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Honing a Global knife: steel or ceramic?

 
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Tritone



Joined: 04 Oct 2006
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:08 am    Post subject: Honing a Global knife: steel or ceramic? Reply with quote

I recently bought a Global G-2 8" chef's knife. This is the first quality knife I have ever bought. I love the feel and the sharpness of the knife, and I want it to stay in my kitchen for many years to come. To this end, I'm going to need to hone it on a regular basis. Which brings me to my problem.

Global recommends not to use a standard honing steel, saying their blades are "too delicate"; they instead suggest using a ceramic rod. This is kind of confusing to me and presents a couple problems.

First of all, I've read it's BAD to hone with steels that are harder than the knife itself, because you'll end up shaving off a lot of material from the knife, instead of just aligning the edge. I thought this is why most people don't recommend using a diamond-dust sharpening steel.

The second problem is that at 95 USD, Global's ceramic rod costs more than the chef's knife itself!

So how important is it not to use a traditional honing steel on a Global knife? Any first-hand experience or advice by other Global owners would be much appreciated. Thanks Smile
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jagstyle



Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 45
Location: CA

PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 4:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Personally, I use a leather hone to realign my edge as it is the final step in my sharping process after the polishing stones:


http://www.handamerican.com/flatbed.html

btw, using a steel that is harder than your knife is a good thing! A softer steel will fail to align the edge as effectively. People advise against using those diamond coated steels because they are too aggressive (coarse) and can harm a delicate edge. The right choice is a steel/rod that is either super fine or completely smooth.

Forget about that $90 global rod.

Here is a $35.00 smooth steel or $25 ceramic rod that will mostly surpass the build quality of the global:
http://www.handamerican.com/steel3.html

I would buy the smooth steel to perform maintenance in between sharpenings if you also plan on getting waterstones as it will not remove any metal.

I would buy the ceramic rod if you intend it to be the only tool resharpening your knives because it will actually remove a tiny bit of metal which will help to keep your knives sharp in the long run. However, the sharpness will never be as good as if you mastered using stones or micro abrasive paper.
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GaryProtein



Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535

PostPosted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Use a steel. Global is giving you a lot of bunk. Besides, if their blade is so delicate, why buy their knives?
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GaryProtein wrote:
Use a steel. Global is giving you a lot of bunk. Besides, if their blade is so delicate, why buy their knives?


Because they are sharp and look sexy...... Laughing Out Loud

MOST steels are ridged and use a softer steel than Global's edge. Like ANY ultra hard steel....the trade off is some brittleness. You can do stuff with a Wusthoff or Forschner you can't do with a very expensive Misuno,because softer= tougher.

If an edge has a hardness of 60 and the steel a hardness of 57,the steel has little ability to do anything good to he knife-especially a ribbed type steel. What CAN happen is yu might gouge the knife edge into the steel,or strike the steel a bit hard and chip your edge.

A ceramic "steel",actually a rod,is harder than steel---even a $15 ceramic.
LIGHT strokes can hone while not posing much risk. The cheap ceramic rods are quite breakable. For $30...more or less..you can fine one that's pretty durable.

Keep in mind-some Globals are single edge.

Also,most folks I have SEEN use a steel,have very poor technique.
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GaryProtein



Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If a person has a bad technique with a steel, they will use the same bad technique with a ceramic rod.

The hardness of a kitchen knife is NOT the most important thing in the world. If I were doing eye surgery, I would make sure to use a very hard, sharp blade, and I would throw out a few of them during one procedure. When I buy kitchen knives, I do not plan on throwing out two or three of them during the preparation of a meal. I expect the knives to work as well for twenty to fifty years as well as when it was new with normal maintenance, i.e. periodic steeling and very infrequent professional sharpening, every several years. People on this board will tell you they have knives fifty years old that are wonderful. Toughness and resilience, in addition to sharpness, are important characteristics in a kitchen knife. A knife blade with a modulus of elasticity in the TeraPascal range (okay, I'm exaggerating) would produce a knife sharpenable to an extremely fine sharp edge that would break immediately with use, rendering it useless.

My main complaint with the Global knives is their handles--too small, too strangely shaped, and just uncomfortable for my hands, which are about a 7 1/2 glove size.
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