We see more and more people use ceramic knives. Now they make ceramic honing rods. Are they better than steel ones? And if so are they better enough to justify buying one? Particularly if you already have a steel one? Find out more below
This sounds like an innovating idea, and at an affordable price, I couldn’t resist buying one. So what are my early thoughts on this one (https://amzn.to/2I9R1wf), does it stand up to me expectations? Lets find out…
Being made out of ceramic, this rod will serve you even with the hardest blades. To be more versatile, it also comes with two grits. One side (the striated one) has a 2000 grit for relatively dull knives and the other side (smooth side) is of 3000 grit to really get that knife-edge shining! It is a standard 10.5 inches long. Sadly, that just didn’t fit my drawer. I placed a hook next to my knife block and hung it there.
I wasn’t too convinced by the ceramic idea, being more of a steel lover, but I got to say that it does the job. I’m wondering if this would work on ceramic knives since those are notoriously hard to sharpen. I don’t own a ceramic knife currently so I’ll have to test that in the future. If anybody knows, please let me know in the comments below. The nice thing is that ceramic never rust and is anti-microbial.
Now you do have to be careful with this one as ceramic. The trade-off of being very hard… is that it is brittle. So it is sensitive to shock and drops. They did think of that by putting a plastic “shock-absorbing” tip. This is the only ceramic honing rod I’ve seen that does that, good point here. However, it is hard plastic and not grippy rubber. Being long and slender I still feel that it could be quite fragile even with the plastic tip. So just be careful with it when laying it back on your work surface.
The handle fits the hand but is a bit squarish and feels cheap. I would have preferred a round handle and a square hand-guard as this would prevent the honing rod to roll on your workbench and fall of the edge. That being said the hand-guard works well and is made of plastic so there is no risk of damaging your blades on it.
I do find that it doesn’t remove very much material, so this one is really more for honing than sharpening. It works more like a leather strop. This isn’t too much of a problem for me as I have my trusty whetstones for a real sharpening. So I’ll use this honing rod for light touch-ups and everyday blade maintenance. But if you don’t have the money or patience to use whetstones and want an easy to use tool that does both, then this is NOT for you.
I’ll try something new here, give a short summary of the pros and cons of this item IMHO. Let me know in the comments if this format is more helpful.
Pros:
- Very hard ceramic for hardened steel blades like Japanese knives
- Shock protection tip
- Two different grits
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Feels a bit cheap for the price
- The grits are too fine for a real sharpening job, more of a stropping tool
If you’re interested in this honing rod, you’ll find it here for around 26$ which is really a good price: https://amzn.to/2I9R1wf.
Enjoy! And stay safe in these crazy lock-down times.