Victorinox Cutlery 9-Inch Round Sharpening Steel, Black Plastic HandleList Price: $20.80Sale Price: $16.99You save: $3.81 (18%)  Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 24 hoursAverage Rating: Description

The R H Forschner by Victorinox 9-inch Sharpening Steel is made is Sheffield, England of highest quality steel. Regular use will maintain the edge on your fine cutlery. Sharpening Steel has a continental cut and black plastic handle.

Features

• Maintains the edge on knives
• Regular use extends the life of your cutlery
• Will stand up to years of daily use without undue deterioration or wear
• Black Fibrox Handles is slip resistant for maximum safety.

Reviews

Does the job well.by Xinjii from Philadelphia on 2010-05-05 I’m not super picky about sharpening steels. I still have to sharpen my blade every few months, but, during the interim periods, this steel quickly aligns the edges of my victorinox knives and restores the bite. I would recommend it.

Great for smaller knivesby rwizard from USA on 2010-02-16 Since I often see these tools reviewed with references made to “sharpening” a knife, it is worth noting that (name not withstanding) they do not sharpen. (Forgive me if you know all of this). If you took a knife which was actually dull, and spent the day using this tool on it, you would never get it sharp. What this tool does do, and well, is repair the damage that ordinary use does to your already sharpened edge. If you look at a freshly sharpened edge under adequate magnification, (try a BelOMO 10x Triplet Loupe Folding Magnifier ) you will see a (more on less) regular edge. Prepare a meal with that knife, and look at it again, and you will see all sorts of small insults to the edge. These flaws can dramatically reduce the performance of a knife which is still actually quite sharp. This tool performs the task of smoothing out those little insults, and allowing you to get the full benefit of the sharp edge which is already present. The steel performs the same task as the leather strop Fromm Razor Strop 2 1/2″ X 23″ W/HDL Russia which used to hang on the arm of your barber’s chair, and in fact I have a leather barber’s strop I have used for the task.While this is a very affordable and useful steel, I would point out that it is only suitable for short knives. Your steel should always be a bit longer than the knife you are polishing with it, and so, while this steel is fine for a boning or paring knife, it is unsuitable for a slicing knife or a large chef’s knife. That said, I find the small size convenient for use with small knives, and keep a larger steel for use with my big knives. If you can only afford one steel, you may wish to consider something bigger that would work for both large and small knives. Unless you have a large slicer or other really big knife, a 12″ steel is probably big enough for almost all home use.This is a tool you should be using at least every other time you use your knife. An actual sharpening should only be needed once or twice a year. Keep in mind that using the wrong cutting surface will ruin any edge – never cut on glass, marble, Formica, or any hard surface. A hardwood J.K. Adams TCB-2014 20-Inch by 14-Inch Traditional Carver or bamboo Wüsthof Bamboo Cutting Board cutting board is best.

Buyer Beware of Product Features Descriptionby MacGrafx from nyc, ny on 2009-12-17 The description of the product and the title is confusing due to conflicting descriptions. It is not a Black Fibrox handle as indicated. Even though the title says plastic, product description says Fibrox and since most of Victorinox’s knives comes with a Fibrox handle one would assume the sharpening steel’s handle as well. Unfortunately it’s cheap light weight plastic, hence the 4 star. I can spend less and get a cheap plastic handle with the same quality steel from other companies.

Good productby Ellora from on 2009-06-08 This rod is a grooved steel which will eventually turn your mirror like polish on your shun cutting edge into a micro-toothed mess after about 10 hones. I returned 2 shun classic knives thinking that the edges were defective on the knives. Turns out, it was the honing steel that was creating the problem. Buy a very fine ceramic rod to keep the edge on your mirror polished Shun classic blade in optimal condition. The Shun rod knocked the performance of my knife back a few grades, but the ceramic rod fixed all the wrongs. Remember to hone @ a 16 degree angle. Cheeers!!!!

Missing, not in actionby A. Byrne from MI USA on 2009-03-14 Victorinox Cutlery 9-Inch Round Sharpening Steel, Black Plastic Handle This item did not arrive as promised. I contacted Amazon about the missing items more that 3 weeks ago and still, no show. I am sadly disappointed as I’ve generally had good service from Amazon.