Ever wonder what that cylindrical rod in your knife set is for? It’s a knife steel. One misconception about it is that it “sharpens” the blade (hence the quotes). According to Food Network geek, Alton Brown, it doesn’t really do that. It’s supposed to “realign” your knife’s edge for you to be able to cut things properly. Sometimes, daily use bends the edges causing misalignment causing the knife to be thought of as dull.

Here’s a video on how to use a knife steel.

If you want more knife tips, you may want to view this Food Network’s Good Eats episode with Alton Brown on knife sharpening (I don’t want to embed it here because this video should be flagged for copyrighted content -_-).