Honing vs. Sharpening

180mm Watanabe Nakiri 

Honing is different from sharpening a kitchen knife. You can see different videos online that demonstrate sharpening a kitchen knife with a honing steel or rod. I know of some videos of reputable chefs that demonstrate this. My conclusion is that either they don't know the difference or they are blindly teaching others for the sake of selling a product.

Here is the real deal about honing. When you constantly use your knife, it tends to flatten its edge.
 Imagine your fingers interlocking with each other. That is your edge when it's dull. By using a honing steel, you bend the remaining steel that causes your knife to dull back in place. Now from your interlocking fingers, slowly move it so that the tips of your fingers touch each other. That is the same movement your honing steel does. It bends your edge back in shape. It may feel as though its sharp again, but this is by no means as sharp as  it was ought to be. The more you bend the remaining steel, that part of the steel becomes weak and fragile. This is the reason why you may be able to use honing steels with softer steel knives. These include your usual European made knives. This does not, however, mean that you don't need to sharpen it on a stone from time to time. Since the bending makes your edge weak, it may require you to keep on honing it. In time, you may notice that your knife loses its edge quicker than usual. This means the weak part of your edge is beginning to take its toll and it needs to come off.

When you buy your first Japanese knife, it is almost always harder than your average knife. If you see a knife with an HRC rating, it connotes the hardness of steel due to tempering done on your knife. With knives entering more than 58hrc, the steel does not bend as freely as your usual European knives. When you try and use a honing steel on these kinds of knives, the fatigued metal does not bend back, they shatter and break. This is the main reason you do not use honing rods on harder steel knives.

Sharpening a knife, on the other hand, is the process by which you intentionally abrade metal on your knife to produce a new edge apex. You take out steel, plain and simple. This is the method by which I stick to. Some may argue that you lessen the life of your knife. I have to agree but only to a certain point. There is such as thing, however, as over-sharpening.You don't need to take out huge amounts of metal every time you feel that your knife becomes dull. You can always start by using a higher grit stone first depending on how dull your knife has become. This way you can gauge how much steel you need to take out.

There is also some techniques in honing your Japanese knives using your whetstones. The main purpose of this is to take out your usual micro burrs for a clean edge finish. You can do this everyday before a shift or a task. Simply take out your finest grit stone and pass in on your stone at a specified angle with the slightest pressure. After this, you can always strop on leather, jeans, newspaper or even cork to further clean your new edge.