Absolutely Essential.
£100.00
A honing steel is not a sharpening tool. The analogy we use is a car: sharpening is your annual service, time-consuming and not something you want to have to do regularly. A honing steel is to a knife as lubrication, coolant and fuel is to an engine – what keeps it happy on a daily basis.
What actually happens when a knife loses its edge is simple: the last ten or twenty microns of the blade have been moved very slightly out of alignment. The steel is fine, the edge geometry is fine and five or six gentle passes on a honing steel and you are back to where you started. That’s it.
The important word here is ‘gentle’. Nothing like you see on telly with people going hammer and tongs, just lightly, frequently, at roughly the right angle. You cannot really get it wrong if you are not trying to take material off.
The other important bit is quality. There are a lot of poor honing steels out there, and a bad one is either too soft (which means you end up shaving metal off your steel rather than honing your blade) or abrasive, which means it is trying to sharpen and hone simultaneously and ends up doing neither well. Ceramic steels fall into the same trap.
What you want is a steel that is appreciably harder than your blade. Ours is 64 Rockwell, against our knives’ 60 HRC. It has tiny ridges rather than a smooth or abrasive surface, because kitchen knives are not carpenter’s chisels: they work with a slight sawing motion, backwards and forwards as well as up and down, and they need teeth on the cutting edge to do that well. The ridges keep those teeth alive and nice and bitey.
Ours are also very slightly magnetic, so any microscopic particles of metal that come loose attach to the steel rather than anything else.
Our standard handles can be matched here, but pretty much any combination can be made, most likely at no additional cost – just get in touch.
Have it out. Use it constantly. It is the single most important thing you can own if you have a good knife.
DIMENSIONS
10″ Steel | 38cm overall
250 grammes
The Savernake Knife
Available for next working day despatch in both handle options.
Essentials & Maker's Choice — Default Handle
Each knife has a default handle that is held in stock and available for next working day despatch.
Essentials & Maker's Choice — Alternative Handle
If you'd prefer a different handle from our standard range, we'll despatch within 7 working days.
Knife Builder & Sets and Collections
All knives designed through our Knife Builder, or ordered from Sets and Collections, are despatched within 3–4 weeks. If you have a particular date in mind, get in touch — we're often able to help.
All orders are delivered by Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed in specially-designed tubular Savernake packaging. A signature and age verification will be required on delivery.
International Delivery
We charge a £40 flat rate for delivery worldwide.
Our products are guaranteed for a lifetime. We also offer a reconditioning service for damaged knives for a small fee. We’re sure you’ll love your new knife. If there’s something not right with your order, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Complimentary Engraving
Personalised engraving is included on all knives
Lifetime Guarantee
With proper care, our knives are guaranteed for a lifetime of use
International Delivery
Delivery to the UK included, flat rate shipping worldwide
Exceptional products, unrivalled technical knowledge, and a brilliant eye for design. Working with Laurie and Savernake is a masterclass in collaboration. He po...
Laurie was an absolute pleasure to work with. He went above and beyond by creating a prototype for our initial meeting - even engraving the blade. After our fir...
At Maison Margaux, we design bespoke tableware for leading hotels and restaurants worldwide. We share a close creative relationship with Savernake, whose custom...
Fast efficient service. Customer Service pleasant and helpful. However, special offers hard to find and one recently was dependent on going to a particlu...
I enjoyed the process of configuring my knife on the savernake website. It arrived a month later in superb packaging which I also enjoyed opening. The knife its...
Superb knife, easily the best I have ever seen (ex-chef of 13 years). Beautifully crafted and light/well balanced. Really friendly and efficient customer servic
Excellent customer service and incredible knives, 100% recommended, will definitely be using Savernake in the future
These knives are not only beautifully crafted and designed, they are impeccably balanced too. I am delighted with my product and would recommend this company to...
knive is light and sharp best i have had
I already had one Savernake knife so this was not a journey into the unknown. I ordered an additional 3 knives, 2 as gifts with varying levels of personalisati...