How to Sharpen KnivesUpdated 10 months ago

With a long, tubular shape and blunt tip, a honing steel—also called sharpening steel or honing rod—is designed to realign the edge of your knife’s blade with just a few strokes.

How is this process different from sharpening? The difference is, quite literally, microscopic: as you use your knife, the sharpened part of the blade—i.e. the edge—develops tiny (as in, too small to see with the naked eye) dents, dings, and other defects. With sharpening, you’re literally creating a new edge by shaving away incredibly thin layers of metal; with honing, you’re simply pushing the existing edge back into alignment, which can make your blade feel temporarily sharper. You can read more on the differences between honing and sharpening in our guide.

So do you need to hone and sharpen your knife? Short answer: yes. Honing is an excellent way to supplement once- or twice-yearly sharpenings—not to mention, honing is much easier and quicker to learn than whetstone sharpening (our preferred method). That being said, honing can only go so far in restoring that clean, sharp-feeling edge: eventually, your blade will feel dull no matter how much you hone it. At this point, it’s time for a sharpening.

How to Hone Your Knives

To hone your knife, first make sure you’ve got a level surface and plenty of work space, as well as a dish towel and cutting board to rest your honing steel on. You’ll also want to find the angle of your blade, made easy with our built-in angle guides. Follow along with the video up top along with the written instructions to get the hang of honing.

1. Get set up: Set up a dish towel atop a cutting board to stabilize the honing steel. While gripping the handle of your honing steel, place the tip of the steel down onto the dish towel. Keeping the steel steady, place the heel of your blade aligning to either the 15- or 20-degree angle guide, depending on your knife.
2. Start honing: Applying only a little bit of pressure and maintaining a consistent angle, draw the blade down and across the honing steel, making sure that the steel makes contact with the full length of the blade. We recommend 8-10 strokes per side.
3. Hone the other side: Flip the knife and repeat steps 1 and 2 on the other side of the blade. Since your knife is flipped, the tip of the knife should meet the tip of the steel at the end of each stroke.