>>288968>I have no idea what you're talking about, so here's an overly defensive rantLet's look at your stuff. There's a bag in there that may or may not have something in it but sells for $68 at casa dot com. Meh.
There's a diamond hone with honing oil next to it. That tells me you like having lots of little nicks in your cutting edge and lower hone maintenance more than you like taking care of your hone and having a smoother edge. That hone is also just about choked, which tells me you either don't know how to maintain it or are just too lazy to do so. I have no idea how fine it is, but I suspect it's less than 4000 grit, which is the least fine grit with which you should finish your honing.
There's that pull-through edge-raper next to it. Pic related.
There's a ridged steel there. I prefer smooth, but we both seem to agree that a steel isn't for metal removal, it's for realignment of the edge.
Now we come to the pieces I find most objectionable: the ceramic sharpening stick and the diamond rod. There's a reason I don't like them, and that reason is plastic deformation of steel. When you use a small diameter rod to remove steel from the bevel (and we do cut the bevel, the edge is just what's left when we're through cutting the bevel) the knife will flex at the point where it contacts the rod. This is called plastic deformation and will tend to put a low, wide convex on your blade and cause friction when slicing. Over time you can develop an edge profile that's going to be as sharp as hell but won't cut anything other than the hair on your arm or a sheet of paper very well. A good convex profile is one that's wide high, further from the cutting edge. If you go to a stone frequently you'll eliminate this problem. Since it will just take more time on the stone to correct the profile you should chunk the sticks or give them to someone you don't like.
As to the brass one, get a pocket Arkansas stone.
And it's spelled "feeble," not "feable."
