Sharpening with a steel

[beau5278]

Does anybody sharpen with a steel?Why or why not?Growing up my Uncle was a butcher and Dad also did his share of meatcutting and all i ever saw them use was a steel.I have a couple of steels and a few different stones,I also use an older Oster sharpener to reprofile and i occasionally use that to sharpen.It seems that whatever I use I get just about the same results,I can slice paper without any effort but I just can't get shaving sharp.

 

[555]

I still one in the kitchen.

It's fast and easy.:thumbup:

 

[nate1714]

You can try all day and night with a blade and steel and you wont sharpen it at all....all a steel does it re align the blades small little tips...if u want a better explanation look up Alton Brown and watch his little segment from his show GOOD EATS ...he explains it very well....

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Some of the common steels are grooved and they will act like files and aggressively remove metal when the user presses very hard which is common. Yes, lot of people use steels to sharpen even now, F. Dick makes many steels as does Razor's Edge.

-Cliff

 

[Jeff Clark]

A steel is not a sharpener, it is a maintenance tool for use between sharpenings. If you are cutting meat (not bone) your edge does not need to be very strong. If your edge starts to get dull because it bends over a little or gets dinged a little you can push it back into shape using a steel. A smooth steel will push the edge back into line and even straighten up dinged spots to some degree.

With old non-stainless steel this was pretty a utilitarian solution. The steel would tolerate a fair bit of this microscopic bending without breaking down. The modern stainless steels are likely to sort of splinter or crumble a bit along the edge if you do this very much. This edge will be lousy for shaving, but actually has a sort of a microserrated finish that works well for slicing through things like meat or leather. It is not mechanically very strong due to having been over-worked by the steel. This would not be a great way to treat a stainless steel blade that you were going to use to cut through bone for example.

For a stainless meat cutting blade you could steel during the day and maybe want to hone with something abrasive at the end of the day. I have a ceramic "steel" that I use for this purpose. When the blade gets a bit duller I have a diamond-coated steel that I use occasionally. I also have a bunch of other hones for full fledged resharpening. This just gives you an idea of how this works.

As Cliff mentioned, there are steels with ribs or ridges along their length. These will intentionally splinter the edge and remove material. It is a little like sharpening with a dull file. It gives an effective, but weak sharpening edge. It can get a dull edge to slice, but it isn't what I consider true sharpening.

 

[Bernoulli]

As far as I'm concerned, my kitchen knives have two parts - the knife and the steel. I never pick up one without the the other. I rarely have to sharpen my knives, but..., I don't shave with them, I cut up meat, fruits and vegetables.

In the field, I carry a Schrade Old Timer steel (flat, about 6" long with a chisel edge and a sheath that doubles as a handle) . It works well for me when I'm dismembering and skinning.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

As Cliff mentioned, there are steels with ribs or ridges along their length. These will intentionally splinter the edge and remove material.

These tended to be used commonly on very soft knives so they filed them effectively. They did remove metal fairly fast, I have seen a lot of chef's knives turned into fillet knives by frequent steeling of that type.

-Cliff

 

[Salamander42]

On almost all of my knives I seem to get the best edge when use the steel from my kitchen knife set as the last step. I don't know it just removes the last little bit of burr or what. Works great for me. I also use it on my kitchen knives pretty frequently. FWIW, my steel has very slight groves running length wise like Cliff mentioned, but I don't find them removing metal very fast at all. I don't press down very hard though. It just takes a very light touch to bring out that shaving sharp edge.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

What do you use as the finishing step before the grooved steel? Do you know anything about the steel the knives are made from?

-Cliff

 

[Salamander42]

What do you use as the finishing step before the grooved steel? Do you know anything about the steel the knives are made from?

-Cliff

I don't have a set sharpening routine yet. I'm still experimenting with different materials and grits and whatnot. But USUALLY my last step before the steel is either a red or green DMT sharpener. I haven't really tried the steel to do touch ups in between sharpening. I've used it and had good results on my Dragonfly with AUS-8, a thin bladed hutner/skinner with unknown stainless steel, a cheap khukri with carbon steel, and several CRKT knives that I also don't know the steel on. Sorry I don't know more about them. Like I said, I use a very light touch, and probably between 5 and 10 strokes per side and I try to maintain the same angle on the steel that I use on the stones. The sharpening steel is from a lower end J.A. Henckels set. The grooves in it are pretty fine.

 

[Greg]

I never use a steel. My knives are all (except for some old ones) stainless and don't respond well to a steel. I also prefer a smooth edge rather than micro-serrated. Touch-ups are done with a small strop, re-sharpening is done with a paper wheel, and re-beveling with diamond 'stones'.
Greg

 

[Cliff Stamp]

But USUALLY my last step before the steel is either a red or green DMT sharpener.

The green DMT should be capable of producing a highly polished edge, tt may be just edge angle. When I first experimented with shrpening steels it was very easy to produce a sharp edge because the angle was so high they always worked the very edge of the knife directly. Once I used some honing guides and worked on burr removal then the same sharpness was achieved on stones and the edge retention was much higher.

The CRK&T blades are typically the AUS series though some of the more expensive ones are 154CM. Most of your knives seems to be soft and low carbide steels which is where such sharpening steels work very well. I would suggest that you look at Jeff Clark's posts on burr removal and try some more work finishing with the fine DMT stone. You should be able to get a very high sharpness and a much improved edge retention over the sharpening steel.

-Cliff

 

[Salamander42]

The green DMT should be capable of producing a highly polished edge, tt may be just edge angle. When I first experimented with shrpening steels it was very easy to produce a sharp edge because the angle was so high they always worked the very edge of the knife directly. Once I used some honing guides and worked on burr removal then the same sharpness was achieved on stones and the edge retention was much higher.

The CRK&T blades are typically the AUS series though some of the more expensive ones are 154CM. Most of your knives seems to be soft and low carbide steels which is where such sharpening steels work very well. I would suggest that you look at Jeff Clark's posts on burr removal and try some more work finishing with the fine DMT stone. You should be able to get a very high sharpness and a much improved edge retention over the sharpening steel.

-Cliff

Thanks for the advice Cliff. I figured I probably just needed to practice my sharpening a bit more. Before I use the steel I can usually just barely shave arm hair, after the steel it shaves easily, so I probably don't have too far to go with my sharpening skills before I can get it to that level with just the stones. My next goal after that is the "hair popping" level that I always see mentioned.

I worked for about 5 years as a cook in a relatively nice restaurant when I first got out of high school and got used to using a steel quite a bit, and just continued with it when I started getting more interested in other kinds of knives.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

If you are satisfied with the results of the steel then there is little reason to change, sharpness wise, the only real benefit is for edge retention. But if you are willing to steel often this isn't much of a concern either.

-Cliff