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One key aspect of knife ownership is maintenance, where a good honing rod comes into play. Top chefs, who use and abuse their knives daily, often keep many rods on hand while cooking. After all, most knives don’t need to be re-shaped every day. A quick touch-up often keeps the knife in functional shape for weeks or months, depending on how often it is used.
Honing rods are not meant to be a total sharpening system. They are designed for quick maintenance. Sometimes, a knife just needs the edge straightened, and a honing rod can do that for the user.
With that in mind, we put a few through the paces to see how they handled typical maintenance jobs. Our goal was to find the best honing rods currently in production today.
Key Considerations
Just to reiterate, honing rods are a maintenance tool that’s best for straightening and fixing a folded-over edge. Honing steel and rods are best for quick touch-ups. Many chefs and butchers use them because doing a quick hone is easier than a full sharpening session. This is especially true when processing a lot of meat or cooking a large meal.
Honing steel and rods cannot fully replace a dedicated knife sharpener. They are more like an augmentation that can extend the time between dedicated sharpening. Regular honing can make those more dedicated sharpening sessions much easier because less repair work will be involved. Some key things we looked for in honing rods included the following:
- Type: Steel, ceramic, and diamond honing rods all have specific case uses. We tried to find options for each to suit a variety of needs.
- Length: We looked for rods in multiple sizes from short to long because not everyone’s storage abilities will be the same.
- Budget: Some honing rods are listed for ridiculously high prices. We tried to find options that would fit not just every need, but every budget. At the same time, we were careful not to compromise on the quality of our picks.
Top Picks
- Best Overall: Work Sharp Ceramic Honing Rod
- Best Budget: Smith’s 8-Inch Oval Ceramic
- Best Steel: F. Dick Multicut
- Most Versatile: Wedgek HXT Ceramic
- Best Diamond: Fallkniven D12 Rod
Best Overall: Work Sharp Ceramic Honing Rod
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Work Sharp’s ceramic honing rod feels like a perfect catch-all solution. I’ve tested it on kitchen, hunting, survival, and EDC blades. It has been excellent for quick touch-ups between uses. This honing rod has 20-degree angle guides, which are a rarity. It makes it easy for beginners to get the correct angle every time. It would have been nice if these guides could rotate around the rod, decreasing the wear on just two points. However, the entire rod is very usable in experienced hands.
One brilliant little addition to this rod is the rubberized tip. I no longer must find a cloth or other rag to place under the rod tip. I felt perfectly safe using it on tables and counters prone to scratching. Aside from being comfortable and well-constructed, this rod is only $30. That’s a worthwhile investment to keep expensive knives in tip-top shape.
Best Budget: Smith’s 8-Inch Oval Ceramic
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The good thing about honing rods is that they are incredibly affordable. Thus, good ones can easily be had for $25–$30. We like Smith’s ceramic rod as the choice for experienced knife enthusiasts who need something simple and affordable. The oval surface makes touching up a longer knife on a shorter length easier. Speaking of that, this rod is only 8 inches long. It makes storing in tighter spaces like a boat or RV kitchen a little easier. The handle is also ergonomic, and the oversized hand guard adds extra safety.
The main drawback of this rod is that it has no angle guides. It requires some experience holding the knife at the correct angle to hone properly. For users with sharpening experience, this is an affordable, compact little honing rod that’s perfect for travel.
Best Steel: F. Dick Multicut
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Steel honing rods aren’t for everyone. In most cases, these are the choices of chefs and butchers who use and abuse blades daily. It’s that type of work that the Multicut is best at doing. This rod is exceptionally well-made and will last through years of abuse. It’s telling that the F. Dick company was founded back in 1778! That commitment to quality has helped them stand the test of time. This rod has exceptional hardness, although users will need to be wary of the hardness of the knives that they are maintaining.
This rod is heavy, again more of a testament to the quality of the rod’s build than a con. This company doesn’t go cheap on components. At $127, this is an expensive rod with a niche audience. However, it’s also great for knife owners who want to buy one steel rod for life and then forget about it.
Most Versatile: Wedgek HXT Ceramic
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Although some honing rods have angle guides, few are as versatile as the Wedget HXT ceramic. This is mainly because it comes with guides supporting 12 different angles, from 12 to 30 degrees. That range will work with most kitchen knives made today and various EDC and survival blades. These guides easily pop on and off the rod, allowing users to rotate them and use all parts of the rod evenly. This rod is an easy way to get into routine knife maintenance.
The only real downside is that only one size, 11 inches, is available. Working with larger knives might be more challenging. Other than that, this is a solid rod for any knife enthusiast who wants a guide system to fit every blade that they own.
Best Diamond: Fallkniven D12 Rod
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Fällkniven Knives are known for their exceptional quality. Thus, it’s no surprise that they have an excellent diamond rod for maintaining them. This rod is more for sharpening than honing. However, it still performs quick touch-ups quite well, especially on hard steel types that are difficult to sharpen. This sharpener will maintain kitchen knives, but it will work best on outdoor and EDC styles that use more expensive steel. Because of the aggressive nature of diamonds, it won’t take much to repair an edge. This rod is best for someone who wants to follow up with a ceramic rod afterward.
This rod is highly aggressive, so it may not be the best choice for a newbie. It will take a lot of material off the blade if one isn’t careful. In skilled hands, it’s an ideal option for a fast repair without resorting to a more complicated sharpening system.
How To Choose The Best Honing Rod
The cliché view of honing rods is one where a chef scrapes it against the knife in lightning-quick motions. However, this is prone to doing more damage to the knife than repair. We suspect that it was something a video producer came up with to make sharpening look more interesting. In truth, these rods should be held with the tip down against the table. Then, the knife can be drawn across the rod in slow, precise strokes.
Most people use honing rods for the maintenance of kitchen knives. However, they can also extend the life of everything from the latest hunting knives to EDC pocket knives.
Considerations for picking a honing rod aren’t as complicated as expected. However, there are a few key things to remember while choosing. Most are related to the type of knife being sharpened and the case use.
Steel Honing Rods
Steel rods are tricky because steel doesn’t have much grit. The rod being used must have harder steel than the knife being sharpened. Otherwise, this type of rod isn’t going to do much good. We recommend avoiding rods with striations along the length. These don’t do much to straighten a folded-over edge; they usually affect only the burr. Steel rods won’t remove much material in general, so they aren’t our favorite for this type of maintenance. They are also prone to rust and are known to sometimes chip Japanese steel.
Diamond Rods
The nice thing about diamond rods is that they are always harder than knife steel. That means that one of these rods will work on virtually any knife. This type of rod excels in situations in which light maintenance is needed, such as when the knife requires more than just knocking off the burr or straightening the edge. We mainly recommend diamond rods for experienced knife sharpeners to avoid damage. However, this rod style is also more prone to chipping or damaging an edge. Diamond rods are also much more expensive than other honing rods.
Ceramic Rods
Most knife experts tend to favor ceramic for honing rods. The material is hard enough to use on almost any knife, but it’s not as aggressive as diamonds. Some aren’t ideal for Japanese steel, but that depends on the hardness. They also sometimes produce chipping in carbon blades. Ceramic rods are prone to breaking if dropped. However, for most knives, ceramics are a safe bet. Ceramic rods excel at removing burrs and edge alignments. They don’t rust and are also usually cost-efficient when compared to other types of honing rod.
Rod Length
Longer honing rods are easier to use than shorter ones. It just gives the knife more surface area to be drawn over. Many users will find using a longer rod safer than a short one. However, longer rods of 12 to 17 inches can become expensive. They are also more difficult to store in a traditional kitchen drawer or cabinet.
Why Trust Us
In addition to testing some honing rods, we investigated what top chefs and other knife professionals use. I also made decisions based on conversations with people in the knife industry whose opinions I trust. Additionally, I’ve written about knives professionally for the last decade and tested dozens of knife types and sharpeners. This has given me a good feeling for what works and what does not.
Final Thoughts
The simple Work Sharp ceramic is simple, affordable, and effective for many types of knives. It’s also readily available at most major retailers, making it an easy choice for our best overall. Using it, I could touch up several of my blades and keep working quickly. Our runner-up is the F. Dick Multicut simply for the quality of construction and commitment to quality by the brand. It’s hard to find companies that have been in the business as long as F. Dick.
FAQs
Q: What is best for honing a knife?
A: The best thing for honing a knife is a ceramic rod. It has enough grit to remove excess metal while straightening any skewed edges. Rods made from this material will work on more knives than a steel honing rod.
Q: Is a honing rod for sharpening?
A: This is a common misconception. Honing rods are designed for blade maintenance. However, because the cutting ability is improved after honing, many people mistakenly believe that these rods sharpen the blade. Honing rods are also excellent for maintaining serrations. The rounded nature fits into the grooves of a serration better than standard sharpeners.
Q: What is the best honing material?
A: This is mostly a matter of opinion, but most prefer ceramic honing rods. This is mainly because the material is much harder than most steel types, making it more effective for quick blade maintenance.
Q: What rod is used for honing knife blades?
A: The most used honing material is a ceramic rod. Most professional chefs who use their knives all day will have one. This type of rod is best for actual honing work. A diamond rod is a better option for sharpening and repair work for anything beyond honing.
