In article 1cfb2bf8-7fce-4e9b-a602-ed50ab4b0347
@g25g2000yqn.googlegroups.com, says...

On Oct 30, 7:20*am, "J. Clarke" wrote:

(1) Ceramic and diamond steels most assuredly do sharpen.

Absolutely. I use various grits of carborundum or alox to reprofile
my knives, then resharpen with ceramic or diamond.

For most of my knives, they simply get a sharpen with my 600 gr. 12"
chef's rod. I found it takes off less metal and leaves a finer edge
than a good quality kitchen steel. An inspection under 10X shows the
edge to be much more toothy than the diamond rod, and the resulting
material size removed is greater as well.

With that in mind, my steels are all retired.


(2) Conventional steels, which anyone who uses scrapers would recognize
as being "burnishers", work the edge from alternating directions,
thinning it. *When it's thin enough it comes off. *The pieces are tiny
and infrequent, so they don't get noticed, but they're there.

Kinda. OK... not really. A steel removes the rolled edges of a
knife. It is the *striations* on these rods that catch the roll or
"burr" and literally cut it off. An average kitchen knife has a
Rockwell hardness of about 53 - 55. You good german steel should be
about 58 or so. The striations provide the teeth to cut the tiny
burrs away, and the hardness of the steel allows it to cut off the
rolled burrs on softer steeled knives.

As a point of interest, get out a good magnifying glass and inspect
the edge before (and feel the burr with your fingernail) and then
inspect after steeling.

A burnisher however, is a smooth, finishing tool that creates an
edge. It doesn't sharpen it. Typically, the burnisher is about 59 -
60 Rockwell, so it is VERY hard.

The steels that I have used are simple smooth rods with no striations
that I have ever noticed.

This is a good example:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/24vsq28

There are many more images available. All show burnishers with smooth
edges, unless it is a bone burnisher used for leather.

I use the classic way of sharpening my scrapers. I lay the scraper
flat and perpendicular to the stone and get the edge as close to a
perfect, no burr square edge as possible. Then in the wood vise, I
use the burnisher to roll the edge over to form the hook. The
burnisher doesn't cut anything away, but simply forms the hook that is
razor sharp (hopefully!) from a good sharpening.

Back around '69 or so I was in a shop class and we learned to sharpen
scrapers as the teacher was not big on sanding, but huge on scrapers.
For our "burnishers" we used a couple of Miller's Falls screwdrivers
that had a 3/8" shank. Worked like a champ. Actually.... in typing
this is probably just reflects how soft the steel was in those
scrapers....

On a scraper you roll the edge one way. On a knife you end up flexing
it back and forth.

"RicodJour" wrote in message

What's with all of the shards? *What are you guys using to sharpen
your knives - a half ******* file? *

I got a helluva guffaw at that.

The tiny amount of dust that comes off my diamond rod comes off as
gray discoloration on my fingers. You would never know it was metal.

*Half ******* file*.... good one!

Robert