-randomly swipe that long skinny thing that's in the knife block along a chef's knife, perhaps aiming for 45 degree angle
-as a kid my dad had something I think he called a whet stone. He'd put 3-in-1 oil on it and we'd carefully swipe the blade against the stone.
The first is a butchers steel, these were traditionally just a plain smooth steel rod which were used to repair the edge, shoving a knife through a joint tends to bend the very fine edge of the blade leaving what seems like a very dull spot. Essentially a heavy duty strop that would bend the edge back straight. These days they make them with abrasives embedded in the surface and are used to put a micro bevel on the knife, useful for the working chef but the home cook would be better off just sharpening the knife once or twice a month.
A whetstone is just a synonym for sharpening stone. The oil helps keep the removed particles of steel from getting embedded in the stone and clogging it. Water or oil is used with most types of sharpening stones for this purpose.
I think the long skinny thing is a hone. You use that after sharpening to hone the edge. But it won't make a dull edge sharp.
The whetstone sounds right. I think there's a lot of technique to how you swipe it, you can't just go in all guns blazing. But I don't know how to do it, so I'm not sure.
-randomly swipe that long skinny thing that's in the knife block along a chef's knife, perhaps aiming for 45 degree angle -as a kid my dad had something I think he called a whet stone. He'd put 3-in-1 oil on it and we'd carefully swipe the blade against the stone.
Either of these right?