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In my kitchen, I use older Chicago Cutlery knives including long butcher style knives, boning knives, paring knives and short and long chef's knives. Older Chicago Cutlery knives, not the current China made ones, sharpen easily with a sharpening steel. When they dull, a few strokes on a sharpening steel makes them razor sharp.

IMO, the steel in many of today's expensive kitchen knives is way too hard in that, while they hold an edge longer, they are difficult to sharpen.

In the beginning, Chicago Cutlery knives were made from used saw mill saw blades and sold primarily to Chicago butchers.

While deer hunting, I used Buck knives that had a very hard steel. I bought a special sharpening system, made by Buck, that took over 15-30 minutes to sharpen a model 110 Folding Hunter. The Model 110 would remain sharp during a multi-day hunt no matter how many deer I dressed out for myself and members of our hunting party.

In sum, I recommend sharpening kitchen knives with an old-fashioned sharpening steel.

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High end knife sets come with a steel.

 

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I use a sharpening steel (butcher steel) for all my knives from the kitchen to the field. Buy a quality knife and don't ruin the edge or let it get overly dull. A few strokes on the steel and the edge is as good as new.

As you cut you will sometimes roll the edge a little bit. That rolled edge dulls the knife. The steel, used properly, will stand that roll back up and in extreme cases even remove a bit of the roll. Similar to bending a wire back and forth to make it brittle and breakable. But eventually even the most careful use of the steel will reach a point where the edge needs renewed by abrasive sharpening.