Are most ceramic rods the same? What ones to buy?

J

joepa150

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Mar 15, 2010
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I want to buy ceramic rods for light touch ups on my kitchen and pocket knives. I see there are many out there and most do not say what grit they are.
I am looking to spend about $30 or less. I do strop on leather with 0.5 micron compound but want something quicker, easier, and a bit more aggressive.

Here are my choices:
1) Lansky Crock stick turn box 2 five inch ceramic fine rods and 2 five inch medium ceramic $17
2) Lansky Crock stock turn box 2 five inch ceramic fine rods and 2 five inch diamond rods $25
3) Lanksy 8" ceramic rod sharp stick $8
4) Idahone 8" $35
5) Edge Pro 8" portable ceramic rod $30
6) Messermeister 12" ceramic rod $30
7) Mac white ceramic $24

The crocksticks look nice but they are only 5". Would that be too small for a 10" chef knife?
Are all these about the same grit and quality?
Why is the Idahone so much more than lansky? Is it that much better?


Any other inexpensive options?
 
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I have never seen good results with these in a restaurant, they seem to be for people with crappy knives with soft steel.

I personally use an 8000 grit stone for touch ups, takes less than a minute.
 
If you want a Lansky, there is Lansky model croc one for chef's or pro version that has 8-9 inch sticks.
 
Like many things, especially sharpening related, I think it's more about the technique than the tool. I recently got my first Japanese style kitchen knife, a Richmond Artifex, which is supposedly hardened to Rockwell 60-61. In theory, many regular steel honing rods won't hone it, as the blade is harder than the steel hone!

Years ago, I picked up a giant ceramic honing rod at a gun show... I think I paid 5, 6, maybe 7 dollars for it. Turns out it's the "Big John" ceramic rod. I hardly ever used it for anything. I decided to try it on my new kitchen knife in place of a steel. I do 3 to 8 strokes per side on the rod before or after I use the knife, about 3 out of 5 times when I use it.

The edge was rolled over a bit from the factory. Ceramic fixed it in 5 strokes per side. I've been doing this now for something like 8 weeks, and the edge is still going strong! I'm very impressed. I need to check with a loupe and see if I'm starting to apply a microbevel or not. I'd like to think that I'm just realigning the steel each time, but there's bound to be some abrasion happening too.

I'm inclined to think that just about any ceramic rod that's relatively smooth will work as a steel for you, as long as you're careful with it. What I see TV chefs doing seems stupid, inexact, and almost pointless. When I steel with a ceramic rod, I lay the rod horizontal and use it lightly as if it were a bench stone. Just a few strokes and the edge is aligned again. I do the same thing with a steel honing rod. Deliberate strokes to fix an alignment issue. One that I can feel with my fingers and feel when I've fixed it.

All that said, the Idahone gets rave reviews on CKTG and the CKTG forums. ...and I like my ceramic rod too.

Brian.
 
Ceramics are at their best in maintaining or lightly touching up edges with already-good geometry and not too much wear. Having said that, most modern ceramic sharpeners from reputable makers should do fine. Choice of which ones to buy should primarily come down to features, like rod length, the angle settings or available grit choices (at best, most will feature two, or maybe three grits, possibly including a pair of diamond rods).

I have maybe 6 or 8 different sets of V-crock ceramic sharpeners that I've accumulated over the last 20-25 years. With the exception of one set's rods that seem to shed their abrasive way too easily, while not really helping my edges much, most of the others have been fine as expected. There will be some variation in what 'coarse', 'medium' or 'fine actually means, according to each manufacturer's definition. But, they're still just ceramic sharpeners; that basically means they should work quickly to take a pretty good edge to very good or excellent condition. It also means they'll need to be kept clean to keep them performing decently, as they all will load up very quickly with metal swarf, and more so if attempting very heavy grinding or re-bevelling with them.

Ceramics are way, way harder than steel. So, even when used in a 'steeling' fashion, they will still abrade metal quickly (though in small quantity as compared to a typical sharpening stone), even if simultaneously re-aligning an edge in the process. It's easy to tell if metal is coming off; first wipe down the rods with a paper towel and some Windex, then do it again after a few passes of the blade over the rods. The proof will be in the black stuff (metal swarf) that shows up on the paper towel after wiping the rods. And with white rods, the swarf will obviously be seen in new streaks left by the blade.

Edit:
One more thing to watch out for, is an uneven or bumpy finish on ceramics, which can render them effectively useless. They shouldn't have these problems; if they do, send them back to the dealer for an exchange or refund.


David
 
Thanks everyone for your help.

I think I will try the lansky $8 ceramic rod. Can't beat the price.
 
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