Those aren’t for sharpening. They’re for honing the blade. A sharp edge is thin enough to get bent out of shape during normal use, so the honing tip serves to straighten the edge, not sharpen it.
Yeah, honing rods bend back a bent blade edge. This can extend how long a whetstone sharpen is good for, but only by a little. They aren’t a replacement for a whetstone which does the above, and also sharpens the blade.
I’m the same. I am just learning right now what a honing rod is, reading the wiki article for it. I find that knowledge passed down organically is often incomplete this way. I have been using a pyreneean whetstone for a few years, it serves me well, but never bothered investigating the butcher’s weird metal stick
You should. They are quick and easy to use, fairly cheap (especially considering they last a very long time), and they will make your knives last longer because you won’t have to sharpen them as often.
Honing rods are not sharpening rods, which is what I was referring to (sharpening rods). This one looked like a sharpening rod on my phone, so if it’s a honing rod, then I was wrong and apologize.
And like the other person, I’ve never invested in using honing rods either.
I literally grew up having multiple generations dating back into the 1800s (great grandfather was a harpoon sharpener, all of us capable of field dressing an elk) explaining to me that honing rods (cermaic or steel) have been effectively mislabelled and misused all too often as ‘sharpening rods’ (google it or look on Amazon). Probably adds to why, if it is a honing rod, I couldn’t differeciate it from a sharpening rod.
They are not for sharpening. They hone blades after cutting things. You should use them before and after cutting stuff, but they do nothing else except remove burs and minor imperfections we cannot see with our naked eyes.
They’re fantastic if you keep your blade maintained, it’s honing, not sharpening.
Whetstones by themselves will get your blade sharp real fast, but by themselves all you’re really doing is making a micro-serrated edge every time, and it dulls fast. Smoothing your edge after whetstone with a honing rod smooths the cutting edge and reforms the edge shape after regular use.
If you lose your edge you have to start over from the whetstone, so maintaining the edge with a honing rod will save you time and not take as much material off your blade.
Also, a lot of households have utterly worn-out honing rods in their knife blocks, as the household often will try to use it for actual sharpening and scrape off a lot of the honing texture, and eventually will get so smooth they do nothing.
Great post, but I think it is worth mentioning that how long a knife retains its edge after being sharpened depends very much on the material(s) the blade is made of.
Those sharpeners are worthless.
Whetstones are the only true way to sharpen a good knife.
Those aren’t for sharpening. They’re for honing the blade. A sharp edge is thin enough to get bent out of shape during normal use, so the honing tip serves to straighten the edge, not sharpen it.
Yeah, honing rods bend back a bent blade edge. This can extend how long a whetstone sharpen is good for, but only by a little. They aren’t a replacement for a whetstone which does the above, and also sharpens the blade.
It’s so strange that someone who knows how to use a whetstone doesn’t know what a honing rod is.
I’m the same. I am just learning right now what a honing rod is, reading the wiki article for it. I find that knowledge passed down organically is often incomplete this way. I have been using a pyreneean whetstone for a few years, it serves me well, but never bothered investigating the butcher’s weird metal stick
You should. They are quick and easy to use, fairly cheap (especially considering they last a very long time), and they will make your knives last longer because you won’t have to sharpen them as often.
Honing rods are not sharpening rods, which is what I was referring to (sharpening rods). This one looked like a sharpening rod on my phone, so if it’s a honing rod, then I was wrong and apologize.
And like the other person, I’ve never invested in using honing rods either.
I literally grew up having multiple generations dating back into the 1800s (great grandfather was a harpoon sharpener, all of us capable of field dressing an elk) explaining to me that honing rods (cermaic or steel) have been effectively mislabelled and misused all too often as ‘sharpening rods’ (google it or look on Amazon). Probably adds to why, if it is a honing rod, I couldn’t differeciate it from a sharpening rod.
This is the first time I have ever heard or read anybody use the term “sharpening rod”.
(I don’t think they know how to use a sharpening stone).
They are not for sharpening. They hone blades after cutting things. You should use them before and after cutting stuff, but they do nothing else except remove burs and minor imperfections we cannot see with our naked eyes.
They keep the blade sharp longer; not sharpen it.
They’re fantastic if you keep your blade maintained, it’s honing, not sharpening.
Whetstones by themselves will get your blade sharp real fast, but by themselves all you’re really doing is making a micro-serrated edge every time, and it dulls fast. Smoothing your edge after whetstone with a honing rod smooths the cutting edge and reforms the edge shape after regular use.
If you lose your edge you have to start over from the whetstone, so maintaining the edge with a honing rod will save you time and not take as much material off your blade.
Also, a lot of households have utterly worn-out honing rods in their knife blocks, as the household often will try to use it for actual sharpening and scrape off a lot of the honing texture, and eventually will get so smooth they do nothing.
Great post, but I think it is worth mentioning that how long a knife retains its edge after being sharpened depends very much on the material(s) the blade is made of.
And the angle used, and the materials it’s used on (though that last part was contained in what you said tbh)
ok well