Honing steels, just don't.

Steeling has never been effective for me to get knives that I have sharpened cutting better after they have deteriorated. His video offers an explanation and conclusions for why this might be, based on his testing and observations. I'm not invested one way or the other.
 
He's a maker Here. Here is the item I mentioned earlier

I have no affiliation, other than I bought one with my own money, and use it

 
Richard338 said:
When “steeling” the edge, I use the traditional edge-leading, heel to tip slicing motion with light force applied at an angle slightly higher than that of the existing bevel."

Since that's exactly what I do also, this guy must know what he's talking about.
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Yes.
Steel rods suppose to be used that way. Basicly you are doing a micro bevel with plastic deformation of the steel and some adhesive wear.
 
I've found the use of a quality honing steel to be beneficial with a relatively narrow range of knife steels, such as the types seen in the vast majority of mainstream stainless kitchen cutlery. All of these steels comparable to something like 420HC at mid-high 50s HRC. All of which will likely produce burrs that will be ductile and capable of some realignment while still retaining enough edge strength to be useful in light-duty kitchen tasks, like cutting vegetables, fruits and meat on an edge-friendly cutting board.

When I've used a honing steel on such blades, I've been able to extend the useful life of an existing edge for several weeks of light kitchen duty before taking the edge back to a stone to reset it completely. And for a time, the edge of the blade seems to get a bit stronger and become more stable, up to a point. Past that point, the edge will become erratic and unstable, with widely-varying cutting performance from one cut to the next. I attribute that to an edge that's been bent back & forth too many times through the repeated realigning of thin edges over some time, after which the steel at the edge becomes weak & brittle. That's the sign I look for, to know when it's time to take the blade back to a stone to scrub off the damaged steel and reset a new edge.

For what it's worth, I use edge-leading passes at very light pressure, heel-to-tip, in a minimum number of passes per side, when steeling. And generally at an angle that's very close to the original sharpening angle. Whether any micro-beveling is happening at that angle, I don't know. But I can accept, if it's happening, it may also contribute to what I perceive to be an edge-strengthening effect for some time in the use of the honing steel.

I view a honing steel to be sort of a niche device. It's not going to work as well with many other steel types at higher hardness or with greater wear resistance, and it certainly won't be the best option for many. But within a narrow application of use, it has some obvious beneficial effects.

I use a Victorinox combination steel with both a finely grooved surface and a smooth surface on the one rod. I rely more on the grooved surface most of the time and it has worked well with the knives I use in the kitchen. I do believe it's critically important to use a honing steel of known good reputation, as many cheaper options are simply useless in my experience with them and will likely do more damage than good.
 
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I have no experience using steel honing rods, but I still find all of this very interesting anyways.

Thinking about it, steel hones probably make the most sense in an industrial or commercial kitchen setting where you have a lot of relatively inexpensive, thin, steep angle knives which all have to be maintained constantly. There's no time for a lot of precision when it come to maintaining your edges, but you still need performance. I don't know for sure, but that's the impression that I am getting.

I certainly would not lump a ceramic rod into the same category as a steel one though. I can visually see what the ceramic rod is doing, and I'm pretty sure that the steel rod isn't removing steel from the knife in quite the same way as the ceramic one or a diamond one. I also have never used a diamond hone but I think it's probably overkill, at least for me.
 
There is also some good info from Knife Grinders in PDF if you do an internet search for "knife grinders steeling"

It's not always a good method for every situation, but it has it's place IMO. I think there is a fair bit of confusion around the subject and in the definition of the terms that different people use.
 
My wife likes to use Victorinox paring knives as steak knives. After several steaks, the edges get mushroomed. A mushroomed edge looks and feels a lot like having a burr on both sides of the blade, but the usual methods of burr removal have negligible effect on a mushroomed edge. I have found that using a polished butcher's steel does at least reduce the mushrooming and somewhat restores the cutting ability of the knife. The problem is that it takes maybe a hundred strokes on the steel to get much of an effect. I gave up on this method because it's faster and more effective to just resharpen the blade.
 
Try it with a short machete, they’re pretty soft.
Sharpen with a coarse stone and get a big honking burr.
Then align or center the burr on the edge and cut some meat.
Don’t chop firewood, baton logs or whittle tent pegs, just cut meat.When it starts to drag, go back to the steel. Eventually it’ll have to go back to the stone, of course. But you’ll have more than enough meat cut for a pot of chili. :)

There’s a reason they used to call it a butcher’s steel.
:)
 
A long, long time ago, the guy who had the Victorinox franchise in Edmonton told me that European chefs hold the steel straight out horizontally and stroke the blade across it at 90 degrees, rather than holding the steel vertically. He also was dead against grooved steels.
 
I worked in a meat packing plant for 20 years and steels work admirably.All our steels were smooth and polished.They would keep our knives sharp for hours on high speed boning lines.These,of course, were not high carbide knife steels.Decades ago I owned both the Schrade Honesteel and the Buck steel.They were not kitchen steels per se but more like in the field steels.They were textured and coated with chromium carbide and chromium boride respectively.They put a nice sharp edge on your knife but were not your conventional kitchen steel.They would actually abrade the steel.
 
I'm not against those steel rods but personally I can't find a situation I would use one of those things.
If I go somewhere I sure won't take with me a steel rod to refresh my knives edges. That's why I have my folding sharpener.
If one day for some reason one of my kitchen knives would decide to stop cutting I would just grab another knife.
Then, when I would be in the mood I would take a minute or two to refresh or resharpen this knife.
 
The problem is that there are different kinds of "sharp" and this guy demonstrates a clear lack of understanding in that regard. In a meat packing setting you're placing an emphasis on SPEED to get the work done ASAP, and your knives are likely not pristine and washed free of residues when touching them up, meaning there's a propensity for clogging or contaminating abrasive stones. Grooved steels DO remove material, and if he had used them in any capacity prior to this little examination he would be ABUNDANTLY aware of that--it's quite common for steels to become magnetized and metal fines will cling to the tip as a result. They are like a fine file with the teeth perpendicular to their more common axis. Is the edge it creates a perfect and smooth one? Not at all. But is it thin enough to work well on flesh or other soft materials? Absolutely. And that's what matters. Steels are best used on tough knives with thin geometries that are likely to have some kind of fouling material on them and will be used mostly in slicing soft materials. But this is why other forms of sharpeners exist for people outside of that context of use.
 
I got thinking about the individuals who use a ceramic hone; isn’t that like holding a Spyderco Sharpmaker rod and touching up the edge? Why not just put it in the Sharpmaker base and touch up the edge?
 
DavidABQ said:
I got thinking about the individuals who use a ceramic hone; isn’t that like holding a Spyderco Sharpmaker rod and touching up the edge? Why not just put it in the Sharpmaker base and touch up the edge?
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My ceramic hone is finer than my Sharpmaker stones for one thing, but I just find it much more convenient for a quick honing after a hike. My ceramic rod hangs on a leather cord above my workbench, and after a quick wiping off of the blade and a few strokes on the hone my knife(usually a Ursula 45) is ready for the next hike. I've done a lot of wood/brush/vine whacking with that blade and a quick honing is all it has ever needed.
 
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I have two steels for my visiting cooky neighbours and chefy mates - one tri-cut carbon and one diamond but I never use them - they`re just hanging on the wall rack - for spiders to work out on.
Somewhere on there is 5 cleavers, a bow bread knife and 4 pairs of scissors.
You think that`s bad - you should see my kitchen drawer - a CSI guy would give up in there and it`s nowhere near as bad as my kitchen junk drawer - an OCD sufferer would die if they opened that.
Even when I was a wee boy in the early seventies I knew that steels were not all that great - then all I had to sharpen was concrete floors, walls and bricks.
At 17 I went to polytechnic college to learn smithing, metallurgy and metalwork then I made carbon sickles for fat farmers in Yorkshire and 500-odd Asian knives in a 150 year old sweaty forge in China for 15 years and I still know jack shit.


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I`m a caveman so sometimes I take my belt off, put toothpaste on it and strop my cheapie straight razor - I had no choice in Egypt.
That`s what cowboys did back in the day.
 
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Tobacco yep - no mint about on the prarie in those days.
Actually I used Eucryl dry tooth-powder for smokers in Africa - brilliant.
 
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