One of your fellow Ubi Libertas Blog readers, a friend of mine, suggested not long ago that I do a post on knife sharpening — that is, instead of simply talking about knives, offer useful information on taking care of them. That’s a great idea, of course.
Thing is, I don’t feel like much of an expert on the subject. Because honing an edge is so personal, so experiential, so downright sensory, I found myself struggling with how to present it here.
Clearly, writing a conventional “how-to” wouldn’t be the best way to go about it.
And then I remembered that I’d already composed such a piece. It first showed up on a now-retired personal blog. Then, ten years ago, while working for a major online knife retailer, I adapted that original work for an article that appeared on my employer’s website.
What follows here today draws on that 15-year-old blog post. Naturally, it echoes what was published (and remains to this day) in the commercial space. You can be sure, however, that it’s not plagiarized — the words and images are my own.
For the card-carrying knife knut, few things in life compare to the thrill of using a truly sharp blade. A keen edge responds as much to thought, it seems, as to the hand.
Nothing lasts forever, of course, and that’s true of even the most skillfully honed blade. And there’s absolutely no pleasure in using a knife that’s as dull as a balloon. Fortunately, it’s easy to avoid the disappointment of a good edge gone bad.
First things first: Learn how to sharpen your own knives. Developing that skill is more than self-sufficiency — it’s understanding. “The more you know,” as we used to say in motorcycle training, “the better it gets.”
When you learn how to put an edge on a knife, you begin to become acquainted with that knife, its steel, its grind and its geometry. The knowledge will come in handy when you take the knife into the field and put it to work.
That said, you may find my next guidance puzzling: Don’t sharpen your knives.
I’ll say it another way: Don’t sharpen your knives. Maintain your knives.
See, the exercise of sharpening is, in essence, the repair of a dull edge. Like anything else you want to keep in working order, it’s better (and usually easier) to maintain it than to repair it.
If you hang around with old-school knife knuts, I can almost guarantee that you’ll see them “wipe” a blade on their pants leg after they use it. Notice that they do it almost religiously, dragging the blade back and forth, once or maybe twice, before putting it back into a pocket or sheath.
That’s maintenance.
Your pants leg is the strop that goes everywhere with you. Even if that’s all you do, and you make a habit of maintaining a knife, you’ll only rarely need to sharpen it.
Next tip: Always carry a way to maintain your edge.
What kind of portable maintenance tools will you need? That’ll depend on your blade’s grind. You might choose a fine or medium stone (or both) for a V-bevel. Maybe all you want is a simple ceramic rod. For a convex grind, pick up a leather hone (or strop) and some compound.
Personally, I seldom use a stone anymore. The strop-and-compound method works for any grind, so that’s generally how I treat all of my knives. My walkabout edge-maintenance kit is a ceramic rod, an old leather belt and, of course, my pants leg.
And when I dont have those tools handy, I improvise.
Hell, sometimes I’ll even challenge myself, make a game of it. I’ll look around for something that serves my purpose.
As a stand-in for a strop, for example, I’ve employed a leather belt, nylon webbing (a pack strap), newspaper, and dirty cardboard. I’ve made stropping compound from mud (fine silt is best), toothpaste, and metal polish.
The finished edge of a car window makes an excellent substitute for a ceramic rod.
To improvise a sharpening stone, I’ve successfully used an emery board, a smooth fire brick (not a rough masonry brick) and, naturally, actual stones — like flat rocks found in the shallows of a stream.
Terra-cotta pots work well, too.
By far my favorite scavenged sharpening tool has to be the unglazed rings on the bottom of ceramic items like coffee mugs and dinner plates. I once tried to resurrect the edge of a knife using the bare underside of a toilet-tank lid. It worked.
My final nugget of advice is this: Learn your edge. In short, you need to know when to stop and maintain it.
I can’t describe what that feels like. I couldn’t teach it to you if you were right here in front of me. You learn it only through experience.
Like every good mechanic develops a feel for torque, an innate sense of when a nut or bolt is right-tight, over time you’ll develop a feel for your blades. You’ll be able to sense when an edge is starting to fade, and that’s when you’ll take a moment to give it the attention it needs.
It’ll vary from blade to blade and task to task. You’ll know.
I hope all this has been helpful. Work your knives, maintain them and, if you do it right, you can reap the rewards of blades that are always sharp.
A few scenes from today on The Mountain (and one from town).
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB