Hand saw honing

Honing steel

Sharpening straight edges (knives, chisels, etc.) by hand can be divided into phases. First the edge is sharpened with an abrasive sharpening stone, or a succession of increasingly fine stones, which shape the blade by removing material; the finer the abrasive the finer the finish. Then the edge may be stropped by polishing the edge with a fine abrasive such as rouge or tripoli on a piece of stout leather or canvas. The edge may be steeled or honed by passing the blade against a hard metal "steel" (which may be made of ceramic) which plastically deforms and straightens the material of the blade's edge which may have been rolled over irregularly in use, but not enough to need complete resharpening. Hand saws need care to keep an edge!