Knife Sharpening Using Traditional Methods: Japanese hand made knives - Steeling

Hi folks, been away for a couple of weeks, thank you for visiting my Blog and being patient.

I want to talk about steeling knives again and in particular knives that are very hard, i.e. 60 and above and these are my thoughts on it, you can disagree of course.

The majority of knives out there that we all use, Wusthof, Henckels, Grohmann are not that hard, they are around the 54-56 range which is fine and in some cases better which I will explain.

(There are a lot of varieties of Henckels and some are very hard, the higher end ones that is)

Lets take the average Henckels chef knife; I don't think I have ever seen one chipped, have a nick on the edge. Now take a much harder knife, like hand made knife, one that has a 62-64 on the hardness scale for example, it is very common to see the edges with little nicks in them.

The reason is that the metal, while very hard and able take a much finer sharpening angle and hold it's edge longer, is because the metal has a tendency to be brittle. Softer knives have an edge that is more flexible, the metal that becomes fatigued doesn't break off, it just bends back and forth.

So why not steel the hard knives?

The metal at the edge of a hand made carbon knife for example is very thin, yes it is hard but it still very thin and it still gets dull and we know that a dull knife means the metal has folded over, it's fatigued and just shifted a tiny bit from centre. Now with a softer knife, a steel can push that fatigued metal back in place, it just bends it back so to speak. However, that very hard steel on a carbon knife will not flex, it won't be pushed if you run a Steel over it, it will likely just break off so now you have a chipped edge.

So I do not recommend using a Steel on one of these knives, now a nice Ceramic "Steel" may do the trick but it is most likely going to just knock off the fatigued metal instead of realigning it.

So how do you keep a "hard" knife sharp, well the same way you should keep any knife sharp, you should hone it on a whetstone, remember you hone a sharp knife and you sharpen a dull one so you should hone the knife that has lost it's edge a little by using a fine water stone and use trailing motions, i.e. drag the knife towards you.

I will make a video of what I mean but it is very easy and it is very quick. As I have said before, think of that water stone as a rectangular Steel.

In my opinion, a ceramic is the way to go if you do Steel your European knives, MAC makes a really nice one as does Global but that one is expensive ($149.00).

You can order them online from Chef Knives to Go for 30-50 dollars too.

Ceramic hone

I still believe that unless a Steel (either steel or ceramic) is used properly it won't serve a purpose and remember it is not designed to sharpen a knife, it's purpose is to keep a sharp knife sharp, not make a dull knife sharp.

The key is to know when the Steel is not improving the edge. Picture that very thin edge and the steel along that edge becoming fatigued, how long can you just push it back into place before it just breaks off and I'm talking about any knife. It may not necessarily break off but by just pushing that tired out metal back into the right position, is it still not that tired out metal?

Hats off to folks who are meticulous with their steeling, just make sure it is done with care and not like you see chefs on TV slamming the edge of the knife against the steel.....as if that makes a difference.

This is my "Steel" :)

Not every chipped knife of course is a result of using a Steel, far from it. This damage could of come from someone putting it in a dishwasher, edge down but in this case, it does look like Steel damage but also, maybe just a bad batch from the factory, a heat treatment issue.

In any event, this type of damage is easy to repair and once repaired, I find the edge a little stronger and less prone to chipping/ The picture below is is of the same knife and it's larger brother which also had similar damage.