F. Dick German made Sharpening Steels?

J

JD Spydo

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Nov 20, 2004
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I've asked this question before here at the BF forum about a year ago but got very few answers at that time. I own a few sharpening steels made by the Friedrick Dick Co (F. Dick) that are German made and seem to be of very high quality. I know I sure paid a pretty nickel for them when I got them all. I have been told over the years when it comes to sharpening steels ( also known as "butcher steels") that F. Dick is about the best available.

I have two of them that I've had great luck with>> one of them is a very smooth, extremely hard steel called the "Poliron" and one of the other ones I like to tinker with is one called the F. Dick "Multicut" which is one of the most unusual sharpening steels I've ever encountered and I've only talked to two other people that have ever used one. It is oval shaped with several big grooves along with some micro grooves and it is interesting. The MultiCut is unique in that it actually abrades the steel to a certain extent and will do more than just aligning the edge.

I was just wanting to know what you all thought about F. Dick German made Sharpening tools? And which ones do you all own and use? I've also had a couple of F. Dick's commercial culinary knives and they seem to be a good quality as well. I would like to know more about their products because I sure don't hear much about them other that people I've met that work in restaurants and meat packing houses.
 
You don't have sharpening steels, you have honing steels. They are meant to realign softer steel knives, not to remove material. Don't use them on harder Japanese steels.
Because some people are convinced they are used to sharpen, companies started putting in grooves. I don't believe those are as good an idea.
I believe their products used to be more common and therefore highly thought of. They still have a good reputation, but haven't really tried to hit the home market like other companies have.

Since I tend to use Japanese style knives rather than European, I exclusively sharpen and strop instead of hone.
 
The better quality grooved steels are definitely hard enough to remove metal, therefore sharpen. At least one mfr in Europe has stated their honing steels are roughly 20% harder than the typical kitchen cutlery for which they're designed. For use on a kitchen knife at 54 - 56 HRC, that would mean the honing steel is up around 65 - 67 HRC. Works exactly like a steel file, and the hardness is in the same ballpark as a decent file. The honing steels are typically plated in chromium, the hard oxide of which is doing the work (chromium oxide). They're still limited as to the types of steels they'll abrade, as chromium oxide will be less-hard than than many of the carbides in more wear-resistant steels. But, for kitchen cutlery and many other mainstream hunting/fishing knives, etc., they can still do at least some true sharpening, as well as aligning edges. Most of the immediate benefit in using a steel is coming from realignment, but it's still capable of removing some metal from the blade in doing so. Well-used steels wiped down with a moist rag or towel will show some dark swarf coming off onto the towel, removed from blades honed by them.

Other 'proof' that metal is removed, in steeling kitchen knives, is seen in well-used and long-steeled knives that develop a recurve in their edge profiles, from heavy steeling over a period of time, which eventually needs to be ground out on a stone to straighten the edge again.

I have a few small honing steels (grooved; marked 'Sheffield') that came with Victorinox Swiss Army Knives I'd purchased years ago. Tiny rods, with maybe 3" or less of working length. It absolutely SHREDS an edge on knives in low-alloy stainless, such as the Vic SAKs, if used with much pressure; leaves the edge very toothy and heavily burred. I had to train myself to keep the touch very light in using it, to get the results it's designed for. With the right touch, it works impressively well. I keep one of them on my keyring, and it's handy for on-the-go touchups on my pocketknives in similar steels (420HC, for example).
 
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They're the top of the line when it comes to industrial-grade culinary and butcher's knives. And their butcher's steels are certainly best in the business. They make excellent files, as well.
 
Ourorboros said:
You don't have sharpening steels, you have honing steels. They are meant to realign softer steel knives, not to remove material. Don't use them on harder Japanese steels.
Because some people are convinced they are used to sharpen, companies started putting in grooves. I don't believe those are as good an idea.
I believe their products used to be more common and therefore highly thought of. They still have a good reputation, but haven't really tried to hit the home market like other companies have.
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Well I respectfully disagree with you "ourorboros">> Now it is true that the smooth F. Dick "Poliron" model is truly a super smooth, extremely hard steel that only aligns the edge. That I do agree with you about. But the F. Dick "Multi-Cut" Steel does indeed have different properties than most steels do. It does abrade metal to a small degree but it does do more than align an edge. I've been working with the "MultiCut" steel for a long time and I've seen the results under a high powered jeweler's loupe.

Keep in mind that F. Dick has a wide selection of sharpening steels and most of them do edges in a somewhat different manner. And I've had my F. Dick steels take on some very hard blade steels like M390, S90V, S110V, D-2 and XHP just to name a few. And I've had decent results using the F. Dick steels with those blade steels and a few more.

I was kind of hoping that by now a professional chef or some other tradesman that uses F. Dick tools would chime in. I would love to hear what the Professionals would have to say about them. Albeit I do deeply appreciate all of your input and find some of it to be quite interesting.
 
One of my brothers-in-law was a butcher and he does a very nice job maintaining his kitchen knives on a steel. I learned quickly from watching him to keep my two cents to myself. :cool:
 
Perhaps I tried to compress too much in:
Originally all steels were smooth, because they are only meant for honing.
Because people didn't know the difference between honing and sharpening, they put in groove - which of course will remove material. It's inavoidable.
To do any of those two tasks the steel must be harder than the blade.
But something like an Idahone is better for actually sharpening, if you are in a hurry - as chef's are. Otherwise a stone is a far better choice. The design of the steel was made worse by adding grooves.
Not that either is the best way to hold a constant angle or the original angle.
If you want the opinion of a pro chef, perhaps it is a better idea to go to a forum geared more to chefs - there are at least two forums focused on chef's knives and a couple of food forums.
But many pro chefs have moved to Japanese blades, which do not take well to steels for reasons I mentioned. They would use a stone or Idahone - this is their universal wisdom from one of those chef knives forums.
 
I use 2 f dick steels daily at work, I use an f dick regular cut and 1 that used to be a regular but over time wore pretty smooth ( bought it second hand ) so I sanded it down so it only has very faint grooves in it. I mainly only use the smooth but if my knife gets pretty bad I'll give it a few light pass's on the regular followed by the smooth, which keeps a blade good for a 10 hr shift. 99% of the people at work use f dick steels, and for a good reason, the quality is second to none, and they last a long time. I use their knives as well.
 
Gday mate said:
I use 2 f dick steels daily at work, I use an f dick regular cut and 1 that used to be a regular but over time wore pretty smooth ( bought it second hand ) so I sanded it down so it only has very faint grooves in it. I mainly only use the smooth but if my knife gets pretty bad I'll give it a few light pass's on the regular followed by the smooth, which keeps a blade good for a 10 hr shift. 99% of the people at work use f dick steels, and for a good reason, the quality is second to none, and they last a long time. I use their knives as well.
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I've had the two I use the most for over 8 years and I've used both of them a lot and they still both look like new. The durability of all the F. Dick tools I've ever used is just top notch all the way. It makes me wonder why a company who produces excellent quality tools and yet they hardly ever get mentioned here on BF???

What made me want them to begin with was when I met a pro meat cutter at a gun show and he pulled out an F. Dick steel and showed me how he used it and I was immediately impressed. It's really strange when a tool of the quality of the F. Dick sharpening steels doesn't get any more fanfare than they do.
 
Ourorboros said:
Perhaps I tried to compress too much in:
Originally all steels were smooth, because they are only meant for honing.
Because people didn't know the difference between honing and sharpening, they put in groove - which of course will remove material. It's inavoidable.
To do any of those two tasks the steel must be harder than the blade.
But something like an Idahone is better for actually sharpening, if you are in a hurry - as chef's are. Otherwise a stone is a far better choice. The design of the steel was made worse by adding grooves.
Not that either is the best way to hold a constant angle or the original angle.
If you want the opinion of a pro chef, perhaps it is a better idea to go to a forum geared more to chefs - there are at least two forums focused on chef's knives and a couple of food forums.
But many pro chefs have moved to Japanese blades, which do not take well to steels for reasons I mentioned. They would use a stone or Idahone - this is their universal wisdom from one of those chef knives forums.
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You will have to supply evidence of your claims, because everything I've seen to date, both in historical documents and in practice runs counter to your assertion.
 
There's a few guys at work with pre war (WW2) f dick steels,(the arrow points to the handle instead of to the tip of the steel) getting pretty rare these days but shows the quality.​
 
Gday mate said:
There's a few guys at work with pre war (WW2) f dick steels,(the arrow points to the handle instead of to the tip of the steel) getting pretty rare these days but shows the quality.​
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Hey I'm glad to know that in case I would find any of them old gems at a garage sale, flea market or thrift store. Because it's truly mind-blowing what I do find at those places from time to time. I also am aware that a lot of these "estate sales" have a lot of really nice stuff too but most estate sales I've been to have the prices catapulted many times.

I've actually run across a lot old BOKER stuff at these discount places too. Especially old butcher knives and some old steels too. Speaking of good German made stuff. I'm not even sure that there is any USA company that presently makes sharpening steels>> but I'm sure if there are that none of them have the quality that F. Dick comes through with.
 
JD Spydo said:
Hey I'm glad to know that in case I would find any of them old gems at a garage sale, flea market or thrift store. Because it's truly mind-blowing what I do find at those places from time to time. I also am aware that a lot of these "estate sales" have a lot of really nice stuff too but most estate sales I've been to have the prices catapulted many times.

I've actually run across a lot old BOKER stuff at these discount places too. Especially old butcher knives and some old steels too. Speaking of good German made stuff. I'm not even sure that there is any USA company that presently makes sharpening steels>> but I'm sure if there are that none of them have the quality that F. Dick comes through with.
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I'm pretty sure that Dexter Russell still does.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I'm pretty sure that Dexter Russell still does.
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I actually have a couple of those Dexter Russell steels. I'm a bit confused though because someone told me that they were part of that Victorinox company out of Switerland?

Or maybe they got it the other way around? It might be Dexter Russell that distributes Victorinox. I have seen their two names together on a few occasions?
 
JD Spydo said:
I actually have a couple of those Dexter Russell steels. I'm a bit confused though because someone told me that they were part of that Victorinox company out of Switerland?

Or maybe they got it the other way around? It might be Dexter Russell that distributes Victorinox. I have seen their two names together on a few occasions?
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You might be thinking of Forschner Knives. They were bought out by Victorinox in 2002; a few years prior to that, they had changed their name to 'Swiss Army Brands, Inc.' They were U.S.A.-based and apparently the original importer (to the U.S.A.) of Victorinox knives, beginning in the late 1930s. They apparently were responsible for coining the term 'Swiss Army Knife' as a marketing technique in the U.S.A.

Dexter Russell is still 'Made in U.S.A.', according to their web site.
 
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Yeah--Dexter Russell is their own company. They do play in the same market space that Vic/Forschner industrial culinary and butcher's knives, though.
 
Yeah I think both of you guys are correct>> I just got out two of my VICTORINOX boning knives and they both have the name FORSCHNER on both of them. Like I said I've seen all of those names together on more than one occasion too.

I even have one knife I discovered in that bunch of wooden handled knives I also did a thread on that has "Dexter Russell" on it. All three of these brands do have at least reasonable to slightly above average quality.
 
Well I hope this isn't getting too far off the subject of those German made F. Dick sharpening steels. But today I found my old small folding sharpening steel that I got from "Razor Edge Systems" out of Ely, Minnesota a few years back. It was a very handy little sharpening steels ( really smooth like my F. Dick POLIRON model) but it was great on folders and some fixed blades. I was glad to find it because I thought it got lost or stolen. But you can see them on the Razor Edge Systems website and I think there is even a video there showing how to use it.

Hey feel free to chat about any brand of sharpening steel. Because I'm finding out that there are a lot of different brands and different types of these sharpening steels and I would love to get more information on them. I don't think that sharpening steels are the "buggy whips" that many of the guys in the knife world think they are. The more I play with those two F. Dick models I'm getting some interesting results on both of them.
 
I use all F Dick on western blades but an Idahone ceramic on Japanese. The multicut is my final step steel.
Dexter and I think some Victorinox don't have just grooves going heel to tip. Some are like fine files with circumferential grooves also. Bad juju those things.

Jim
 
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