In 1998 Tiffany & Company hired us to replicate a honing steel that was part of a late 18th century sterling silver set.  Ron Hock created and hardened the rod and we worked with a New Jersey machinist to create a device to match the grooving. In 1999 a fellow by the name of Bobby Conner from West Virginia sent us a six inch glass rod with micro fine grooving cut length wise. He explained that he was the local knife sharpener and had used this rod to put a razor edge on skinning knives after they were sharpened. He wanted to know what it was. We sent the rod to the Corning Co. who told us it was a special application rod containing a high level of borosilicate. They could make the rod, but no longer had the equipment for grooving. It just so happened that we did - thanks Tiffany!
 

When you design and manufacture specialty products patience is a necessity. In our case we deal with many people who have a lot of knowledge & experience and who are rightfully demanding. Over the years we've sold these rods to quite a few people, and lately some of them have been kind enough to relate their experience to others, we are very grateful for that as interest is increasing.

Even though we do have the set up for grooving the work is all done by hand using polycrystalline diamond which is considerably more expensive than mono crystalline diamond, which is pricey in itself. We cut to a very specific depth, just deep enough to affect an edge that has been rolled over through use. Between the hardness of the glass and the micro grooving most all knives can be brought back to the level of their last sharpening for quite some time. These rods have been in use for a number of years and the grooving does hold up, even when used with blades hardened to RC62 plus. The picture on the right shows a rod grooved on one side only to give you an idea as to how fine the cut is. The rod will not remove blade material.

Idahone and Borosilicate Rod Combo

I use knives every day in my work and in my kitchen. In the kitchen I like Mac knives quite a lot for general purpose and when I make grav lox I prefer a yanagiba. One thing that I'll tell you is that I do not like to sharpen knives. It's not that I'm lazy, it's more of a fear of grinding knives to death needlessly and the fact that every time a stone comes into play there's a chance of altering the edge bevel.

It's been well over a year since I've taken any knives to stone. My routine is to use the borosilicate routinely, and when that is no longer effective to use the Idahone rod. The Idahone is a 1200 grit smooth ceramic rod and will remove a minimum amount of blade material. My ratio is 10:1 borosilicate to Idahone and I couldn't be more pleased.

We've offered these as a combo to folks who have purchased the borosilicate rod and our customers are happy as well. Right now we have a limited supply of Idahone rods so we will not offer them for sale individually but only as a set with the borosilicate. The 12" Idahone usually retails for $29.00, if you purchase it along with one of our borosilicate rods you save $9.50

PLUS - When you purchase the set we include a 1" X 1" X 1-1/2" rock hard felt block for deburring your knife edge and an Idahone scrubber to remove knife residue.

Currently our Idahone rods come with their original black wood handle with ring hanger and our borosilicate rods come with our custom acrylic non - roll handle. Both rods come with leather honing sheaths.

Borosilicate rod - $75.00
Borosilicate rod with Idahone rod - $95.00