Field Sharpening using Rocks

[J.M. Jarosz]

Hey everyone,

Thought this video might belong here so I hope you enjoy it!

Out on short trips in the field you might not have your sharpening equipment, so it can be handy knowing how to use the natural environment to maintain your tools. Might also be considered a good survival skill!

Thanks for watching and please let me know if there's anything I missed in the video that you would like to know about!

Jesse

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

It all depends on what sort of stone you have in your area. You generally want to look for siliceous sedimentary stones, and you want it to be capable of refreshing its own surface by shedding particles. If no suitably flat stone can be found, get two stones of the same type that are as flat as you can find and rub their surfaces together with a figure-8 pattern to wear them down to dead flat. I'm lucky enough to have deposits of extra fine, black, siliceous siltstone in my area and have a number of samples that I've flattened for use as a finishing stone. Works a treat.

 

[J.M. Jarosz]

Wow that's really cool. I don't know a whole lot about rocks at all and I can see that it would definitely be advantageous to possess such knowledge in this case. Thank you for adding on to this post. Definitely a big help to anyone wanting to try sharpening this way.

It all depends on what sort of stone you have in your area. You generally want to look for siliceous sedimentary stones, and you want it to be capable of refreshing its own surface by shedding particles. If no suitably flat stone can be found, get two stones of the same type that are as flat as you can find and rub their surfaces together with a figure-8 pattern to wear them down to dead flat. I'm lucky enough to have deposits of extra fine, black, siliceous siltstone in my area and have a number of samples that I've flattened for use as a finishing stone. Works a treat.

 

[adamlau]

I finish utility blades on garage slab all the time. A garage stem wall stands in for a coarse stone nicely.