Old timer at the shop showed me his knife sharpening trick and I still use it 10 years later

2 comments

2 Comments

What exactly was the trick he showed you? I've seen guys use everything from wet stones to belt grinders, but the real old timers always had something unusual up their sleeve. One fellow I knew used a leather strop with polishing compound, swore by it for getting that final edge. Another guy I worked with would run his blade across the bottom of a coffee mug, the unglazed ring around the base. Sounds crazy but it actually worked in a pinch. Was yours something like that or completely different?

bennett.mason15d ago

Yeah that coffee mug trick is wild but I've seen it work too. The guy I'm talking about used an old piece of window glass with some fine grit sandpaper taped to it. Told me he'd been doing it since the 70s and never saw a reason to change. I gotta admit after watching him put an edge on a chef's knife that thing was shaving arm hair like it was nothing. It's funny how the old timers figure out stuff that sounds half baked but actually gets the job done.