Kyocera Advanced Ceramics – 9 inch Ceramic Sharpening Rod for Metal Knives

Where has this thing been all my life? I had dull knives for years. No more. A few strokes each way on this beauty and they are incredibly sharp. Note: you will need to learn to hold your knives at the proper angle. This sharpener will both hone and sharpen. It has ridges on one side that will create an edge. I used the ridged side when I first got the sharpener, now I just use the smooth side every now and then and my knives stay sharp. I can't say what a joy it is to have sharp cutlery. It makes cooking so much more enjoyable. A word of caution, this will make your knives very sharp, so be smart when handling your knives. Also, this well turn steel colored after several uses. I use a magic eraser to clean mine.Update 1/2016: this is still working really well for maintaining my knives. Some steel from your knives will discolor the rod. You will want to wipe it down periodically as it works better without minute steel particles clogging up the ceramic rod. I use a magic eraser to clean it.

The first and most inportant thing to understand is the difference between honing rods: steel, ceramic, and diamond. Ceramic rods not only hone your chef knife, it’s micro-abrasive surfacd provides a little bit of sharpening as well. This rod is 9” long and has a two zones. Zone 1 takes up 3/4 the rod surface and is for regular honing and the zone 2 is a thin strip that takes up 1/4 the rod and is a little more aggressive for actual sharpening.I use this daily on both my stainless steel henckels pro 8” chef knife and Zwilling/Kramer 10” carbon steel chef knives and it works great and I don’t worry about cutting my holding hand as long as I’m not rushing or trying to look fancy.My only complaint is that it came with a loop of some sort for hanging or metal in the handle to attach to my magnetic knife bar.I’ve never dropped any of mine so I can’t speak to it’s durability against drops.

First of all, one has to be clear about understanding the difference between sharpening and honing. The former involves the removal of material in the definition of a knife-edge by raising a bur on alternate sides as you increase the grit of the sharpening material.Having sharpened a knife, as it is being used, the edge will fold over so to speak. A honing steel does not remove material, it merely realigns the knife edge. If the knife edge is really rounded out, no amount of honing will bring it back to its sharpened state.I purchased this hoping that I might be able to use it to replace a steel hone by using it very lightly for honing and more aggressively for sharpening. However, the relative grit of this ceramic rod is such that it removes too much material. It is too aggressive to use as a hone.As a sharpening implement, of course, it does do the job. However, I think it is a little bit short and n addition, the grit does not seem to be totally uniform.For this reason, I gave it four stars but I did return it and purchased the Sharpal 3000 grit ceramic rod. It has a much more robust handle with a protection guard as well as a plastic tip which can be used if the rod is placed on a table or counter in the verticle position. It is more suitable to be used as a "hone."

As a sharpener, this is a good model, it fits in my Henkels block and replaces the sharpening steel. It has a few ridges on one section to help with honing older knives. I started using it with a new set of zwilling pros and it works very well. The only issue is that they used white zirconium oxide, and sharpening your knives will leave little grey marks on the ceramic. It doesn't all wash out so it always looks a little dirty. Kyocera uses black zirconium carbide in some of their more expensive knives, I wish this was available in black.

You might call this a hybrid sharpening tool. Rod type sharpeners are typically steel and considered a hone. Stone type or whet stones are considered sharpeners. A stone will remake an edge or repair a badly damaged edge. A steel is more for realigning the little imperfections on a knife with a decent edge.This is a rod shaped ceramic stone. The rod has a section of ridges supposedly for serrated or badly damaged knives.I've used it on my chefs knife, and kershaw cryo, leek, and centofante pocket knives. The cryo was used to scrape paint off steel, so pretty bad. All 4 are now Sharp as new, perhaps with a little more bite.So my old steel hone is out, and replaced with my new Kyocera ceramic, whatever you wanna call it. I'm very happy with this purchase and would get another if it ever breaks.

I would really like to give this product five stars, were it not for two factors: price and fragility. Others have pointed out that the useful portion of this ceramic rod can be found elsewhere for 1/4 of this advertised price. I personally find the handle to be necessary when putting an edge on my knives. After moderate, gentle use, the ceramic rod broke in half for me, rendering the handle portion useless. I can still use the rest of the rod, but it is not as easy to hone my knives without the handle. I am going to try another and only hope that it proves to be more durable.

I thought I'd take a chance, after all Kyocera is the ceramic knife I know, love and still use. I've had them since they first came out in the 90s, so I thought I'd buy a sharpening rod by them too, since my steel is getting a bit long in the tooth, it's the same vintage. **NOTE:You cannot use this rod to sharpen ceramic knives**Wow! a few quick swipes and my knives are sharp again. I would not use this on my prized knives that I want to protect the finish on, I'll use a wet stone. But, if its a knife you don't mind taking a chance to scratch the blade, you won't be disappointed. Sharp, quick, easy. that sums it up.