How do honing rods work?

Did you know that honing rods don’t really sharpen your knives? They actually realign your knife’s edge. Let me explain.

No matter how expensive or inexpensive, knives will dull over time. Even though that edge may not look noticeably different after a couple of months of kitchen work, at a microscopic level it is much different. The job of the edge of a knife is to concentrate lots of pressure to cut. Naturally, this can cause the edge to roll, flatten and indent. At a microscopic level, this looks like little jagged bits of metal, and it makes sense why that knife does cut so well.

Now, knife if your knife is very dull and has been used for several months (or years) without maintenance, you should probably look to do a full sharpening. Where the honing rod comes in, is the maintenance piece.

Honing a knife’s edge helps realign that edge back into it’s V shape. For me, I hone my knives usually at least once or up to a couple of times a week.

Also, look into getting a ceramic honing rod. They do remove microscopic bits of weak metal from your edge, are more forgiving on nicer knives and will leave your edge sharper for longer than their steel counterparts. They are a comparable price as well. Here’s the one that I use: Professional 10.5 Inch Ceramic Honing Rod (affiliate link).