A honing steel sometimes referred to as sharpening steel whet steel sharpening stick sharpening rod butcher s steel and chef s steel is a rod of steel ceramic or diamond coated steel used to re align blade edges.
What is a ceramic hone.
Once you ve chosen your sharpening steel you ll need to take care of it.
A ceramic hone is the best of both worlds.
Photo by flickr member matt feifarek under creative commons.
Find out how the different materials affect your knives and what to look for in a honing rod.
Messermeister ceramic rod honing steel is a high end quality ceramic honing steel for home use.
The rod was made of a combination of industrial strength ceramic on honing steel.
Ceramic rods on the other hand are less aggressive than diamond and can sharpen as well or better than a steel.
This means that they have a slight sharpening effect.
The ergonomic handle provides a very secure grip.
Honing steel option 2.
Ceramic steels which should maybe be called ceramics not steels are capable of rubbing off a teeny tiny amount of metal from your knives as you hone them which you can immediately see as gray streaks on the white ceramic rod.
They are flat oval or round in cross section and up to 1 foot 30 cm long.
They are generally harder than a steel hone but not quite as abrasive as a diamond hone.
You clean a knife each time you use it and you should also clean your sharpening steel every time you hone your knife.
The steel and ceramic honing steels may have longitudinal ridges whereas the diamond coated.