Thread: Razor-Strop Kitchen Knives-"Steel" why?

I use a strop on a knife I use only for trimming meat and fish. I hone it to 8k and give it a round on some paste and then a strop. If you are only doing delicate work it really is the best and it does the least damage to the meat. As for my other knives - I don't use a steel but I tend to keep a 1k edge on them. I am struggling to find a good steel like the ones I used when I worked at a butcher. Most steels I find are really aggressive.

Ernestrome is correct about the ceramic steel being more of an abrasive tool that a "pressure realigning tool" as many chef's steels are. It works like most sharpening stones by removing metal. On a real 'steel" the use may vary. I have seen completely smooth ones than could only work via pressure against the blade like a strop and others with serrations. I don't know enough about steel to judge whether the serrations are working like file teeth to remove metal or only to reduce the contact patch even further and increase effective pressure for realigning. (remember, I'm a "Stropmeister" not a "Steelmeister" <g>).

Chris, I think you may find some vintage travel type strops used the same idea you have experimented with, a steeply curved surface. Quite a few compact paddles had at least one rounded side that provided little contact but would work with any condition blade, smiling to frowning. Not sure how effective they were but they seemed popular.

I think Keith at hand American made a "razor steel" of sorts with his boron glass rod hone device. It was a frosted boron glass rod one would use as a steel. One caution using anything like this on a razor is the amount of pressure applied. We are working with an edge, and a concave grind through much of the body that is paper thin. Too much pressure and one can easily split the edge. In the right hands though it may be a fine tool.

There were the old marble sharpeners that worked in a similar fashion. But here the glass sphere only touched the very edge and on both sides at once to support it which applying pressure and realigning, not abrading it back to sharpness.

Tony

these are the ones tony mentioned here JapaneseKnifeSharpening.com

Originally Posted by nickyspaghetti

I use a strop on a knife I use only for trimming meat and fish. I hone it to 8k and give it a round on some paste and then a strop. If you are only doing delicate work it really is the best and it does the least damage to the meat. As for my other knives - I don't use a steel but I tend to keep a 1k edge on them. I am struggling to find a good steel like the ones I used when I worked at a butcher. Most steels I find are really aggressive.

Handamerican sell (or sold) a smooth metal steel as well as the borosilicate one Tony mentions.

Or the spine of another knife can substitute.

Originally Posted by Chris L

2) Randy Tuttle theororized that the amount of force placed on the single points of contact of the spine and the bevel when they're honed across that line of the cylinder is so much greater than the weight of the blade when it's distributed across more of the spine and bevel when honing on a flat stone; as such, given the delicate nature of the razor edge, especially full and extra hollow razors makes for ineffective honing this way.

Good point there. Take the force applied over the entire length and focus it on, at most, 1mm? You'd probably be applying roughly an order of magnitude more force on the edge? This would assume everything is horizontal. Maybe if you held the hone at an upright angle? Like maybe 10 or 20* from vertical the force per unit might be equivalent to having the entire edge on a stone when horizontal? I think someone who didn't almost fail physics in school could give you the proper angle pretty easily

I wouldnt steel a razor. Too harsh and too much margin for error. Plus Chirs highlighted soem important points mainly that at any single point too much pressure is put on a micro-micro-edge.

I do however strop my kitchen knives with CrO2. Works a charm. Gives is the "micro serrartions" it needs plus takes off any harsh edges.

Basically I think a steel is to rude for a dainty razor while the smooth CrO2 softens out the larger and stronger kitchen blades.