Cool Tools, lesser known tools that can improve your life

My favourite tool for sharpening bladed tools, at least those used outdoors is the Speedy Sharp (speedysharp.com/). Although the company touts it for kitchen knives as well, I think it's a little too aggressive for those and prefer a diamond stick or water stone. But a Speedy Sharp can't be beat for pruners, loppers, axes and the like.

I like to use the old fashioned digging stick. Take with both hands and drag along the earth to uproot crowns, loosen soil, anything. I have one that works as a foot plough—a big one with a cut-off and smoothed branch stump protruding for stepping on.

My friend gave me a handmade sickle but somehow it ended up getting lost somewhere. It worked well while it lasted! Hopefully someone in the future unearths it and has a lovely gift to take home. What I normally use now is a large serrated kitchen knife, though no one has used it for kitchen tasks in a long time. It works at least as well as anything, doesn’t really go dull, and I never seem to be able to lose it for a long time.

I also like large aluminium bowls for essentially anything.

We volunteered to clear invasive exotic trees at a local park and used this tool.
https://www.weed-wrench.com/home

It worked amazingly well and was easy to use.

They can be expensive and you may suffer buyer's remorse, but my experience was that it goes away quick, after you start getting easily repeated results.

Over the years, I've been involved in a lot of discussions about sharpening. Those conversations almost always attract the arrogant types who insist one must learn to sharpen freehand and many of them TRIED to mock me for using jigs, but shut up when I challenged them to drop by my shop, or one like it, and prove their amazing muscle memory sharpening:  (1) draw knives; (2) cleavers; (3) chisels that require various angles; (4) kitchen knives  that require various angles; (5) lathe knives that require various angles; (6) axes; (7) lawn mower blades; ( band and table saw blades that require various angles; (9) different pocket knives that require various angles; (10) hunting knives; (11) brush chopping blades; (12) hoes; . . . .

The point is, no one is good at developing muscle memory for all but a few of the things mentioned. Too, all it takes is tipping the item you're sharpening a degree or two off the angle you want, and you'll be set back several minutes.  Jigs help you avoid that.

I bit the bullet and bought an Edge Pro Sharpener about ten years back. Afterword, the buyer's remorse at having just gambled $200.00 hit hard, but, as noted, it went away quickly. For example, I was talking with my wife about cutting potatoes using knives I'd saw, liked and scored 2nd hand.  It was almost like the blades were all but falling through them.

The truth was, we were those people who grew up in households that tossed knives in a drawer and let them fight it out for dominance. A battle they ALL lost.

We, to too much of a degree, had continued that tradition.   Using a knife from that drawer meant pressing down hard and rocking back and forth until the potato SPLIT apart.  Using sharp blades made us wonder if we were getting soft, on their way out, potatoes.   Eventually, we figured out that the Edge Pro sharpened blades were just incomparably sharper.

Now, if a knife starts to show signs of little knifey hesitations, my wife asks me to tune it/them.

Be warned, being able to get all your blades to where they should be can create rabbit trails. For example, I started looking at pocket and kitchen knives with steels that would hold their edges even longer. Man what a different world that opened up. Love my old buck, but it needs sharpening ten times before my Spyderco Paramilitary II with 110 steel needs attention.

Then there is the "if the Edge Pro is good, can that other often talked of, far more expensive sharpener be better" thing. More specifically, I started lusting after the Wicked Edge sharpeners. Staring down that road, there was the problem of, which version. And the shortcomings they suffered that the Edge Pro didn't.

COINCIDENTALLY, Wicked Edge came out with a prototype at the same time I was building my own version designed to overcome the problem of the stones fighting with the clamp, when sharpening some blades (mine clamps the handle, instead (and I had most the materials sitting around in my shop, so only had to buy the vice (handle clamp) the stones and the rods). I bought it for about the same prices as I paid for the Edge Pro.

The Wicked Edge has become another favorite, but remains alongside the Edge Pro and not in front of it, for the reasons stated.

David Wieland wrote:My favourite tool for sharpening bladed tools, at least those used outdoors is the Speedy Sharp (speedysharp.com/). Although the company touts it for kitchen knives as well, I think it's a little too aggressive for those and prefer a diamond stick or water stone. But a Speedy Sharp can't be beat for pruners, loppers, axes and the like.

Thank you! I just ordered one. I'm very interested to see if I get along with it!

Pearl Sutton wrote:

David Wieland wrote:My favourite tool for sharpening bladed tools, at least those used outdoors is the Speedy Sharp (speedysharp.com/). Although the company touts it for kitchen knives as well, I think it's a little too aggressive for those and prefer a diamond stick or water stone. But a Speedy Sharp can't be beat for pruners, loppers, axes and the like.

Thank you! I just ordered one. I'm very interested to see if I get along with it!

And, now I've just ordered one, lol. I have a kit, but sometimes, I want to sharpen a blade wherever I happen to be. We will see how it goes. My pruners & long-arm prints get the most abuse, so that's where I'll start.

I have Speedy Sharp sharpeners (and some early knock-offs of equivalent quality) in every toolbox, vehicle kit, and emergency kit. Corona also makes one that looks like the same thing but I haven't tried one.

They solve problems in the field, and don't chew blades to pieces like those horrible pull-through sharpeners. Instead you follow the bevel that is already there, and with a light touch you remove minimal metal. That's why I recommend them as a starting point for people learning to sharpen -- quick results, minimal damage (which I end up fixing).

That said, my skills have progressed to the point where I can build a much more durable edge with diamond sharpeners. These edges hold up better to hard use with woody materials -- especially dry wood. So the Speedys are more for emergency first aid these days.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:...
That said, my skills have progressed to the point where I can build a much more durable edge with diamond sharpeners. These edges hold up better to hard use with woody materials -- especially dry wood. So the Speedys are more for emergency first aid these days.

As I mentioned, I use diamond sharpeners for knives, especially kitchen ones, for the more refined edge they can provide. I've also used a diamond stick sharpener i bought years ago for sharpening pruners and loppers, but the Speedy Sharp has been superior for that use, being much better for getting rid of the occasional nick. I haven't noticed any difference in the durability of the edge I achieve, but there's definitely a difference in the sharpener durability, with the diamond infused type wearing down faster than the high-grade carbide of the Speedy. The quality of the blade steel seems to be a bigger factor in edge durability, although maintaining a sharp edge and avoiding twisting when pruning reduces the frequency of major sharpening.