Assuming you have kitchen knives made with quality steel, and you always cut on a board, you can sharpen a knife in 15 seconds per week. And by this, I mean steeling with a fine diamond coated butcher’s steel. The one we use at home for our kitchen knives is the DMT DS2F 12-inch diamond steel, which is a smooth steel rod coated with 600 grit diamonds. There are many designs of diamond coated steels in different shapes and with different grit coarsenesses, but we find this one offers a perfect balance between edge straightening and ultra-gentle material removal. End result is a straight and sharp working edge that just stays that way and makes cutting consistently satisfying. Use it as you would any steel for about 5 strokes per side alternating and then rinse under a tap. If you do this regularly, every week, your edges will stay sharp.
Brian B
What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of using the DMT diamond steel vs a leather strop with DMT diamond compound for those weekly touchups?
John Gudmundson
It does not hurt to have both, but if you only have one, I’d have the steel. The role of the steel is to straighten a rolled over edge and secondarily, in the case of diamond or ceramic steels, to remove micro amounts of material. A strop generally will struggle to straighten rolled areas. However, a strop with diamond compound can most likely get the edge a bit sharper than the typical diamond butcher’s steel. As always, the devil is in the details, such as the quality of the knife steel.
MikaFoxx
I think the science has shown that edge realignment isn’t really a thing that happens with a steel, even a plain smooth one.
They simply sharpen the edge by adhesive of abrasive wear. It’s much the same as a sharpening stone. A strop will also sharpen but it will lower the acuity of the final angle over time due its flexibility, but also can’t make a burr for the same reasons. Both are needed to get the highest performing edge, but even a good edge off a 400 grit is so far above the average knife’s edge it’s hilarious. Keep those knives sharp however is most convenient to you. Business can’t use leather strops for bacteria reasons, which is why steels are so popular, though dry diamond plates have to be just as good now that we have them.
John Gudmundson
It is surprising how slow science has been to comprehensively address all the aspects of sharpness. Partly because it is a complex topic involving geometry, steel type, heat treat, and various aspects of establishing controlled experiments. The YouTube channel Outdoors55 has contributed immensely in recent years with close up photography and video and Alex isn’t a scientist so far as I know.
You raise some good points. The only things I would add is that steel can be usefully deformed with either harder steel or a carbide rod, for instance to create a hook on a woodworker’s card scraper. A similar effect happens with a knife and a good butcher steel which you can see in real time after a couple of alternating strokes to a rolled edge when viewed under a bright light: edge becomes straight without reflection. Steeling is not as good as abrasive sharpening but it is way quicker and allows you to sharpen less often. But you do reach a point where steeling doesn’t help much because you’ve lost your shallow cutting angle.
Victor Nishimoto
Hello,
What steel type are you using?
Thank you
John Gudmundson
We are now using Magnacut on all our models.