www.razoredgesystems.com/

Clarification:  A "Steel" is a round steel rod, perfectly smooth.  NOT a ceramic rod, NOT a "diamond coated rod", NOT anything with ridges/bumps/grit.  Simply a smooth steel rod!  A Good investment, as this is what you will use for sharpening most ALL of the time!

Most knives only need to be run across a steel to be "razor sharp" again, if they were sharpened properly the first time.

Like cleaning gun bores, what ruins knives is sharpening.  95% of people use a stone where a steel would suffice.

90% of "Dull Knives" only have the wire edge, imagine the last few molucules folded back over, making a rounded edge.

You can find the "wire edge" by lightly running your finger from the spine down across the blade edge on both sides.  You will definately feel the wire edge on a "dull knife"

to make it sharp again, run across a good steel 3-4 times on each side, under the knife's own weight.  The pressure and small contact area make enough friction to sharpen it perfectly.

When people get out the stones to fix a wire edge, they are wasting time, eating up metal, and potential messing up a well cut/sharpened blade.  

Get the "pocket steel" from razor edge systems, and DEFINATELY the book, if you want everything you own to make razor blades seem "ok sharp"

Knife sharpness test:

Hold out your index finger at a 45° downward angle.   Set your knife on your fingernail, with only the weight of the knife on the nail.  It should not move at all.  If it sticks, it is a sharp knife.  

If you can rotate the blade so it is at a 20 degree angle to your fingernail and it still sticks (in a new spot, not where the slight nick was made in the first test), it is "scary sharp"

Just a tip!  As soon as mine doesn't sit on a fingernail at an extreme angle (< 20 degrees, sharpening angle + 2 degrees), I run it across a steel and it is as good as new!

I use knives daily cutting everything you shouldn't.  Benchmade ATS-34 blade on one, which I have last run it across a stone over a year ago, and only the steel since (when needed).  Still razor sharp!

Biggest thing about knife sharpening is to "listen to the blade".  Grind one side until you feel the wire edge continually on the other side, then flip the other side until you feel the wire edge on the continual edge there.  The important thing here is that you continue to make FULL strokes with the stone, and not concentrating on the area(s) that don't have the wire edge on the opposite side yet.  Once this is done, the rest of the time you sharpen it will always "smooth up" quickly.  Between each wired edge on both sides, switch to a finer grit, repeat, until you are touching it up with 1000+ grit.  

Once sharpened properly, unless you are cutting nails/cement/other things that take a 'gouge' out of the edge, ONLY use a steel to make it sharp again.

When it is sharp, drag it across denim or kahki jeans in a pinch instead of the steel to straigten out the wire edge until you get to a steel (where it is "burnt" off from the friction on the steel).   Another thing to use in a pinch is the spine of another good blade for the steel (the corner of it).  Very Very Little pressure, and make sure the spine has no scratches/nicks to ruin your edge.  This is something that takes practice and an eye/touch to "find".

Again:  DO NOT USE STONES UNLESS YOUR EDGE IS DAMAGED FROM THE VIEW OF THE NAKED EYE (this is assuming you have a constant angle cut).

The above covers the meat of what is in the book, but the book has diagrams and explains things much better, I highly recommend it.  I can use any of my hatchets/axes to carve and whittle kindling with.  I also use only a steel on axes/hatchets after wood chopping, unless a rock or nail was hit that dinged the edge.

Quoted: Quoted: Get a Lansky sharpening system. Definately! Get the diamond stones if you can afford them. The problem with sharpening a knife is keeping the blade at the correct angle through the stroke. A little off and you remove the edge. Jim

I don't know if this has been commented on yet but I would respectfully disagree.

I bought a Gatco kit with the regular stones and it worked pretty well, I still wanted a sharper knife so I bought the diamond hone set and the results were worse, much worse

The diamond hones did not work very well at all, the edge was scratched up and it wsn't very sharp.

The knives I was sharpening were all CRKT.

Quoted: Having used steel rods for many years I find that a properly seasoned and loaded strop has a much better effect than plain steels.  Steels are much easier to use since there is no preparation but the strop with only a handful of strokes will maintain an edge far sharper.   Steels are most usefull in kitchens for extremely quick touchups on sushi and fillet knives.

Shaving with a knife isn't an accurate test, especially if it has a wire edge on it, and that edge is facing your skin.  I have seen knives that would cut hairs, but not paper.  It is in the edge, both ways.

The serrations do matter/count if you are using a sawing motion for slicing, as most do.  Sometimes stopping at 240 grit is good enough for cutting many things (like rope, and tomatos, which flex under pressure).  

It is all in the usage.  Carpet knife blades have a utility cut, which is visible.  They are very good for the purpose.

The problem with using compound every time is that you change the angle slightly (unless you have a convex ground blade), causing the knife to require a stone again after many trips across the strop.  With a steel, it will still remove the "dulling" wire edge, without removing any metal.

There are people on both sides of the camp on this, depending on the intended use.  When it comes to it, most wouldn't know the difference between a stropped and a steeled edge, unless they had a microscope, since either is always sharper than what they started with.


Since it hasn't been mentioned, and I don't want to reply again, I thought I would throw in this warning:

The ultimate worse thing you can do is pull the blade through a "carbide" sharpener ($8 for the "Ultimate 5 second edge! tools...), which basically gouges off metal in a way to create an angle, a very rough (about 60 grit comparison) edge that won't hold.   Every time you pull the knife through, you remove more metal than properly sharpening would do, and the edge doesn't last as long.