Sharpening vs honing?

[jbj]

I posted a while ago about not being very successful with a whetstone.

I picked up a honing steel earlier in the week and gave it a go last night - just googled a few things, watched a few videos and then got stuck in.

I managed to get good results on my knives and even the poor pairing knife that my wife uses for everything got to the stage it could cut through paper but I thought honing was just to keep the edge in good working shape, not to actually sharpen it.

???

 

[Kerouac]

A honing STEEL will keep the edge properly aligned, and with an overly dull knife can at least make it usable. A ceramic or diamond "steel" can actually remove material from the edge, which is what is required to truly sharpen a blade. Just be really careful with one, especially if it's a diamond steel, as you can take a lot of metal off quickly.

 

[Lerxst]

Always thought this was a good explanation or visualization


http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/09/how-to-choose-knife-honing-steel.html

To understand how a steel works, it helps to think of a blade's beveled edge as a really pointy mohawk. When a blade is freshly sharpened, it's like a perfect mohawk, the hair converging to a fine point, with the help of far too much gel. But with use, that pointy edge starts to flop over on itself, making it much less effective, the way that mohawk gets when the gel has worn away over the course of a day.

With knives, this happens on a microscopic level—it's not something you can see by looking at it with the naked eye. But it is something you can feel. Your knife, which may have previously felt sharp as a razor, starts to bite and catch on the food you're cutting. You can sense some resistance that wasn't there before. By running the blade along a honing steel, you can pull that microscopic edge of metal back into an upright position, and regain a good deal of its cutting power in the process. It's sort of like applying fresh gel to a flopped-over mohawk.

Eventually, though, that super-fine edge of metal will break off and wear away, like a pencil point dulling down. As this happens, the honing steel will become less and less helpful. Your only good option then is to re-sharpen the knife, which rubs away metal on a whetstone to create a brand-new edge, just as a pencil sharpener puts a new point on a pencil.

 

[bsman]

Both. I have a Worksharp Guided Sharpening System that has diamond “sharpening stones” as well as a ceramic hone. I also have a long steel “file” hone in the kitchen I use for touching up edges between sharpenings. Both are important.