Shun Classic 9" Combination Honing Steel

Great solid honing steel. I've been using this for 5 years now and it's in excellent shape still. No rusts and still works. Unlike some of my Shun knives that have rusted over the years (not sure if it's user error or just a bad set, but a few of my expensive Shun knives are a bit rusted). Anyways back to the honing steel: get it if you want a high qualify honing steel that may out live you.

Needed a steel for my knife set and this on closely matched the handles of the knife set. The steel itself looks to be of good quality, but I thought the steel was very fine reminiscent of ceramic sharping stick. The is set up to fine tune your knife so don't let the little women abuse the knife to the point you can't restore just with the steel.

This pricey steel is designed for the Shun Chef's knives. A little disk at the top has an angled flat spot that helps you stroke the knife down at the correct unique angle required by the Shun blade. Using this steel will keep the Shun knives cutting edges straight, and therefore sharp, for a very long time. I will probably never need to have the knife sharpened as I am not a pro who cooks a lot daily. PS: Shun knives are fantastic!

Works very well for my home kitchen use. I use this hone 1x per week to keep my Shun Classic's edge true. The built in guide near the handle helps getting the correct angle for the knife. That feature with a youtube video for this product make it easy to use properly. I have been using this hone for about 5 months and there are no signs of wear. It is still like new. This product functions as intended and is of great quality. I am overall very happy with this purchase.

Sharp edges at the handle. Wood is machined separately from the metal ends and they don't match. Poor performance in the fabrication. This company has higher standards than what I have experienced with this product. The final inspector of this unit has brought shame on the company, the staff, the founders, himself and his family.

I love the angled edge on the top of this! I know the angle I'm using for my blade is perfect every time and regret not knowing that Shun made this product years ago. This type of knife has a much narrower blade angle than others, and I noticed a huge difference in using this versus the One that came with my knife block set years ago, which is not right for these angled blades. There's a noticeable difference in my knives after using this everyday and I'm super pleased with the end result.

This has done a great job of keeping my Shun knives in top condition. It is a nice weight, has an easy to hold handle, and its design keeps it from rolling around in the drawer (the metal "circle" at the handle has a flattened side, which is also helpful for angling the knives properly). I like having the combination steel, too. I did not think I would at first, but both options are useful! I had hoped the honing steel would be made in Japan like the knives are. Instead, it is made in China. So far, the quality and durability seems to be there; however, I admittedly am not sure how one could tell if a honing steel was of inferior quality.

Let me begin by saying that I want to provide a quick clarification of some issues raised by critical reviewers of this honing steel that is a perfect match for Shun knives. The handle guard serves as an angle guide to align the knife at a 16 degree angle to the honing steel while it is standing upright on a cutting board with the knife being drawn downward toward the board. All of the sides, both curved and flat, provide a 16 degree angle to align the knife. The flat side is to keep the honing steel from rolling when placed on a flat surface. The handle shape is a D or modified triangle. This shape allows for better grip on the handle because a triangle does not rotate easily in the hand. The steel has four equal quadrants. Two of them are smooth for daily honing and two are ridged for more aggressive weekly honing. The differing textures are 180 degrees opposed so that they are directly across for easy alignment when drawing both the left and right side of the knife blade down the steel. I hope this clears up some of the confusion created by the critical reviews and explains why this honing steel is a very good match for Shun knives.