I try to eliminate the bur and wavering edge with my last dozen passes over a 700-grit stone. VERY light pressure, barely touching, and slow.
I'll bring out my smoothest steel and use it for comparison on a variety of stainless knives. Maybe the hardest of them will support a better edge than I think. With most of my stainless knives, I'm sure that the "little-Vee-ceramic" smooths the edge but takes away too much of the "bite". Maybe the smooth steel "steel" will do a better job.
Back when I was using a steel more often, I found that a cheap ceramic rod I found at a Dollar Store left a "better" stainless edge than the expensive steel "steel". I figured that I might as well use a dead flat 700 grit stone as a cheap ceramic rod.
Certainly EVERY knife-sharpening book and website including those for chefs advises strongly that you use a steel frequently. My guess is that they are tlaking about carbon steel knives or VERY expensive stainless ones.
I've also read that the main problem with the better stainless steel alloys is not that their ultimate possible hardness is terrible, but rather that it is difficult and complicated to heat treat them the right way to bring OUT their ultimate hardness. So reasonably-priced stainless knives use indifferent alloys that are easier to heat-treat to an indifferent hardness.
Too bad the only 440-C kitchen knives I have are very long slicers. The smaller a knife is, the more often I have a use for it. I think that surgical scalpels are usually made from 440 or 420 series stainless alloys, despite many scalpels having replaceable blades. I bet they get careful heat treatment!
