Sharpening my knives when all of a sudden...

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Gotcha. There's zero amount of skill involved in sharpening knives. Anyone can get perfect edges after a 5 minute introduction. Sounds great.

 

It has never happened to me. But if it ever did: I have a bench grinder in my garage. I am sure it would not take more than a few minutes! A neigbour with Chinese crap he can not sharpen himself: fast grinder job will solve all his problems!

 

Where do you live? I need to send every marine I know to you so they can learn to be men, as they can't sharpen knives.

In fact, depending on which knife I have, I still have trouble. I have a loupe and stones, but still get confused with some steels, and burr formation on some acute knives. Since you apparently have a .1000 batting average teaching people to sharpen, can I come over?

Zero

 

I recently gifted a Benchmade 710 to my daughter's boyfriend (Alex) because he helped fix her car. He loves the knife and uses it every day at work. About three weeks goes by and he is over along with my older son and his friend. I ask Alex how the 710 is working and he replies that it is great but needs to be sharpened. I whip out my sharpening equipment and put a nice shaving sharp edge. All of the sudden my son brings out two dull knives and his friend has a folder that was also butter knife dull. So, the next 30mins was all about sharpening everyone's knives. Don't mind as long as I'm not doing this every weekend

 

I've been sharpening all my friends, family and coworkers knives for the last few years...and although I've offered to teach many times, NOT ONE person has ever had any interest in learning, even when I would lend them my old whetstones.

Only knife people care about these things.

 

Did I say that? I don't think so? But for a person of even average intelligence and manual dexterity, sharpening a knife, just like tying ones shoes, is a rather simple task. Like I said, it ain't brain surgery.

Did I say that a person could achieve a perfect edge after only 5 minutes? I don't think so? While it may take only a few minutes to teach a person how to sharpen a knife, actuall skill, or the ability to "get a perfect edge" as you put it, might take a while longer. As with most things in life, SKILL is often the result of ones committment to succeed and devotion to practice. If a person has neither the committment to succeed, nor the devotion to practice, then I have no sympathy for them.

What a sad state of affairs it is when people aren't willing to take the time to learn a basic necessity in life, like sharpening their own knife. I wonder if they tie their own shoes? Or maybe that was too difficult to learn as well.

 

I'm skilled at some things, like sharpening knives... I don't mind helping out.
Haggling for a deal? I flat out suck at haggling, a buddy of mine excells at haggling and has helped me get a fair shake a few times.
Weeding through legal mumbo-jumbo when dealing with entities that make a living screwing people that don't understand all the fine print? I suck at it but a couple of friends are happy to help me out.
Figuring out what's wrong with my computer? Groan... that's where my sister comes in... it's her trade, not mine.
I guess we all have our strong and weak points.
Glad to have the friends that I do and I'm happy to help where I can.
I've tried to teach some how to sharpen when they've showed the desire to learn. A lot of people simply don't have the knack.
It's all good...

 

Heck, if Uncle Sam wants to pay me for my time I'd be happy to do so. It's terrible if the military really doesn't teach Marines proper maintenance of their tools nor requires some level of proficiency in doing so. Perhaps the military doesn't consider sharp knives to be a necessity.

Keep practicing, you'll get there. I have complete faith in you.

I don't know what my average is. And although I find it easy to teach people how to sharpen knives made out of steels that I am familiar with, I can't vouch for the level of committment and devotion of my students. Some work harder at it, and as a result they develop greater skills than others.

 

I think some other important aspects in being a man are compassion, understanding and charity. That's what I was taught. I would have taken the whole box. It gives me practice to become a better maker and sharpener. It's all beneficial to me. I love this stuff, and it gives me an opportunity to do just that. Some things are worth so much more than money.

 

There's this friend that I go to when I can't handle or when I don't have equipment for working on my firearms. I learn from him but that doesn't mean that he won't do delicate work if I am still don't have the skill to do it myself. He's a very good friend.

 

I charge a fee if somebody wants their knives sharpened.

 

I used to sharpen knives for people, but not anymore because the type of people you need to sharpen knives for don't know how to properly keep the edge.

 

Every time I visit the in-laws they expect me to do their annual sharpening of the knives that look like they have been used to chop bricks. My wife is highly displeased if I "forget" to bring my stones. And then other nieces find out and bring over their knives, too.

This year for Thanksgiving I brought my mini belt sander instead of the stones, and got it done a lot faster.

 

Bell sander is a good idea, I'll have to remember that one, I think it woul be useful to sharpen it on the belt sander first to get rid of chips, then use the stones (unless it is a cheap knife, then just sander)

 

I concur, it's great to help people out, and I'm happy to do it. Granted, for a pile of kitchen knives I'll use the belt grinder and a steel and call it good, no one's complained yet. Guns, knives, computers, I'll fix them all. Why? Because I ask folks to do things for me sometimes, and it all comes around.

 

I usually end up sharpening knives for everyone that I know who carries one, and it actually has turned into a rewarding experience. Just last night I sharpened up a pocket knife for one of my co-workers and walked away with two new paracord bracelets, a monkeys fist key chain, and another 20+ feet of paracord. I think that I came out on top with that deal. I enjoy working steel and it always seems that even though I do not ask for anything in return I always end up with something back. The only deal that went south on me was sharpening some skinning knives for a friend. When he asked me to I thought it was going to be one or two but it ended up being around 40... some good... some not so good... and they were all chipped and dinged out like he had been hacking metal with them or something. All in all I ended up being compensated with a cheapo remington knife, but I should not complain, you can always use a beater blade for something. I once customized a recon 1 for my brother in law (stripped, waved, acid etched, and sharpened) and ended up with a BK14 so that was an amazing trade off.

On the other side of things like teaching someone to sharpen instead of doing it for them I understand. Sharpening is a good skill to have no matter where or who you are. However if your like me and just enjoy working the steel and getting to handle all sorts of blades, then its not a bad deal. I showed my wife, who had never sharpened anything before, how to sharpen when we first got married. I gave her the quick tutorial and handed her a dull old AUS 6 spyderco delica. She literally got it right (hair popping) the first time with no experience, but my wife is just good like that. Lol.

 

There is always a need for a sharp knife. With people that aren't used to having sharp knives I prefer to just sharpen a few and tell them to set 'em aside and just use them when they really need to. I just don't think it's always a great idea to have everything sharp with someone that isn't good with tools, especially if they have kids that haven't been taught the basics. A lot of people have, many almost immediately, cut themselves after I've dressed their knife edges.
Sharp knives are safer for ME because I understand and respect cutting tools. Not everyone does.

 

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Helping people is great. Like I said in post #6, I thought it was cool how you were helping your neighbor.

But I see a big difference between helping someone, and doing something for someone because they are too lazy to take the time to learn how to do it for themselves.

My views may be old-fasioned, but I believe that teaching a person to do something for themselves, and increasing their self-reliance, is often the best way to help them. I don't believe that encouraging people to be dependant on others is truly helping them. And if a person is unwilling to learn, maybe it's best not to just do it for them. Perhaps when people realize that they can't get others to do everything for them, maybe they'll decide it's in their best interests to learn. And isn't that how human civilization evolves.

It's easy to talk about being helpful and compassionate, but we all know that everyone draws the line somewhere. What if a perfectly able-bodied neighbor asked "Hey, can you paint my house for me, I don't know how and I'm not interested in learning. Besides, I'd rather go golfing". Is that what it means to be helpful? Is that what it means to be part of a community?