The Miyabi Tungsten 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. Tungsten is a metal that offers some of the highest tensile strength. It is an excellent choice for sharpening harder steels that are often used in Japanese cutlery, because it can maintain its granular structure. this promises an appropriate surface for sharpening. It can be used on softer steels as well providing faster results but the possibility of over sharpening (bending over the edge) should be considered.