Sharpening Knives

If you are going to be doing anything outside, where you think you may need your knife, you owe it to yourself to have a sharp knife.

Having a sharp knife is actually safer than having a dull knife. It takes a lot less force to cut something with a sharp knife so you are less likely to put too much pressure on that rope, fabric or piece of wood and force the knife all the way through what you are trying to cut and into you or something you didn't want to cut.


If your knife is sharp, you can also get more done, quicker. It doesn't take as much force so you can do more. One of the biggest reasons most people don't have sharp knives is because they don't know how to sharpen their knives. Today, with the multitude of electric sharpeners and guided sharpeners, there's no reason not to have all of your knives razor sharp.

Electric Sharpeners-
Work Sharp Sharpener
Chef's Choice Sharpener
Guided Sharpeners-
Gatco Sharpener
Manual Sharpening Systems-
Spyderco Sharpmaker
Smith's Bench Stone

I personally have developed a pretty cheap, but quite effective system for sharpening my knives. I first use a $19.99 Smith's 3-in-1 sharpener to get the knife pretty sharp, then I use my homemade leather strop* to finish the edge off, ending up with a knife that is sharp enough to shave with.

My homemade leather strop is simply portion of an old, wide leather belt rubbed with car polishing compound and secured to a small section of wood. It may be a bootleg version of a real strop, but it works and it was cheap.