A couple of months ago, I wrote about knapping flint blades and the MC KA-BAR knife, concluding that I needed to learn how to sharpen steel blades. Over the summer holiday, I had some free time – Carpe Diem!
Side Note: This is not a tutorial on sharpening knives! If you want to learn how to sharpen knives, I particularly liked this video. It has the usual over-the-top language, gestures and framing but is an excellent tutorial regardless – at least, it worked for me….
A few YouTube videos, a bit of shopping on Amazon, a couple hours of practical experimentation and skill acquired. I am by no means a blade expert, but for sure I can now sharpen a knife; a basic life-skill I have never before attempted to master.
Truth be told, I only know two people that are able to sharpen their own knives; a former Swedish army officer who relished his survival skills, and my father who was born on a South Italian farm during the Second World War, and grew up sharpening all sorts of farming tools bl daily. He had no practical use for a vine grafting knife in London in the ‘70s, but I remember being kept well away from it – and his kitchen knives are still wicked.
Everyone else I know, myself included, either outsource knife sharpening to a local butcher, or make do mashing food with blunt instruments, relying on brute force to rip carrots apart.
Why?
I was always afraid I would actually make the knives blunter – which is technically possible if you really screw up the angles, but not much of an excuse if your carving knife is already as blunt as a donkey’s rump.
Tell that to the kids of today and they won’t believe you…
It used to be hard work learning a practical skill. When I got my first car back in ‘91, I could barely afford gas for my daily 120 mile commute and I depended upon it working reliably, even if I could not afford to pay for regular services.
I took a car maintenance evening class, bought the Haynes Manual (do they still exist?) and found the car parts dealership in the ubiquitously dodgy back streets where they always lurk. I learned to change the oil and filters, clean, gauge and gap the spark plugs and I even changed the gaskets.
Every step of the exercise took time and patience; reading the manuals to diagnose problems and understand the solutions, identifying the needed tools and parts, procuring them and finally doing the work.
Back to the future!
These days, you can find how-to videos on any practical task, shop for the parts online – with feedback from other customers to guide the buying decision. If you get confused, pause and rewind the video as many times as needed or watch another one.
Skills learning has never – ever – been easier or more thorough! I never knew that honing a knife is different to sharpening it. Now I have learned to sharpen them, I can move on to honing!
Acquiring practical skills creates confidence and independence. I would argue that the ancestral mindset was all about surviving – and thriving – by relying on your own strength, intelligence, tribal network and experience, using the natural resources lying around you. The satisfaction that comes from doing-it-yourself is innate and should be nourished at every opportunity.
It has never been easier, cheaper or faster to acquire practical
Caveman Musings 
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