Quote Originally Posted by cudarunner View Post
Oh yes my friend a 'Good Steel works wonders. I was taught to run the knife over the steel right off of the hone/much like stropping a razor after honing.

I was taught to hold the knife to the steel at the same angle that it was sharpened on. It's hard to do but with practice it works and works well.

Jerry's steel is about the same 'cut' as mine in that while you run you fingernail lengthwise you don't feel anything but running it around you get just a little bit of 'chatter'.

I don't like steels with a rough cut/I was taught that while F Dick made them they were for the guys in the slaughter houses where they were dinging edges on bones day in and day out and that the rough cut brought the dings our faster but 'coarser'.

I found and gave my good buddy Ski an F Dick that was totally smooth and he loves it.
I sharpen the knives for the cafe in town. keeps me in free coffee and tortes. Every time I get a knife back, its destroyed! I have talked with the cooks over and over about using a steel, and none of them, not even the ones that have actually gone to a school, have ever known how to properly use one.

The last one had one of those 2ft long "diamond coated" steels, and without fail he would kill every edge i put on a knife, and complain that i was doing a poor sharpening job, or that "the knife has been sharpened too many times, its into the soft steel now and needs replaced"

here at home, I have an F Dick as well. Not as nice as yours though! Its pretty damned smooth, and my personal favorite