A honing steel, sometimes referred to as sharpening steel, sharpening stick, sharpening rod, butcher's steel, and chef's steel is a rod of steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

, ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

 or diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

 coated steel used to hone

Honing (metalworking)

Honing is an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on a metal workpiece by scrubbing an abrasive stone against it along a controlled path...

 or sharpen

Sharpening

Sharpening is the process of creating or refining a sharp edge of appropriate shape on a tool or implement designed for cutting. Sharpening is done by grinding away material on the implement with an abrasive substance harder than the material of the implement, followed sometimes by processes to...

 blade edges. They are flat, oval, or round in cross-section

Cross section (geometry)

In geometry, a cross-section is the intersection of a figure in 2-dimensional space with a line, or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, etc...

 and up to one foot long. The steel and ceramic honing steels may have longitudinal ridges, whereas the diamond coated steels are smooth but will be embedded with abrasive diamond particles.

The naming is often a misnomer, because a steel that hones may be called a "sharpening steel" in common parlance and vice versa. Moreover, the term "honing steel" may actually refer to a tool made from ceramic. For the purposes of this article the term "honing steel" will only refer to steels that hone, and the term "sharpening steel" will only refer to steels that sharpen.

Use

Honing steels are used by placing the near edge of the blade against the top of the steel, then drawing the blade backwards along the steel while moving it down – the blade moves diagonally, while the steel remains stationary. This should be done at the angle of the edge, usually 20°, and then repeated on the opposite side with the same angle. This is repeated five to ten times.

Honing

Honing is often recommended to be performed immediately before or after using a knife, and can be done daily. By contrast, knives are generally sharpened much less frequently. Honing steels are of no use if the edge is blunt, because it removes no material. Instead it fixes the micro-serrations

Serrated blade

A serrated blade is a type of blade used on saws and on some knives or scissors. It is also known as a dentated, sawtooth, or toothed blade.A serrated blade has a cutting edge that has many small points of contact with the material being cut...

 along the edge of the blade. It is not known exactly how the honing process works; some experts believe honing straightens the serrations while others believe it re-creates them.

Sharpening

Sharpening steels made from ceramic or that have a diamond coating sharpen and hone the edge because they are so much harder than the steel blade. Because these steels sharpen, they are only used every few months once the blade is dull.

East Asia

Honing steels are traditionally used in the West, on the softer steels used in Western knives. In East Asia, notably Japan, harder steels are used, so there is little need for honing intra-day, as the edge does not deform as much. Instead, the blade is lightly sharpened daily on a whetstone

Sharpening stone

Sharpening stones, water stones or whetstones are used to grind and hone the edges of steel tools and implements. Examples of items that may be sharpened with a sharpening stone include scissors, scythes, knives, razors and tools such as chisels, hand scrapers and plane blades...

.

This difference may be observed by contrasting a Western butcher (using a steel) with a Japanese sushi chef (using a whetstone).