shane_wilson•3d agoProlific Poster

Found a better way to sharpen my boning knife after 15 years

I always used a standard whetstone for my boning knives, but last week at a shop in Nashville a retired butcher showed me his rod technique. He just runs the blade along a ceramic rod at a specific angle after every few cuts instead of a full stone session. Has anyone else tried this approach and noticed their edges lasting longer between actual sharpenings?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jessica3d ago

Have you found that rod works better with a specific type of ceramic, or does the texture not really matter? The angle part is KEY though, you gotta keep it consistent or you'll just round the edge off. I picked up a cheap Chinese knockoff rod and it was way too smooth, so I switched to a medium grit one from a local shop and it makes a HUGE difference on my boning knives.

ryan_hart383d ago

My buddy tried a flimsy rod and his knife ended up duller than before he started.

sagejackson2d ago

...and honestly I think that's half the battle right there, people think any rod will do the trick but the texture and hardness of the ceramic really does matter. I've got a beat up old ceramic rod from a yard sale that feels almost like a smooth river rock and it barely does anything except polish the edge if I'm being real careful. But then my cousin bought one of those super coarse diamond rods online and it ate through his knife's edge like a cheese grater, left all these micro chips that he had to grind out later. It's weird how much of a Goldilocks situation it is with these things, too soft and you're just burnishing the steel, too hard and you're scraping it away. I still think the angle thing is the real make or break though, you can have the best rod in the world but if you're wobbling all over the place you might as well be dragging your blade across a brick.