Honing and Sharpening - The Difference

Hi, I used to wonder what the difference between honing a knife and sharpening a knife was.  I have a good idea now so I will pass it along.
This is important because a lot of folks tell me that "their husbands sharpen the knives at home" so out of curiosity I always ask how he does it. Most of the time the response is "with one of those sharpening rods"

So to get things straight right off the bat,  a "Steel" does not sharpen a knife, regardless of the fact that it may be advertised as a knife sharpener. A Steel, whether it is made of steel, or ceramic is designed to hone a knife and is for edge maintenance.

Honing

Honing or steeling will keep a sharp knife sharp for a period of time, one cannot say how long but I can say that the knife will stay sharper if it is steeled. A new or freshly sharpened knife has a series of micro serrations along the edge. Invisible but they are there and they bite into whatever it is your cutting. Over time, these tiny teeth are pushed over to the side, the edge of the metal is fragile and the metal along this point (the edge of the edge) gets fatigued and just folds over. A hone or steel when used properly as in the picture here will push that fatigued metal back into place.

There are some key points to this though. 
1. You need to begin the process with a sharp knife, you CANNOT pull a dull knife out of the drawer and hone it sharp, even if you have the best steel or ceramic in the world. 
2 You need to do this often, build it into your cooking regime, do it every day before you cut your food. So keep the steel handy, not somewhere you need to root around for it.
3. The steel that comes with a block of knives is usually very cheap, not worth the effort, get a new one.
4. Honing or Steeling only works for a while, once the knife remains dull after you steel it, i.e. if it doesn't feel any different, put the steel away, it is time for it to be Sharpened. 
5. Do not abuse the edge with over steeling, it doesn't do anything but make it more difficult to sharpen.
6. This is an important step in knife maintenance but it is not done by a lot of people. It is easy to do  and only takes 2 minutes. You only need to run the knife down the steel from heel to tip 5-8 times with a little pressure, ease off on the pressure the last couple of times.


So what is sharpening?:

Sharpening on a whetstone

To sharpen a knife, you need to remove that fatigued metal completely and expose the fresh steel underneath. A whetstone is the best way to do this, it doesn't take off much metal and can restore the edge to the factory level easily and with a little more effort you can make it sharper than that.

So Honing is knife maintenance, keeping a sharp knife sharp, sharpening is the removal of metal from both sides of the blade at the edge of the edge. 

Once is it is sharp it can be honed again until the cycle needs to be repeated.

Now there are diamond steels that claim to sharpen a knife by removing metal but again, that will only remove metal at the primary edge, what about the secondary bevel?  You can purchase a whetstone for 30 dollars and keep your knife sharp for a life time.

Now....it is possible to use a high grit stone to hone your knife by using a trailing motion like the picture above but the best setup is a good steel or even better a Ceramic rod and a whetstone or two.