NOT A KNIFE THREAD

This post is entirely lies.

This guy is correct. A standard steel will only realign an edge. No matter how much you try, you can not sharpen a knife with one. Ceramic rods, steels with embedded abrasisves, etc will actually sharpen a knife, but that is generally to create a microbevel that it at a higher angle than the primary bevel.

No one has mentioned the proper way to use a steel here. You use very light pressure at an angle like you are trying to cut very thing strips off of the steel. How you hold the steel is up to you.

Stropping on a flat strop gives me much better results from what I assume is the high surface area making the more consistent. It's also a lot more forgiving for beginners.
I have to hone on a rod very slowly and carefully with most of my blades to get the same result as my strop and it takes about as much time.

>This post is entirely lies.

I challenge you to find me photographs showing the edge of a knife before and after your supposed alignment.

Meanwhile I will keep posting proof of how a honing rod does indeed remove metal from blade.

Pic very related. Here's a standard steel. See how it has teeth on it like a file?

Here's another example of an old carving set. Once again you can see how the steel has removed metal from the blade--so much that it's changed it's shape from convex to concave.

"re aligning the edge" is fiction. Steels/rods/etc are nothing more than a fine abrasive. The old-school ones were like a steel file. The modern ones are ceramic or diamond coated. All of them are abrasive.

The ability to remove metal from the blade is based on the relative hardness of the abrasive surface. Unless you have a soft knife with a shit heat treat and an untempered steel, you are not removing

Here is an actual test. Go sharpen a quality knife on a coarse stone e.g. 220 grit. Make sure it has a burr along the entire blade. Now try to remove that burr with a steel that does not have an added abrasive by "sharpening" it at a more obtuse angle than on the stone. When you manage to accomplish this with a number of strokes similar to that used to realign the edge of a knife, come back tell me you sharpened the knife on a steel. All you will do is roll the burr from one side to the other. Better yet, dull a quality knife with a file and then "sharpen" it with a steel that does not have an added abrasive.

Most honing steels are in the 60-62C range. I make hunting knives as a hobby. They are about 68C after heat treating (i.e. they are harder than any of my files) and I temper them to ~64C. I have some kitchen knives that are in the 62-64 range as well. My standard Henkels steel will realign the edges of those knifes even though it is softer (i.e. the knife is the abrasive working on the steel). I am also the loving owner of a 1968 Dexter-Russell 21" steel.

>Buy a cheap waterstone, 1000/6000 grit
>Look up a bunch of sharpening tutorials
>Try on 3 separate occasions to sharpen my kitchen knife
>Short time, long time, using knife guide or not, knife barely gets sharper at all with 1000 grit
>Can't cut through printer paper without sawing a bit, can't cut through newspaper whatsoever

Am I just hopeless or should I have bought a higher quality stone? I don't have very high expectations but I don't see any results at all.

>The ability to remove metal from the blade is based on the relative hardness of the abrasive surface

Sure. And you can clearly see the effects of this by looking at the pictures I posted. You can clearly see how the blade is missing metal.

>>then "sharpen" it with a steel that does not have an added abrasive.
that would certainly work, but it would be long and tedious.

There's no such thing as "realinging an edge". You're simply removing a small amount of metal from it via abrasive action. The result is that the knife is super sharp, you are simply ascribing the mechanism to something different than what it actually is.

I'm still waiting for those before-and-after photos showing "alignment".

Meanwhile, enjoy another pic of an old knife that's been worn away by the use of a "traditional steel".

I can't fathom how anyone can say that a steel doesn't remove metal when faced with such clear evidence to the contrary.

Depending on how dull your knife was before you started it could take a long time with 1000 before you get a decent edge.

The quality of the stone doesn't really matter in your case. Cheap stones will wear out and "dish" quickly, but that doesn't sound like anything close to the problem you're having.

>Unless you have a soft knife with a shit heat treat and an untempered steel, you are not removing

Good steels are made from hardened tool steel. It will also be harder than the steel used to make the knife.

You're both right, and both wrong. There isn't just one type of honing rod. Some are steel with ridges, some are ceramic, some are diamond, and some are smooth steel. There do exist honing rods that are not abrasive:
amazon.com/Dexter-Russell-12-Inch-Smooth-Butcher-Steel/dp/B008RBSZMY
This rod will not remove metal from the knife. Others will of course.

tl;dr not all honing rods are the same

That is still abrasive, it just happens to be very very fine. If you were to look at that under a microscope it would look just like sandpaper.

You ever see that super fine sandpaper people use for making billiard cues or fishing poles? It doesn't look or feel abrasive, but that's just because it's so fine that your body can't readily see it. Same thing with the really fine sharpening stones. A 300 grit stone feels like rough concrete. A 1000 grit stone you can tell is abrasive but it's still fairly smooth. Once you start talking 5k, 10k, etc. the stones feel very smooth. Just like this steel.

It isn't abrasive enough to take metal off when used properly. Anything is "abraisive" to some degree. You have to relinquish that argument when it becomes ridiculous, otherwise you will need to acknowledge that food is also abrasive, as well as the wood in which you store the knife. Stop grasping at straws and admit that a few accurate swipes along a smooth, polished honing rod will realign the blade without taking off any metal.

Can we all agree that rubbing a hard steel on a slightly less hard knife removes a non-zero amount of material so knives should be rinsed between that and going into food to keep out steel flakes?

Bend metal back and forth enough times and it will break. Honing steels do take off some metal.

>It isn't abrasive enough to take metal off when used properly

Sure it is. That's how it works. Though you'd need a microscope to see it.

>>need to acknowledge that food is also abrasive, as well as the wood in which you store the knife

Sure it is, though to a very very small degree. That's know knives get dull and why we need to maintain and sharpen them.

>>dmit that a few accurate swipes along a smooth, polished honing rod will realign the blade
Why? The concept of alignment is fiction. What exactly are you aligning? Do you really think that hard, brittle blade steel is "bending over" and you are straightening it out? Why is it that nobody has ever been able to photograph this mystical phemomenon?

The answer is it doesn't exist. There's no such thing as "aligning". It's a fictional concept. What the steel is actually doing is removing a small amount of metal from the blade. How much is removed depends on how smooth the steel, ceramic, or diamond is. Think of it like a super-fine stone. It works just the same.

>Sure it is
No it isn't. Whatever minute amount of metal comes off with a smooth rod isn't going to be enough to affect the edge. It will not become "ragged" and a ragged edge will not become more sharp. The edge will be straightened out, that's it.

>The concept of alignment is fiction
No, the concept of sharpening is friction. I think you need to do a quick search and learn what aligning means.

>Do you really think that hard, brittle blade steel is "bending over" and you are straightening it out?
Yes. How do you think a knife acquires a burr during sharpening? I think you're vastly overestimating the rigidity of the metals used in knives. If they didn't bend they would be brittle and ship.

The amount of ignorance and misinformation in your arguments is absurd. I can only hope that you're playing devil's advocate or something.

>Sure. And you can clearly see the effects of this by looking at the pictures I posted. You can clearly see how the blade is missing metal.
>I can't fathom how anyone can say that a steel doesn't remove metal when faced with such clear evidence to the contrary.

Because correlation does not equal causation.

Knives become dull by having the blade it objects that are harder than the blade (that is why people that use glass cutting boards should be gassed). It makes microscopic nicks and dings along the edge. These nicks / dings are out of alignment with the core of edge as set when sharpened. The sharpening steel, i.e. one without and added abrasive, will push the dings / nicks back toward the core of the blade. That is the purpose of the "teeth" as you call call them. The small nicks that are out of alignment catch on the tooth when While there is a very small amount of material that is removed as is the case when any object is rubbed against another object that is harder than it, but the amount of material removed and the corresponding microbevel is incidental to the increased "sharpness" compared to the increase in surface regularity caused by forcing nicks and dings closer to alignment.

Here is a picture of two pieces of toilet paper. I used them to clean off my sharpening steels. They have not been "cleaned" in the past decade or so. The one on the left is from my Dexter-Russell with no added abrasive. The one one the right is from a Henkels with added diamond dust. You will notice that the Dexter-Russell is almost exclusively oil / grime with slight amounts of rust (this is because I use it mostly for carbon-steel knives). The rust will be the amount of steel removed from knife blades. You will see a lot of fine black material. This is metalic swarf that was removed from the blade.

The issue is that what happens during "re-alignment" isn't what you think it is. AB did a poor job there.

>>Do you really think that hard, brittle blade steel is "bending over" and you are straightening it out?
Absolute fucking retard.

>Good steels are made from hardened tool steel.
Yes, good tool steel, such as D2, is usually around 61-62C. Quality stainless steel knives, e.g. 440C, VG-1, VG-10, are all of similar or higher (slightly) hardness. A properly heat treated 1090 carbon steel knife can be up almost 70C before tempering.

>Because correlation does not equal causation.

So what do you think might have caused those blades to be so badly misshappen then?

I think it's pretty clear that it was caused by use of the steel over many years. It would be pretty silly for someone to have a carving set like that and then use something totally different for sharpening. And the shape of the wear pattern exactly matches the classic "steeling" motion. Notice that at the heel of the blade there is little metal removal. This is because when you're using the steel you aren't likely to start at the exact heel of the blade. Once we get past the heel the wear is at its worst. That perfectly correlates with the point of the motion in which you're applying more force to the steel. And as you get near the tip of the knife the wear is less. That perfect matches when you'd be applying less force to the steel due to contact being made further away from your hand.

If you have an alternate theory I'd love to hear it.

>>Knives become dull by having the blade it objects that are harder than the blade
That would certainly dull them the fastest, but even soft materials dull the blade. That's why we have to sharpen our knives periodically even though we're only cutting soft foods. Fuck, even a sushi chef has to sharpen his knives despite only cutting soft raw fish. You see the same with any kind of cutting tool: a carpenter has to sharpen his saws and his chisels even though they're used on wood which is much softer than the hard steel of the blade. Heck, even a modern saw blade that's tipped with tungsten carbide requires either sharpening or replacement as it gets dulled from cutting wood. (I agree 100% about the glass cutting board users deserving the gas chamber, BTW!) Hard materials dull the blade faster, softer materials dull it slower, but there's still wear in both cases.

>Do you really think that hard, brittle blade steel is "bending over" and you are straightening it out?

do wat? We use steel in knives specifically because it is flexible and durable i.e. the exact opposite of fragile and brittle. Hit quartz with a hammer. It is much harder than steel and will shatter. Then hit a knife with a hammer. You will notice that nothing happens. That is actually how we shape forged knives. We just heat them up to make it easier.

>Here is a picture of two pieces of toilet paper.

Cool. Looks like one steel is much more abrasive than the other.

>>The rust will be the amount of steel removed from knife blades
I'm glad we agree that even the smooth steel removes metal from the knife edge. You just proved my point regarding its abrasive properties.

Why is it that nobody can provide before/after pictures of this mystical bending/straightening process then? I keep asking. I've been doing so for years. Nobody can deliver.

There's a great PDF floating around that's a report conducted by the mechanical engineering department at Iowa State U. They compared various sharpening methods and have electron microscope photos before/after various sharpening methods. None of them show any evidence of "re aligning" or "straightening" an edge.

"Re aligning" is fiction.

You are still missing the point. Go back to my first post. The first thing I said what that you will have metal removal anytime you rub something against something harder. My point is that the miniscule amount of metal removed by a steel is not what is making the knife "sharper". Pushing the nicks and dings back to the middle brings the knife edge back to a more smooth and uniform edge. The steel used in knives is softer than you are thinking.

>Fuck, even a sushi chef has to sharpen his knives despite only cutting soft raw fish
You are definitely shitting me. It would take hundreds of years for "soft food" to dull a knife. Our knives are NOT dulled by soft foods. They're dulled by impacting the cutting surface (wood, etc) and by stuff like bones.

You sound like a flat-earther, or some other manner of nincompoop. Why do you need a picture to illustrate something that should be common sense? Here's a diagram, asshole.

You can split hairs about soft foods or cutting boards all day long. Both are significantly softer than a steel blade yet the knives still get dull.

The point is that any object contacting another will result in wear to both objects. Obviously the softer material will deform the most. That is, after all, what happens when we cut food with a knife. But the knife still gets dull, which is why it needs to be sharpened periodically.

But we're getting off on a tangent here. We've well established that a hard "Smooth" steel will indeed remove metal from a blade as GeorgiaFag's photos prove conclusively so there's no point in talking further about food or cutting boards.

If I used a knife on a steel for long enough would I sharpen the steel?

>My point is that the miniscule amount of metal removed by a steel is not what is making the knife "sharper".

But that's incorrect. That minuscule metal removal is exactly what's making your knife sharper.

You just think it's some other mystical process that nobody has ever been able to demonstrate via photography.

"Alignment" is fiction. Honing rods--whether ceramic, diamond, serrated steel, smooth steel, or whatever else function by abrasive action. The only difference is the degree of abrasive. And just as how you can buy a 150 grit stone or a 20k stone, you have similar choices with steels.

I know that the "alignment" theory is commonly preached among knife enthusiasts, but it literally is an old wive's tale and needs to die. It's no different than chefs talking about "searing meat to seal in the juices". It's outright wrong, but people repeat it over and over. You are supposed to use a steel just as how you are supposed to sear meat. But the mechanism of action is not the commonly held one.

Can you provide an actual photograph
I'm not the one arguing with you atm, but I'm also more interested in seeing some photographs from under a microscope.
Not really buying into your theory, given that honing rods are abrasive materials. After about a few hundred passes on my ceramic I start getting a noticeable polishing effect on my high carbon blade.

I never said that a smooth blade removes ZERO metal. We came to that conclusion long ago. My argument is that the amount of metal removed is negligible (i.e. is not nearly enough to consider the blade having been "sharpened"). You are the one having a problem distinguishing sharpening from realigning.

Here is a picture of a blade edge that has been bent over. Notice how the edge is still SHARP, it just needs to be knocked back into alignment with the rest of the blade (i.e. honed).

sharpeningmadeeasy.com/Juranitch1977Feb.htm
I'm pretty sure this disproves the alignment myth right here
Actual photos of steeled knife before and after

Here is another.

Where is the after photo from when you scratch that along the steel?

>Why do you need a picture to illustrate something that should be common sense?

Because I have 27 years metalworking experience and 14 of those managing a lab that does microscopic analysis of materials. I know this stuff well, and in my experience the very idea of "mis alignment" is nonsense.

I also cook as a hobby. I have a variety of knives ranging from cheap Asian-market shit to expensive custom-made Japanese knives. Iv'e made all the newbie fuckups. I've learned to sharpen my own knives. And I've never once experienced this "alignment" that people speak of. Chipped blades? Yep, done that. Learned my lesson the first time touched a chicken bone with my Sugimoto no. 6 and chipped it. Dull blades? Yep, sharpened plenty of them. Lived with dumbass roomates who managed to get all manner of dents and dings in my old Victorinox chef's knife? Yep. (oh, and using the steel didn't do a damn thing about those edge dings)

I'm well aware of "diagrams" that people post. Pic related is my favorite nonsense one. But I have yet to see a photograph, taken through a microscope, which actually shows this mythical straightening before-and-after.

I can see plenty of evidence of abrasive action though. Just look at Georgiafag's photos of the TP, or mine of antique knives.

They never mention what type of honing rod they used. We've already established that certain types (diamond, ceramic, steel with "teeth") do indeed grind metal away. Your link contributes nothing to the argument.

Also, I'm pretty sure that's just a burr that's leftover from sharpening your blade. You remove that with soft abrasion

>steeled

Wrong, that's a comparison of sharpening on a dry stone vs sharpening on an oiled stone.

I think I figured out what your problem is. You're a woman, aren't you? Women are notoriously shit at spacial thinking, which is why it's nigh impossible for you to imagine running that edge along a piece of smooth metal and bending it back the other way.

Holy shit now you're getting it! Knives acquire burrs from regular use! Using a smooth honing rod straightens the burrs, prolonging the sharpness which means you don't have to bust out the whetstones as often!

>wah wah I can't provide a simple before and after of the same blade pre hone and post hone
>why won't they listen to me
No

>My argument is that the amount of metal removed is negligible (i.e. is not nearly enough to consider the blade having been "sharpened").

The photographs posted of old knives having severe wear from the steel would suggest otherwise.

That pic does indeed look sharp. I don't see anything "bent over" to any appreciable degree.

This doesn't appear to be a knife blade, at least not one that's finished and ready for use. (It's a good photo though, great contrast)

That looks like something that just came off a very rough grinder or sander and has a massive burr on it. You can seven see large curled up bits that were clearly scraped up by some kind of rough abrasive. Not sure how this photo is relevant, it's clearly not a dull kitchen knife.

Anyway, I'm asking for before-and-after. Same blade, same spot. Showing the change to the blade before and after steeling.

>> You are the one having a problem distinguishing sharpening from realigning.

In my experience there is no such thing as "realigning". I claim it is a myth. I think what's happening is just plain 'ol sharpening, but people think it's "Realigning" due to an old wive's tale. No different than Chef Ramsay talking about "searing meat to seal in the juices". People are stubborn about repeating what they have heard.

You're the only one here fighting the "honing theory" like a tinfoil hat-wearing autist. The burden of proof is on you. Why can't YOU provide a before and after picture of a honed knife showing that the edge has not only been straightened, but also refined?

>Holy shit now you're getting it! Knives acquire burrs from regular use!

Nope. Burrs only form when something much harder than the blade carves them out, such as when using a stone or a sanding belt. The dulling process of a knife has nothing to do with burrs, it's simple wear.

>> Using a smooth honing rod straightens the burrs

No, it removes them via abrasive action.

I would love to provide you with a picture, unfortunately my scanning electron microscope is on the fritz at the moment. You'll just have to use your imagination.

There are countless SEM photos of knife blades on the web, yet not a single set of photos (that I have seen yet) shows this mythical "alignment" process. Yet all of them show the effect of abrasion.

Therefore I feel pretty damn comfortable thinking that abrasion is what's responsible here, at least until proof to the contrary is revealed.

If every bit of edge that wasn't in line with the rest was "ground away" via abrasion, you would end up with "cutouts," which certainly does not happen. Again, this is a no-brainer to anybody who can think spatially.

Are you telling me that you believe all of this is removed during regular honing? Nigger please.

That's right, goys, better buy our special deluxe (((honing rods))) to keep your knives nice and sharp!