Sharpeners and steels in a real life kitchen

[Richard Green]

My take on this is that steels do, in fact, remove metal. It’s open to question whether a smooth steel or maybe a borosilicate steel is smooth enough not to remove metal, but certainly the grooved steels do and both of my ceramic steels remove metal too, as you can see below:

The dark stains are metal that’s been taken off blades.

The top steel is from my EP Apex 4 kit. It got a good scrubbing with Bon Ami and a Scotch brite pad after the last time I used it. But you can still see some metal. The bottom steel is a Yoshikin Global G-25. It hasn’t been cleaned in a while. I’ve been meaning to get a more abrasive cleanser (Comet?) to do that.

Note that most manufacturers of kitchen knives and sharpening accessories are calling these “ceramic sharpening rods”. They aren’t pretending that they’re “steels”. EP calls them “ceramic hones”, a term that implies sharpening. I believe they say that the rods are for fine burr removal.

The grit ratings on these rods are somewhat of a mystery. I wasn’t able to find any clear information on the grit size of the Global. I found some references to DMT rods with 1500 and 2000 ratings, though. EP rates their rod at 1200 grit, but as I said in a previous post, this reference claims EP uses a non-standard rating.

There may be something to the claim, because the EP hone feels much, much smoother than the EP 1600 grit ceramic stones that just arrived 🙂 . I tested the WEPS stones, the Global rod and the EP hone with my finger and with a microfiber cloth. No question that both rods are much smoother than the WEPS stones, and the EP hone feels distinctly smoother and more slippery than the global rod (though not as much difference as both rods to the WEPS stones. I would guess in WEPS paralance these rods are well over 2000 grit, maybe higher.

The ceramic rods are finer than anything in my WEPS kit other than the strops. They’re a lot quicker to access and use for light touch-up before using a kitchen knife. I suspect if they’re used with very, very light pressure and just a few strokes (as I do), they’ll correct flaws in the edge either by pressing them out or removing very small amounts of metal. I’ve found a light touch is essential — anything heavier tends to make the edge worse than it was.

The issue with steels that remove metal is matching the edge. I see nothing wrong with removing a little metal to restore the edge, as long as it’s not creating a second bevel or a new profile. This suggests practicing to match the edge angle when steeling. Probably difficult, but not impossible.

I’m thinking about picking up a smooth steel and seeing if that provides any benefit over the rods. I suspect it’ll take more strokes and probably a firmer hand, especially with my VG-10 knife.

BTW, I’ve always been puzzled by the notion that steels “straighten the edge” — i.e., correct indentations and rolled edges. I can see where smooth steel could press out an indentation, but I don’t see how it can “unroll” an edge. The typical steeling action is from edge to spine, so if anything a rolled edge would be bent over and pressed into the edge. Perhaps it breaks off? If so, that doesn’t seem good.

In contrast, I can see how a strop could unroll an edge because the action is spine to edge.

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[Phil Pasteur]

This is an interesting definition of the different types of steel:

“One Knife Sharpener tool is known as a Honing Steel. A Honing Steel is a type of hardened cylindrical rod used similarly to Honing Stones. For example, a Butcher Steel is a round file with the teeth running the long way, while a Packer Steel (used in the meat packing industry) is a smooth, polished Steel rod designed for straightening the turned edge of a knife, and is also useful for burnishing a newly finished edge.”

http://www.kitchenknivesandutensils.com/sharpeners

Another one:
“We will get into the various types of steels in just a moment, but be aware that the grooved steels that come with knife sets do in fact remove metal. A grooved steel acts as a file when used with a heavy hand, knocking microscopic chips out of your edge. At the very least, it is much coarser than the fine abrasive you used to achieve your edge. Steeling heavily with a grooved steel is taking several steps backward. A grooved steel should be used with caution and a very light touch.”

” A steel actually “smears” the edge, teasing out a little more thinness. You’ll have a keener edge, but it will be weaker than the freshly sharpened edge.”

I have seen photo micrographs of edges that have been steeled where the rolled edge was pressed back, folded over and the edge “smeared” to where it cut better.

You can see some examples of a packers steel here:

http://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-Honing-10-Inch-Smooth-Plastic/dp/B000MF469E

http://www.amazon.com/Dick-Packinghouse-Sharpening-Chromium-plated-Stainless/dp/B00063QBI6

This last one is the one I have used (but I put it on the buffer with varying grits until, ending up with jewelers rouge, you can use it as a mirror), though these days I use a bench strop with horse butt leather charged with 1 Micron diamond spray to much better effect for quick touch ups.

John Juranitch author of “Razor Edge Book Of Sharpening”, says that you should never get a steel that you can’t see your reflection clearly in, anywhere close to any knife. I bought his book something over 20 years ago and used his system and concepts up until about 8 months ago when I got my WEPS (and EP and Kalamzoo, and various waterstones, and stops, and submicron spays and pastes :).
What he says makes sense, if you can’t straighten your edge with a smooth steel, you probably need to go back to your stones. Taking a rough file to your blade just seems counterproductive…
even if you just go to the 1000 grit diamond on the WEPS.

One last link about hoing and stropping:
http://zknives.com/knives/articles/wssteeling.shtml

This is an excerpt:
“Steeling(or stropping) is the simplest and the quickest procedure that you can perform to maintain and extend the useful life of your edges, hence the knives themselves. Very simple procedure, however, unfortunately, most of the people never do it, others do it with a wrong tool, which arguably is worse than not steeling at all. I’m talking about the dreaded grooved steel, or butchers steel in other words that comes with every standard cutlery set sold in US and as far as I can tell, in the rest of the world as well.” “The process is absolutely different, sharpening implies removal of the metal, while stropping/steeling does not, it just realigns the deformed metal, for the pedants, yes the small pieces of metal can and will be removed during steeling or stropping, but that is due to the metal fatigue, not because it was intended.”

Not sure if this answers the original question, but hopefully it presents something of interest…

Phil

[Josh]

Thanks for pointing that out peppersass…. I need to change what I call the ceramic rods from ceramic “steels” to ceramic hones.

As to your question about how it will straighten the edge if it is rolled, I would say that it depends on how much it is rolled. If it is severely rolled, you would seem to be correct in your theory – sometimes when this is the case, I will do a few trailing strokes/side to semi-align the edge before I go directly into the edge on the hone. Seems to work well anyway 🙂

[wickededge]

This is a fascinating topic guys, thanks for all the posts and great information. We’ll be receiving our new line of ceramic stones in 2 weeks that are extremely smooth 1.4um and .625um respectively. If we like those two stones really well and they become popular, we might add another set in at .375um and .25um. These are super hard, super fine stones from Coorstek and will be a great tool for quick maintenance.

-Clay

[Roger Herbst]

Thanks to all the posters who have contributed to this topic. I’ve done a bit more testing, and I think we have enough information to draw some pretty good conclusions.

Here are some pictures to illustrate what we’ve learned

1. A knife sharpened to .3 microns, with a hair for size reference. It’s a very cheap knife, which I then beat up a bit.

2,3 The edge after being beat up

4. The edge after steeling with a groove steel

5. Knife re honed, then steeled with a diamond steel

6. I don’t have a smooth steel, but the 1/2 ” of my Henkles steel next to the handle is smooth, so I did what I could with that after re-honing the blade

7 Reality. Paper thin tomato slices, from left to right Cheap knife with grooved steel, cheap knife freshly honed than smooth steeled, and my fav santoku freshly honed. Note the diamond steeled knife isn’t shown…it could not break the skin of the tomato.

Conclusions.
It’s interesting that almost 100 % of the talk about what steels do, including that coming from celebrity chefs, refers to the smoothing effect of a smooth steel, while almost 100% of the steels out there are grooved, and behave completely differently. So much for the wisdom of crowds. On a more practical note, we can conclude that:

1. A freshly honed edge is the ultimate solution

2. A smooth steel will touch up a well honed edge without destroying it. Over time, though, as the edge truly dulls, it will need to be re-honed, as the smooth steel will not remove metal and reshape the edge.

3. Grooved steels are ugly under a microscope, and will completely re cut a honed edge, so I wouldn’t even bother fine honing a blade I intend to steel. That said, they produce an effective edge, and remove enough metal that a grooved steel alone can keep a knife in decent cutting condition, if used properly.

4. My diamond steel is the all time loser. Don’t know why, or if other diamond steels are the same, but the grooved steel produces a much more effective edge.

So I’m pretty satisfied that we’ve gotten to the bottom of this, except we haven’t talked about strops for quick touch ups – I’m playing with them now and may have more on that in the future.

Roger

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[Mark76]

We’ll be receiving our new line of ceramic stones in 2 weeks that are extremely smooth 1.4um and .625um respectively. If we like those two stones really well and they become popular, we might add another set in at .375um and .25um. These are super hard, super fine stones from Coorstek and will be a great tool for quick maintenance.

:woohoo:

Did I just miss a covert announcement?

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Anthony Yan]

I just posted this to http://www.knifeforums.com, but I thought it would be of interest here as well:

About the company Coorstek that is mentioned as the manufacturer of ceramic stones for WEPS:

I believe Coorstek is a company that branched off of Coors, the beer company. It sounds weird, but years and years ago, Coors used to make ceramic tools, including ceramic hammers. Why a ceramic hammer? well, it’s for those applications where positively absolutely you cannot afford to generate a spark. If you work in the natural gas industry, or explosives, then you know why this is a good idea.

Metal hammers spark when you chip off a tiny tiny piece of iron, and it combusts (to form iron oxide; or rust). Many ceramics are metal-oxides, so well, they’re already burnt and cannot burn again! (Okay, not under “normal” situations.) The problem with this is, most ceramics are brittle, which is not good for a hammer. So the hammer is made of a special type of ceramic: transformation-toughened zirconia. This is the same ceramic used in almost all ceramic knives (Boker in addition to zirconia, also has some knives in other types of ceramics).

Want to know more about transformation-toughened zirconia? You can read about it in the awesomely wonderful book: _Why Things Break_ by Mark. E. Eberhart.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Things-Break-Understanding-World/dp/1400048834/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336605192&sr=8-1

“Though Coors is well known as a brewer of beer, it is less well known as the world’s largest producer of specialty ceramics producs. This particular hammer was made from transformation-toughened zirconia, a polycrystalline material made from the oxide of zirconium.”
–_Why Thinks Break_ by Eberhart (2004)

This snippet and more can be read from Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=e6eVD2MDGLMC&pg=PT146&lpg=PT146&dq=coors+ceramic+hammer&source=bl&ots=gqH8n0Msxl&sig=TAM3oV4DP-Rv9WZqlFSc_Shj0rE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RfaqT_jWLYTetgfbl6mUAQ&ved=0CHEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=coors%20ceramic%20hammer&f=false

A picture of a Coors ceramic hammer:
http://ceramicsmuseum.alfred.edu/exhibitions/conspicuous/hammer.html

Isn’t that cool? Now go have a beer. 🙂

Sincerely,
–Lagrangian

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“What grit sharpens the mind?”
–Zen Sharpening Koan

[wickededge]

That is so cool, thanks for sharing it!

-Clay

[wickededge]

I’m really excited about these stones. We don’t have a name for them yet or photos or prices. We’re sort of stuck on the name part because we already used Superfine Ceramic and these are finer than our current stones. They will be a great next step after current ones and will also be wonderful for maintaining a well polished knife.

We’ll be receiving our new line of ceramic stones in 2 weeks that are extremely smooth 1.4um and .625um respectively. If we like those two stones really well and they become popular, we might add another set in at .375um and .25um. These are super hard, super fine stones from Coorstek and will be a great tool for quick maintenance.

:woohoo:

Did I just miss a covert announcement? :mrgreen:[/quote]

-Clay

[Richard Green]

How about:

Microfine Ceramic Stones

-or-

Microgrit Ceramic Stones

And if you come out with an even finer line of stones, you could call them Nanofine or Nanogrit.

[Mark]

How about ultrafine, megafine and uberfine? 😆

[Anthony Yan]

I like “megafine” ! 😛 It’s almost like saying something is “mega-small” or “hugely tiny”. 🙂

[BassLake Dan]

I believe Coorstek is a company that branched off of Coors, the beer company. It sounds weird, but years and years ago, Coors used to make ceramic tools, including ceramic hammers. Why a ceramic hammer? well, it’s for those applications where positively absolutely you cannot afford to generate a spark. If you work in the natural gas industry, or explosives, then you know why this is a good idea.

Yes the history of Coors Ceramics is fascinating, and a shining example of the kind of people and early entrepreneurs that ‘made America great’. It is so interesting a story that Coors themselves realize that people everywhere want to know more about it and have given a page on their web site to help tell you that story. Here is a link: http://www.coorstek.com/history.asp

If you follow the tracks in the yellow brick road the hobby of knives will take you to many interesting places, like the Coors example above shows so well. I was interested to see your reference to the explosives industry above. It is not well know to most knife makers and users, but the reason that they have in their hands high quality powder metallurgy steels is because of the explosives and solid rocket fuel industries need for high specification powdered metals. It is these high precision powdered metals that form the base material for the product of companies like Crucible and Bohler-Uddeholm. If it had not been for the need to develop these very pure and high quality powders for explosives and solid rocket fuels you might not now have the blades that you put into your WEPs for sharpening!

[Jende Industries]

I’m thinking “atomic” for the ceramics :silly:

Roger, You did some great documentation! B)

I think steeling works for short term touching up because your overall geometry is still “sound”, despite the microbevel of the steeling itself, as you’ve shown.

Diamond steels and stones can be misleading, and tend to create what I call a false-positive for sharpness because the diamonds cut cleanly through the thickness of the knife’s edge, leaving a very clean, yet serrated edge that passes all kinds of sharpness tests, yet the edge of the edge itself is not thin enough to actually be as sharp as it seems. I see this all the time with straight razors passing the HHT at the 1K diamond level, and is the likely reason IMO to explain why the diamond steel edge failed the tomato slice test.

[Anthony Yan]

Hi BassLakeDan,

Wow neat! Thanks for that link on Coorstek history. 🙂 I also did not know about the connection between rocket engine development and powdered metallurgy; also interesting!

[Off Topic] I can’t resist, so here is a small story from the space race:
I forget who was trying to spy on whom, but I think it was the Soviets spying on the British (could be wrong about this). Anyways, there was some kind of tour, or open-house for a (British?) jet-engine or rocket development factory. I think it was the Soviets, who, at that time, had trouble with their metallurgy for aerospace engines. So they sent a guy to the open-house. As a spy, his real mission was to get physical samples of secret high-tech metals. How? The bottom of his shoes were soft and sticky; as he walked around these picked up any tiny metal shavings which are everywhere in a metalshop. Afterwards, his shoes were sent off to a metallurgy lab. 🙂

I could’ve gotten wrong who spied on whom for this, and I forget if it was for rocket or jet engines, but the idea of sticky shoes always amused me.

Sincerely,
Lagrangian

[Author]

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