Noticed something weird with my boning knife after a week in a rental shop

I sharpened up my Victorinox like always last Monday and by Friday it felt dull again. Worked at a friend's shop in Portland for a week and their steel rods were way coarser than I'm used to. Anyone else find their edge goes quick when you're not using your own gear?

3 comments

3 Comments

faithpatel8d agoTop Commenter

Oh man, that's a good point about the coarseness, but here's something nobody's brought up yet: the angle you use on those rods matters just as much as the grit. I've seen guys at the shop I used to work at roll their wrists funny on a coarse rod and basically grind a microbevel at 25 degrees instead of the usual 15, and that steep angle makes the edge feel dull way faster even if the steel removal isn't all that bad. @samreed knows what's up with the fine diamond approach, but even a coarse rod can work okay if you keep your angle super consistent and do light passes. The real killer is when people get overconfident with the aggressive rods and start slamming the knife on there like they're trying to file down a rasp, taking off way too much metal and leaving a ragged edge that gives up by Thursday.

samreed9d ago

Shane nailed it. Coarse rods are basically aggressive metal files in disguise. They grind off way more steel than needed and leave this jagged, uneven edge that chips and folds under normal use. I switched to a fine diamond rod a few years back and my edges last twice as long between sharpenings. The coarse stuff is fine if you're trying to fix a badly rolled edge in a hurry, but for regular touch-ups it's complete overkill.

shane_morgan9d ago

Used to think a coarse steel just meant it was more aggressive, figured it would still do the job fine. Then I borrowed a friend's setup last month and his rod must have been 40 grit or something. My Wusthof felt like a butter knife by day three. Swapped to my own fine rod midweek and the edge actually held for the rest of the rental. Coarse steel just tears off way more metal than you need, leaves a rough edge that folds over fast.