Historically guides were predominately steel and sometimes were coated with chrome.
Ceramic rod vs steel.
This eliminated the need to replace guides due to wear.
Honing steel option 2.
Ceramic diamond rods.
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If you are using high carbon very hard steel then a ceramic hone will have limited effect so you may need to use a leather strop fine wet stone or even steel to hone that edge.
Ceramic rods on the other hand are less aggressive than diamond and can sharpen as well or better than a steel.
Photo by flickr member matt feifarek under creative commons.
Many of these rods are made out of alumina ceramic.
Then in the 1960 s ceramic rings were inserted inside the rings.
Honing rods are made of steel and can come coated in ceramic or diamond in addition to steel.
Sharpening rods are two rods set in a base at a specific angle 30 degrees for the ones i use.
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This means that they have a slight sharpening effect.
You clean a knife each time you use it and you should also clean your sharpening steel every time you hone your knife.
Once you ve chosen your sharpening steel you ll need to take care of it.
The steel and ceramic honing rods may have longitudinal ridges whereas the diamond coated steels are smooth but will be embedded with abrasive diamond particles.
Contrary to popular opinion very hard blades are not necessarily better and can be a real pain to maintain.
Find out how the different materials affect your knives and what to look for in a honing rod.