If you have to make a second recommendation?
Maybe not a rec, but I like soap stones.
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IMO and IME pull throughs and electrics like Chef’s Choice can put a sharp edge on a knife but at a cost. They chew through metal more quickly than a fine grit water stone. To some that is no big deal. To others it is horrific. Choose accordingly.
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I only go stone because it’s what I know. Fishing family, I was stoning as a kid.
I know. She has an electric sharpener but prefer not to use it
My actuary says my knives will now outlive me. So chew ‘‘em up! 
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If my knife is dull and I can’t seem to get it to life by using a honing rod (ceramic and steel) I pull one of my 7 Naniwa Chosera Pro stones out - I own 400 grit, 600 grit, 800 grit, 1000 grit, 2000 grit, 3000 grit and a 5000 grit.
I’ll check the edge for micro chips & dullness and decide based on that which stones I’m going to use. I typically only use the 400 grit on very dull and chipped blades.
I could wake most edges up by only using the 800 or 1000 grit alone.
But I typically will use either 600, 1000 and 3000 or 800, 2000 and 3000.
If I have the time I’ll fine tune the edge on the 5000 grit for 2-3 minutes on both sides.
I normally finish the sharpening process by lighthly stroking the blade on my Zwilling Leather strop block (no compound used)
But these days my honing rods are so fantastic, that I rarely need to sharpen my knives on whetstones to be honest.
If I can cut a thin piece of paper with the knife, it’s sharp enough for me.
I routinely hone my knives each and every time before I use them - and my normal routine is to use a ceramic honing rod grit "800 followed by a ceramic honig rod #3000, then using my Dickoron Sapphire followed by my Dickoron Polish honing steels.
This process takes me 6-8 minutes before I start to prep in my home kitchen, and all my knives stay extremely sharp because of that honing routine.
I’m the happy owner of 4 oval 30 cm Dickoron sharpening steels and one 30 cm Dickoron combi steel - they are amazing.
I also own a couple of Minosharp pull throughs and they work pretty darn well too.
My wife sometimes uses the Minosharp pull throughs with pretty good success.
I also own 2 Wüsthof combi whetstones (1000 & 3000 grit) and I use them for practicing my stroke, if I’m getting rusty.
I also own a cleaning stone and a straigtening stone - but use them rarely.
Free hand sharpening is not as difficult as it seems to be…honestly it’s quite easy.
People tend to overcomplicate how hard it is to get decent edge on your home kitchen knives.
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Stoning drives me crazy and I get fidgety. I was taught on a belt sander (and a wheel) and just have stuck with the belt sander.
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Love belt sanders. That’d be my second rec.
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Hi Claus, I’m a bit off track on the differences between honing and sharpening. Many people seem to say that strictly speaking, honing realigns the edge only. But in your case, with an 800 grit honing rod, is it also the case that this rod is acting to sharpen and hone, rather than merely hone/realign the edge?
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Here’s a secret: if a “hone” is abrasive, it’s doing more than straightening the edge. How much you call “sharpening” depends.
And if all you’re doing is bending a growing wire edge back and forth, query whether you’re sharpening at all
I totally agree.
And that’s exactly why I use a combination of ceramic and steel in my honing rods.
I bought the two ceramic honing rods in Germany (I’m from Denmark) and they are just really amazing performers - and yes with a 800 grit ceramic honing rod I’m actually sharpening the edge a bit, while honing it.
As mentioned I own 5 different high quality Dickoron honing steels and one of them is actually also so coarse, that I would argue I’m sharpening my knife when using it.
With the Dickoron Sapphire and Dickoron Polish I’m not sure how much metal is actually removed, but on a microscopic level you could argue, that even the mildest honing rod actually removes meta from the edge, it’s just such a small portion, that people tend to say it only aligns the edge.
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5 huh? Not a small number
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Well, I bought them based on inspiration from Damiano on Chowhoud a couple of years ago.
What a great investment.
I own the oval 30 cm Micro, the oval 30 cm Sapphire, the oval 30 cm Polish, the oval 30 cm Titan and the 30 cm combi rod (Sapphire and Polish in one)
I could do just fine with just the combi rod.
Ok. I will need to read up those and see how each of them is different
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The Titan is the most coarse of them and I never use that on my harder steel knives - it’s quite rough, but it can really bring the edge back on one of my Zwilling Pro and Wüsthof Classic knives. I tend to use the Titan most on my cheaper Dick Butcher knives - it makes them super sharp again very fast.
But honestly - if you just bought the Dickoron Combi 30 cm, you would be fine. It’s excellent. It’s square, where my other 4 are oval (and I prefer the oval shape), but the combi with the 4 sides works great too (2 sides are Sapphire cut and 2 sides are polish cut)
To my knowledge Dickoron is the hardest honing steel you can buy - I think it’s Rockwell 66, so it can sharpen japanese knives without chipping them - but I prefer ceramic rods for my harder steel knives (Rockwell 60 and above)
A sharpener once told me - the hardness of the honing steel has to be harder than the steel on the knife, or you’ll get into trouble. It makes sense. Otherwise the knife will cut into the sharpening steel.
Take a lok here:
Dickoron Honing/Sharpening steels
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Let me quickly summarize. Hopefully, not misrepresenting people.
The most popular methods suggested are between free hand sharpening on a stone and using a sophisticated manual knife sharpener (like EdgePro or Wicked Edge or TSPROF…etc)
Beside these two, one or two finely aggressive honing rods are popular choice.
Beltsander has been mentioned twice.
Eh, my soap stone is sophisticated! Just humbly so.
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More accurately, the wear differential will not favor the knife. However, for merely realigning an edge, even that doesn’t matter–a brass rod will work.
