. I'll leave it to someone else to reprofile an axe blade using only a polished or fine cut steel. Based on my experiment and my experience, that would be impressive.


I was most interested in the link provided by Todd S. and the article's claim that a polished steel was sharpening by removing steel. Maybe so. But the two pictures at the end of the article show significantly different edges with the exact same caption, but both are purported to have been done with a polished steel. One showed some steel removal. The other almost none. It was a little confusing.

Anyway, we know that even water causes abrasion and to that end so undoubtedly does a polished steel. I’d hazard to guess that they both do so at comparable rates. (=
 
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panella said:
...I was most interested in the link provided by Todd S. and the article's claim that a polished steel was sharpening by removing steel. Maybe so. But the two pictures at the end of the article show significantly different edges with the exact same caption, but both are purported to have been done with a polished steel. One showed some steel removal. The other almost none. It was a little confusing.
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Those two images are from exactly the same spot on exactly the same "edge" just at two different magnifications.
panella said:
Anyway, we know that even water causes abrasion and to that end so undoubtedly does a polished steel. I’d hazard to guess that they both do so at comparable rates.
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Please, don't be insulting.
 
Most quality honing steels, whether grooved or polished, are electroplated in hardened chrome, if I recall. Chrome used as an industrial plating can be hardened to HRC 65-70. So, even on a polished steel, the plating by itself can be hard enough to remove metal from a cutlery steel blade of lower hardness, in a polishing sense, at least. I suspect the best honing steels will always be the ones that start with a heat-treat-hardened steel rod, then plated in hardened chrome.

I have a 'Mundial'-branded polished honing steel that seems, in using it, to actually thin an already-fine apex on my stainless kitchen knives. I use it as the final step in sharpening those; mainly for deburring, but it also makes a noticeable difference in refining. Works GREAT as a maintenance tool for the knives I've used it on, all in simple kitchen stainless.
 
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panella said:
Good article. Lots of informative material and answers. It’s easy to see the accumulated metal on my ceramic and diamond impregnated steels. Less so on my fine and polished steels although I don't dispute that it's there. The original purpose was to see if I could bring a very dull knife to a sharp edge using steels instead of stones or belts. The feedback has been enlightening. I don't know how long it might have taken had I not used diamond and ceramic steels even though the blade was high carbon and likely low Rc. A long time I imagine. I'll leave it to someone else to reprofile an axe blade using only a polished or fine cut steel. Based on my experiment and my experience, that would be impressive.


I was most interested in the link provided by Todd S. and the article's claim that a polished steel was sharpening by removing steel. Maybe so. But the two pictures at the end of the article show significantly different edges with the exact same caption, but both are purported to have been done with a polished steel. One showed some steel removal. The other almost none. It was a little confusing.

Anyway, we know that even water causes abrasion and to that end so undoubtedly does a polished steel. I’d hazard to guess that they both do so at comparable rates. (=
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At a macro level anyway, smooth steel refines by plastic deformation/burnishing. A grooved steel is just like a file, the usual restrictions apply to a grooved steel that apply to any fine tooth file used for sharpening, except that the grooves on the steel and not as nicely formed as those on a file.

Once all the highs and lows of the grind pattern are gone, further steeling with a smooth steel will draw the edge out into a wire or burr, or it will collapse against the pressure = pressure burring.

The more refined the edge to begin, the less the smooth steel will do.

The actual surface treatment (even a smooth steel has some surface characteristics) makes a real difference in how the blade steel reacts to burnishing.

Complicating the issue, steels come in a variety of aggressiveness and it all matters.

https://bladeforums.com/threads/a-very-quick-and-close-look-at-steeling.956235/

Edit to add: when I get a chance I'll pull all those pics off photobucket and move them to IMGUR - they're too blurry to be helpful now
 
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The best traditional steels being made today are those by Friedrich Dick in Germany. They originally started as a file manufacturer back in the 1700's, and they still make a wide range of quality files. That familiarity makes them excellent at producing a plethora of high quality hardened butcher's steels of various patterns and cuts.
 
I’m sure they make a great steels if it’s anything like their knives. I have about 4 F. Dick chef knives and have always liked their product. My current favorite stainless knife is their 1905 Series 8” chef’s knife.

Looking over the selection on KnifeMerchant, steels are variously listed as steels, and steel honing rods available in regular, fine, sapphire, helical cuts and smooth hard chrome. Plus oval, round, and combo shapes.

I wonder how they compare.
 
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