I have never seen a truly smooth knife steel. Anyone have a photo? I love older
steels for their fine teeth.



> On Oct 1, 2014, at 12:25 AM, Thomas Conroy  wrote:
> 
> John Ruth wrote: "There's a German make called "F. Dick"that makes sharpening
steels in levels of fine-ness.  When you want to "get German", i.e. go into high
precision
> mode, on a knife, you steel it first with the regular grade steel and 
> then with the fine steel."
> 
> 
> I believe that some steels are not just fine, but dead smooth and highly
polished. These would work differently from any serrated steel, no matter how
fine: a dead-smooth steel acts as a burnisher, something for the stropping step,
rather than as a hone. But if you consider it, any serrated steel **is** a file,
just a highly specialized one. It should be possible to sharpen a dull one with
citric acid or whatever tipple you prefer.
> 
> Tom Conroy
> 
> 
> John was thinking of  "Thinking of a long-dead German-American childhood
neighbor artist lady who
> introduced me to the phrase "To get German on something"." Is it unfair that
this brings to my mind the phrase "getting medieval on someone"? Or is that just
my Irish-American sloppiness genes coming to the surface? Another friend's
phrase, the comment on a student's lack of precision by a long-dead Irish binder
who was as close to great as you can be without actually being great: "You
wouldn't see it from the back of a running horse."
> TC, running.
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