I have been doing a bit of knife research as of late, and one thing that has come up is what a knife steel does and how to use it.
I do have a small diameter (3mm) knife steel with lengthway ridges, I always assumed it was some sort of file, fabricated from some very hard metal, like tungsten, as it will mark pretty much anything. I used it as I thought fit as some sort of file, cutting into the sharpening steel only with no reverse stroke, in a similar way as I have used rat tail files, only wearing away at a much lower rate than normal rat tail files, leaving a fine dark residue that I assumed was the surplus. I find my tecknique gives a sharp edge that does last along time providing I don't abuse it, even if it is slightly rough.
Only thing is that I see full size knife steels reccomend forward and backstrokes, and claim to only "realign the edge" or reform it. Are the large kitcken steels different ?Does anyone else use them? How do they use them? And what sort of results do they achieve ?
I do have a small diameter (3mm) knife steel with lengthway ridges, I always assumed it was some sort of file, fabricated from some very hard metal, like tungsten, as it will mark pretty much anything. I used it as I thought fit as some sort of file, cutting into the sharpening steel only with no reverse stroke, in a similar way as I have used rat tail files, only wearing away at a much lower rate than normal rat tail files, leaving a fine dark residue that I assumed was the surplus. I find my tecknique gives a sharp edge that does last along time providing I don't abuse it, even if it is slightly rough.
Only thing is that I see full size knife steels reccomend forward and backstrokes, and claim to only "realign the edge" or reform it. Are the large kitcken steels different ?Does anyone else use them? How do they use them? And what sort of results do they achieve ?