The Miyabi Sharpening Steel is designed to maintain your knife blade between sharpenings. To maintain your knife blade edge, it is very important to use a honing steel on a regular basis. By using a honing steel it will lessen the amount of times you will need to sharpen your knives. A honing steel re-aligns the edge of the knife blade. Simply place the heel of the knife blade onto the steel and pull downward with little pressure. Repeat on each side 7 to 8 times.