Cooks Standard Diamond Rod Knife Sharpening Steel, 12-Inch/30cm

Very well constructed SOLID ceramic sharpening rod with a good sized and easy to grip handle and hanging ring. I had bought a DMT diamond ceramic sharpener but it was junk - the coating peeled off with light knife strokes which was reported by dizens of others who posted 1 star reviews. I got suckered into the sales pitch that the DMT was "unbreakable" but it was turned out to be poorly made junk - more on that point in a minute.The Cooks Standard is solid (but breakable so don't drop it). My prior ceramic lasted 25 years until my clown act cat swatted it off my island in the kitchen last month when I turned my back for 15 seconds. Lesson learned - ceramic hangs on the pot rack as soon as I'm done with it because I know my cat is an incorrigible hooligan who can be seen below working on repeating the process for destroying ceramic sharpening rods with one push.

If you have knives, any kind, and want to to easily and quickly touch up their edges yourself, a ceramic rod, such as this is probably the best solution I've found for refreshing the blade fast. I've used many supposedly quick and easy sharpening solutions. Some work well, but often remove too much of your blade. Others, not so much. I already had a couple small ceramic sharpeners, but wanted something more suited for blades bigger than those in pocket folders. This fit the bill nicely, and seems a little coarser than my other ceramic, as it removes material fast. In the week I've had it, I've sharpened half a dozen knives and several pair of scissors, including one I didn't think would ever cut fabric again. A set of Old Hickory carving knives that had been crammed into the back of our knife drawer, dull and heavily tarnished from lack of use and care. The last time they were used was probably cutting fish in the 80's. In less than 30 seconds per knife, about 10 strokes per side of each blade, and they were all ready for duty, almost as sharp as my new ESEE that hadn't been used yet and came from the factory hair popping sharp. With a little stropping, I'm sure the Old Hickory's will be too.What this ceramic rod won't do: it won't reprofile your blade or fix chips, at least not efficiently. If you need that kind of edge repair this isn't what you're looking for. The Cooks Standard is great for refreshing your edge, return it to serviceable razor sharpness (a courser degree of razor that'll remove arm hair, but not as cleanly as a knife that's been stropped too) after a day, an hour, or even a few minutes of use, depending on what you're doing. Anywhere from one to 15 strokes per side and you should be slicing through paper again. This ceramic rod will get you a functional razors edge FAST! Top it off with a course or two of stropping afterwards for as sharp an edge you need.Ceramic rods have long been a preferred method for sharpening recurve blades, but they work with any blade type, even serrated, if you have a small enough diameter rod to fit inside the serrations. This rod uses a larger 1/2 inch diameter ceramic steel. It's awesome for larger blade lengths especially, like the pictured ESEE, as it leaves you plenty of room to hit the entire length of the blade in one stroke, without feeling like you're rushing it to hit the entire blade edge before running out of rod. You could even use this with a machete if the need arose. Of course the longer length makes the ceramic potentially more susceptible to breaking than smaller rods, so it's not suitable for field sharpening at this size. If you're sharpening a blade longer than a pocket knife, you'll relish this size at home. It doesn't feel the least bit fragile or weakly made to me. I'll know more once my nephew visits this summer and decides to play Luke Skywalker with it when I'm not looking.If you're new to sharpening, you can buy plastic guides to help you find your angle. But knife makers use a larger variety of bevel angles than the common degrees I've seen guides for. So if your knife doesn't fit the angle of the guide, you'll basically be changing the angle of the secondary bevel on the knife to match the angle of the guide. That might not be a big deal, depending on the blade design and intended usage, but it'll take a little longer to sharpen the first time. And once you get used to sharpening, the guides will just get kicked to the side. You won't need them anymore and likely won't want them either, so that you can take better advantage of the full length of the rod. So, if you invest extra in the guides, think of them like training wheels on a bike.Once you finish your sharpening ,a course scotch pad and a little soap and water make fast work of cleaning all the gray streaks of metal the knife left behind. But a simple pencil eraser works great too. Again, if you don't need to repair a blade edge, a rod like this is all you'll likely need. Though, combining it with a good leather strop (strops are usually better made than bought) would be the icing...

I SUCK at sharpening knives. I've used stones, strops, diamond this and ceramic that.....and every time I tried to sharpen a dull knife it always seemed duller than when I started. This is the cure for morons like me. As counterintuitive as it seems, follow the directions (as poorly translated as they are). With a little practice you will make blades scary sharp, especially fixed blades like Mora. This is not a sharpener you would use to sharpen a knife you removed concrete and rebar with last week, its for sharpening a knife that has gotten dull from its intended use. I seriously have no hair on my left arm from testing out my first successes at making a dull knife able to shave with.

I own Many knives (100+ in all) from my kitchen Finland made, ice hardened, to many hunting and survival of many brands (Buck w/420hc, 154Cm & S30V- Spyderco w/H-1,VG-10 & S30V as well as Puma Gold line made from 1.14116, 440C and Ka-Bar 1095HC, D2 tool steel- many more than I would waste time for you who read these reviews) listing these is an example of what I have used this VERY fine (well built and top quality) sharpening rod. I first make sure the edge on the blade I'm working on is to the point of "sharp" , not necessarily shaving sharp, but no blunting or nicks- I use a DMT diamond stone set finishing with the very fine grit of 2,000, once to that part of my process, I clean the blade and stroke one side 20 times, the other side as well, reducing the strokes each time by 3 until down to 2 strokes on this sharpening rod - it will, if heald to the same angle through the whole process, produce a very fine, VERY SHARP cutting edge, that if maintained with a few strokes every so often when needed on GOOD quality blades with proper heat treating, always allow you to have the edge needed to slice any food paper thin. Remember that this is ceramic and brittle (don't drop or bump it against any hard surface) also clean with a stiff plastic brush and a mild abrasive cleaner, such as "Bon-ami" , stay away from bleach containing products as they can cause oxidation on many surfaces - I highly recommend this product- I use it on my D2 straight razor also (yes I shave with a straight razor)- check out my other reviews, I hope this helps anyone to decide if this product is worth the $$$, it is !!

I think the "sharpening rod" is a bit of a misnomer. It's really a honing rod to maintain knife's edges rather than sharpening a dull knife.This is best suited to kitchen knives, because it's not too fine and gives you the right level of sharpness for the application. Many people think that "the sharper the better" but that's actually not true, because a very sharp knife has a very thin and smooth edge. This actually makes it harder to slice into softer things like tomatoes AND a very thin edge is susceptible to rolling, so you may dull a "hair-shaving-sharp" knife in seconds when handling tougher foods. So you actually don't want your kitchen knives to be nearly as sharp as a shaving razor or a fine wood chisel.And every time you sharpen your knife, you end up taking off a fair bit of material. It's not a lot in absolute terms, but if you have a good set of knives that you love, it may make a difference between them lasting for 25 years or half that. And of course it takes some time to sharpen them properly.Enter this ceramic rod - it's nice and thick and well-sized for most kitchen knives. 9-10" chef's knives are easy to hone with this rod. After initial sharpening, I run each knife a couple of times on each side after a few uses and the honing rod helps maintain a great edge without taking off much material at all. It takes just a few seconds to do and works just as well on our higher end Zwilling Four Star chef's knife as it does on smaller Palm knives that were two for $15 (Palm knives just need to be touched up way more frequently). Keeps the edge sharp and significantly prolongs the life of our knives!All in all, this is a great honing rod for the kitchen and the price is excellent when Amazon has it in stock

This ceramic honing rod keeps my knives sharp between regular sharpenings (6 month). It doesn't eat the edge as metal ones do. The purpose is to straighten micro imperfections caused by cuts on hard surfaces.The rod must be used on everyday's basis. Just bring the knife with 12-15 deg angle and make 3-4 sharpening move (with very slight pressure) on each side.I highly recommend it.

generalmente comparo los precios entre amazon y amazon mexico, incluyendo resenas del producto. Este producto por el precio al que lo adquiri ha sido una maravilla, uso cuchillos alemanes (victorinox, wusthof y J.A. henckels) ademas de Japoneses (Sukenari, kohetsu, suisin, misono, masamoto etc) y en cada uno de ellos sin requerir una actividad laboriosa ha recobrado el filo realineando el acero pero tambien afilando (de forma abrasiva) algo de metal en cada pasada. el tamano es perfecto para cuchillos de 8 o mas pulgadas y hace que sea facil de usar, el mango es comodo y amplio, la chaira per se tiene un grosor mayor que una de metal, sin embargo hay que tener cuidado con el trato en los cajones y al dejarla en la barra etc ya que puede astillarse y quebrarse por su material. la dureza es de 9H o mas para ceramica.

Greetings,We use to see these ceramic sharpening but they were gray, although it a question of preference of all sharpening your techniques, this is the one that I prefer, it gives your knife, a very sharpening edge in a few strokes. But do not think that a sharpened edge is honing to a razor edge.I thought that this clarification would interest you.Regards,Frédérick Turgeon

I have a couple of Japanese knives that are quite incredible. The hardness of the steel keeps them sharp for a long time. However to keep them sharp you need an even harder sharpener. I have a literal drawer full of steel sharpening rods to hone the blades, but they really don’t work as well as the ceramic rod. Suffice to say, I don’t bother to use the steel sharpening rods anymore after using the ceramic rod.