Sharpening kitchen knives with a steel, as I do it? Hold the steel in your right hand with the end pointing 45 degrees left of straight ahead Hold the knife in your left hand with the point aimed 45 degrees right of straight ahead, so the knife and steel are at 90 degrees to each other. The edge of the blade is away from you, to your left, and the blade starts out on top of the steel.
Start at the bottom of the steel and the close end of the blade. You need a slight angle raising the back edge of the knife, trying to duplicate the factory'f final befel on the edge. Draw your hands apart, thus moving the steel up along the knife and drawing it towards the blade edge. If your angle is too shallow, you won't feel any "grinding" action. If the angle is too steep, it will rasp and jiggle. If it's just right, it will slightly grind, although you're not really removing material, just reshaping it. At the end of the stroke, bring the steel and blade back together at there handle ends again and repeat the stroke a few times. Now move the knife to the bottom under the steel and lower the back edge of the blade to duplicate the angle but on the other edge of the blade. Stroke towards the point of the knife and point of the steel again repeating the stroke a few times. You can go from side to side of the blade each stroke if you wish, but that means you have to keep establishing your bevel angle each stroke. I find it easier to do repeating the stroke a few times on each edge then flipping to the other side of the blade for a few strokes. The way described I think by Terry, has you turning the knife over each stroke and going opposite directions on the steel. This works fine, but one stroke brings the knife towards the hand that's holding the steel. Slipping here can bring the blade to your hand. Do this slowly at first till you get used to the proper angle between blade and steel. It's better to be too shallow than too steep, too shallow does almost nothing, too steep removes material from the blade edge and ruins it quickly. If your knife is in basically good shape, all it needs is a few strokes once in a while to keep the final bevel honed. If it needs "real" sharpening, the steel won't do and you'll need it ground to reproduce the final bevel. BTW, this technique is only for "hollow ground' real knives, if you are so desperate as to have serated knives, don't bother, nothing can be done with them. Serated knives don't cut, they rip, tear and destroy. <GRIN> some larger knives like cleavers aren't hollow ground, they just have a single steep befel. These require a much steeper blade angle to sharpen. Now if I could only figure out how to describe the proper shape of a "hollow ground" edge. Hope this makes some sense. Oh, I tell if a knife is truly sharp with a ripe tomato ro fresh soft bread. If moving the knife genly over such a surface doesn't immediately start cutting into it without pressure or sawing, then the knife is not sharp. Tom Fowle
