ronan

[ronan]

Almost forgot the stones and the strops that you are getting should be fine as this is the combination that i use for all of my knives.

[ronan]

To me the technique of blade steeling is all a matter of preference. Every butcher and or chef needs to make there own mistakes in order to master this very essential skill, but i will try and explain the technique i use that works best for me. If you search the internet on HOW TO USE A STEEL you always get these videos on some guy holding the steel vertical on a table top steeling at the same angle that he thinks the knife edge is honed at. When boning beef this isn’t very cost effective as it is very time consuming and in the meat business time is money. If you for example hone your knife at 21 degrees and steel at exactly that same angle in my experience the knife will dull very quickly immaterial of how well you polished the edge to. I have always steeled higher than that of the honed edge thus creating a micro bevel making the knife both sharp and strong enough to withstand a hard days graft. If you hold the steel nice and firmly in your left hand ( taking into account your right handed ) your hand should be roughly level with your bellybutton with the steel pointing up in the air. Set your desired angle then make 2 or 3 alternating passes on each side of the steel with light pressure. keep raising the angle until you hit that perfect angle that your knife cuts through the beef like butter. The 3 steels that i use are the dick hygienic (rough) dick 2000(medium) dick polish. This works well for me and i hope this helps.

[ronan]

I also agree with micro bevelling. I too am a butcher, but not the shop kind, i started off boning beef quarters on the table(block boning)in one of the biggest meat and lamb processing plants in ireland boning on average 110 plus quarters a day. We now work on a line system that me and another colleague developed and implemented making the flow of product more efficient and less risk of injury to the workforce. I have found that a basic v edge is good in the beef boning business if you just need your knives sharp,but when boning you also need the edge to be strong and this is where micro bevelling comes in. I run my victronox knives at a 17 or 18 degree angle depending on the thickness of the blade with a primary bevel 21 degrees. Now just to prove how effective this was i took one of the lads old knives and i mean it was old,like a needle and as sharp as a spoon, if you were to run it across your arm you would more than likely get a bad friction burn. I sharpened it up on the wicked edge exactly as i explained and boned all day every day for too weeks without touching it up on the wicked edge. No joke it was still super sharp at the end of the second week. Steeling is still required to maintain the edge. Knife steeling is an art in its own,can take years to master and can destroy a knife if wrongly used but this is a whole different topic. Hope this helped.

Ronan

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