I thought I hit the Mother-Lode -Stone .

[Kevin the grey]

Ah Garage sales ,
spider webbed drawers full of cutlery , things that don,t work and the occasional find that makes the old metronome skip a beat .
I espied something . Just below and right beneath , in the back on the floor was...... a round flat stone about 16 inches across with a hole in the middle . Hot diggety dog says I a stone from a pedal powered sharpener . Just what the doctor ordered . I reached down and tilted it up from its dusty seat . Well just the right heft . The texture felt right . In my mind I was already going over how to mount it and what kind of pedal drive I would have to make . Then I noticed the hole was not quite concentric . No biggie thought I trying deserately to hold onto my slowly shattering dream . Images of good old Kevin in his yard slowly bringing a keen edge up on my trusty instruments of destruction slowly puddled on the floor . They oozed towards the drain picking up dirt along the way as I saw what appeared to be a mold line and a very uneven surface on the far side .

The @#$%^&* thing was a gol durned home made cow flop of an umbrella support for a patio table ! I was going to report the garage owner for fraud but then thought better of it when they gave me a free map of Ireland .
There is still some small part of me in denial as I can still just about see me sharpening away . Perhaps eyeing a nice fat porker for the spit .

 

[45-70]

You know there was an article in a backwoodsman magazine about making your own foot powered grindstone from sifted cement mix....


Want me to see if I can find it?

 

[Kevin the grey]

You know there was an article in a backwoodsman magazine about making your own foot powered grindstone from sifted cement mix....


Want me to see if I can find it?

Thats what struck me about this poured stone monstrosity . It was smooth enough to at least put an edge on . I can,t promise I would make it right away .

 

[Svashtar]

When I was 18 or so I was sharpening my favorite SAK, a little officers model that had been a gift, on a hard arkansas oil stone.

My roommate at the time who considered himself an expert on everything, but in reality didn't know s*^t from shinola, pooh-poohed my primitive sharpening technique. He said his Dad had a "real" sharpener at their place in Lake Tahoe, and as he was heading up there this weekend he would do me a favor and sharpen it for me.

Like an _idiot_ I trusted someone yet again, and he proceeded justify my eternal pessimism. (-:

He ground the primary blade on a huge old foot powered sharpener, that personally I wouldn't even grind an axe on, and ruined it. More than half the blade was just gone, and the rest was "sharp" in the sense that the ragged pieces of steel remaining would gouge you if you ran your thumb along the edge, and the back of the blade was dark blue from the heat.

This is the same guy who about got his a$$ kicked when he took my 686 DCM .357 and showed me the correct way to close the cylinder, you know, by flinging it shut one handed, thereby jacking up the crane.

He also told me that he was an expert with that particular revolver, having shot 3000 rounds through the same model the week previously. When I pointed out that 3000 rounds of factory .357 would cost about $1200 at the time, and wondered how he could have afforded that while making $2.75 per hour at his job, he shut up. Hot air rises and s*&t floats...

Anyway, long story but that's the extent of my experience with those things. I gather some are better than others. Would have been a neat find for you though.

Norm

 

[the possum]

A while back I had a neat find of my own. I was along the edge of a field doing some work and noticed a small junk pile along the edge in the trees. Being naturally curious about old junk, I started looking around. There were old tractor parts from the 1940's, and other general junk from that era. Then I noticed a rusty piece of steel sticking out with a familiar shape... It was the tang from an old scythe blade. I pulled it out, and most of the blade had rusted away, but I still thought it was neat and they'd never miss it, so I picked it up. Then over by some concrete slabs, half buried, I found.... an old foot powered sharpening wheel. It was about 14"-16" in diameter, with a square hole in the center. Again, thinking it was a shame that it would just be discarded and forgotten like that, I decided to give it a new home. It's currently serving as a stepping stone by my back porch, :foot: but I planned to restore it to use some day.

Then again, I didn't think about some of you guys who might want it even more than me. I wonder what it would cost to ship something that heavy...

 

[Andrew Taylor]

I left one behind when I sold my Inn in England. It was about 2' 6" in diameter and 4" wide, with a square hole in the centre. It appeared to be made of some type of fine sandstone. We stood it up against the stanchion of the outside stairs to the rooms with a planter of flowers in front.

 

[Rat Finkenstein]

He ground the primary blade on a huge old foot powered sharpener, that personally I wouldn't even grind an axe on, and ruined it. More than half the blade was just gone, and the rest was "sharp" in the sense that the ragged pieces of steel remaining would gouge you if you ran your thumb along the edge, and the back of the blade was dark blue from the heat.

Hahaha! that is a classic story.:thumbup: