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

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...

Works like it should.

This thing is just great. Even if your blade is lacking a bit of edge, this will put it back and then some. If my knife is a bit dull, I'll make a few passes on a diamond steel, then finish with this. The combination of the diamond sharpener and this ceramic steel can make the cheapest of knives usable. It's also very easy to clean with warm water, a sponge and some Bon Ami or Comet powder.

A great rod for regular use, somewhere in the 1200 grit approx range I would estimate and highly durable. The rod will keep European HRC 55-59 blades shape for a very very long time. I would also use it on vg-10 maybe depending on application but I will say that if you are trying to keep a mirror edge or any like a razor then you need to buy a 2000 grit+ rod so you don’t cut too aggressively into the finish while doing maintenance and ultimately a strop with 6000 grit compound is the way to maintain any knife with a razor edge or polished edge. Great product and I keep one in my car!

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 ordered this for my dad because he was looking for a new rod knife. He was recommended this knife and he has said all good things about it.

This tool combines the best of both worlds: honing "steel" for routine edge alignment, plus abrasives for actual material removal and therefore true final edge sharpening (don't use to do the initial edge shaping on a new or super-dull knife - use a coarse sharpening stone or diamond-coated plate for this) . The abrasives are fine ceramic and remove only a very small amount of metal (the proof is in the gray streaks that are left on the white ceramic rod after honing (which, BTW, can be scrubbed off with a wet sponge and Comet powder). I use Wedgek angle guides with this rod to provide a consistent sharpening/honing angle, and (sometimes) a compound-coated strop afterwards. Although you still need practice and skill to use these tools to their full potential, you don't have to be a "whetstone zen master". I do plan to use a whetstone perhaps once a year or so to provide a major tuneup for my really good knives, but this setup keeps them scary sharp in the meantime. I should add that the 12" long Cooks Standard Ceramic Rod is as high quality as I could ask for, and it will take many years for it to wear out (just don't drop it - ceramic rods are brittle!), so why pay much more for the same (or even inferior) product from a big name knife company?.

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.

A very few gentle swipes will do the job. It is both smooth and aggressive, if that's the right word. It's far more effective than a knife steel. I've only used it a few times so far.

This got my knives very sharp again and is keeping them that way. It doesn't just hone, it does seem to have a sharpening effect. It's worthwhile to have one of these around. Look up how to use this properly so that you get good results and look at each knife to find the proper angle to use.You'll want to clean the metal material off it so it stays as effective as possible.

I've never used a ceramic rod before but this thing works really well. Used it on a few German steel knives as well as a bunch of really cheap knives and by the end of it they were all push cutting paper. I used this rod then 2-3 swipes on my green compound strip. Very easy to use. Great product.