- Welcome everyone. My name is Alena Joling. I am the founder of Moleta: Artisanal Sharpening, where we say it's our goal to keep your blades out of the landfill and you out of the hospital.[audience laughing] Yep. So I am so excited to be talking to you about your bladed tools today. I could literally talk to you about your blades all day, but for the, you know, because we're at the Garden Show, we're gonna focus on the bladed tools that you use in the garden.

And there are a lot of myths around keeping your blades sharp. And people don't seem to realize that professional sharpening is alive and well. And you probably have a local sharpener close to you. But sharpening isn't as simple as it looks. It’s not one-size-fits-all. And getting a good edge on your tools is critical to your safety and your health. So if you wanna sharpen at home, we’re gonna talk about some of the dos and don’ts, the gadgets that are out there, and some safety tips. And if you wanna go to a professional, we’re gonna talk about some questions that you could ask them to make sure you're finding the one that's right for you because it is an unregulated industry.
Anybody can buy a machine and call themselves a professional.

So first, thank you PBS for having us. This means a lot that we get to share this information with so many people. And I'd like to note that the opinions expressed in this are mine, and they may change over the years with new information. And if you wanna keep up with us, you can subscribe to moleta.com and stay up to date with everything we learn along the way. And additionally, for the purposes of time, this presentation is by no means complete. Like I said, I could talk to you about your bladed tools all day. An intention that we have is to talk to non-blade people about their blades too. So I'm gonna break it down, try to make it really easy and simple to digest, even if you don't know anything about sharpening.

All right. And I wanna thank you for attending, too. I imagine some of you are here today because you wanna stop throwing tools away when their edges are duller you want those edges to last longer. Maybe you have questions like, "Are my tools worth sharpening?” Or you just wanna stop being shamed by friends and family when they come over and make fun of you for having really dull blades.

[audience chuckling]

So our goal at Moleta is to make high-quality sharpening more accessible in the Greater Milwaukee area. We originally had a standalone storefront. We are now located inside of the Better Knife and Kitchen Store in Brookfield, Wisconsin. And we have mobile units that do farmer's markets all over. So Moleta is actually an old Italian slang term that means "knife sharpener.” It was originally the last name of a family who had a heavy hand in developing the Western style of knife sharpening back in Italy. And they were so darn good at it that their last name became synonymous with sharpening. So when I started Moleta, the world of sharpening and, like, the only options available around us, they really had a philosophy of, "The customer doesn't know any better and doesn't care.” And that's a quote. So my intention is, by the end of this presentation, you know better and you care about those tools.

All right. So today, I'm gonna bust some myths about sharpening. We’re gonna give you some tips on caring for your tools. And if you wanna sharpen at home, I’m gonna tell you right now, you're gonna have to learn a skill. There’s no way around it in my opinion. But if you're interested in that, we’re gonna give you some tips on it. And again, professional sharpening is a lot more accessible than you think. We actually invest$30,000 to $50,000 per sharpener that we train. If it was easy, I wouldn't have to do that. So let's get into it.

The first myth. Sharpening is a male-dominated industry. I am so delighted to tell you that these are two of the largest sharpening companies in Wisconsin, and they are both owned by women. And a special shout-out to Diane in Kenosha and another to Kelly over in Green Bay. Women are really doing a lot in Wisconsin in particular. And I've called and gotten calls from other places, too. We’re all over the place. Even in some of the oldest companies in Japan, there’s a lot of women there. And this right here, Wisconsin Cutlery and Kitchen Supply, that’s your hometown hero. She's here in Madison. She does a fabulous job; her name is Michelle. And she actually has partnered with us to open the Better Knife and Kitchen store in Brookfield.

So I just wanna say the biggest thing that we have in common, us ladies, is our passion for sharpening your blades. And that might not make total sense until you think about that Julia Child quote, that the knife is the life of the kitchen. And so I think the pruner must be the life of the garden, isn’t it?

Most people don't seem to know that a sharp blade--Most people do seem to know that a sharp blade is safer to use, right? We know you're less likely to slip, that it's gonna bite into whatever you're cutting a little bit better. You can keep your fingers way out of the way. But slightly less known is number two up there, that if you cut yourself with a dull blade, it’s gonna take longer to headland it's more likely to get infected. I got my first stitches from sharpening this last year. I did not feel it happen. It was with a blade I had just sharpened. And I didn't feel it while it was healing either. But then I cut myself with a dull tool a while later. I felt that, and I felt it for days afterwards. It was inflamed. It was really tough to get healing right. And it took a lot longer. So that's another point that just having those tools sharp, if you're gonna cut yourself, I highly recommend doing it with a really sharp blade.

[audience laughing]

Even less well-known is number three up there, the long-term health consequences. People usually look at me like, "What?” unless they're in the salon industry. Because using tools that are dull for you, especially those bypass blades, you have to use more force, maybe a little bit of torque to get 'me working. Those can really cause undue stress on your hands. And the long-term consequences are gonna be carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis. Or if you have those things already, it’s aggravating it a lot more than it needs to. And you're probably just making your work take a lot longer as well.

So today, we're gonna cover how do you know when you should restore your tools versus buy new ones? And if we're restoring them, what are the different edges on your different garden tools? How do you know what to look out for? How do you maintenance those tools? And some information to help you decide if you wanna sharpen them at home or take them to a professional. Because as much as we love to see you, oh, and finally, we're gonna have some storage ideas to help you keep those blades sharper for longer, because while we love to see you, we don't wanna see you that often, or we're not doing our jobs right.

So first, let's explore some grind types. Up here I have the most basic. There’s probably 50 different ways you could grind a blade. But to start, we have two kind of main categories. You’re gonna have your single-edge blades and your double-edge blades. Another word for that is bevel. But if I keep saying double bevel through this entire presentation, we're gonna run into some issues. So I'm gonna use that synonymously with single-edge and double-edge for this presentation.

And then of those two grind types, there’s three more main categories that you can have of those. We’re gonna have our flat grind. That’s gonna be the most common that you see. It’s gonna be on all your brand-new tools that are machine-sharpened. And then we are gonna have the convex grind. That is in fact what Moleta specializes in. The convex grind is a little harder to achieve. I have to teach our sharpeners how to sharpen on a soft surface. And that means it moves and bends and twists. We are sharpening in three dimensions instead of two. But the benefit is that little bit of a curve on your blades that you see up there in the photo, there’s more steel backing up the tip.
So it's gonna last a lot longer.

And every time it's sharpened, it's gonna take off less steel, which means the life of your tools are extended by a lot more as well. And it's even smoother than brand-new. In fact, you can't get this edge type on a brand-new blade unless we've sharpened it. There are a few manufacturers we sharpen for, just small ones, like little homemade blades and stuff. But they'll send 'em to us to sharpen ‘cause they want that higher quality edge on it. 

And then you have your--Oh, I'm gonna go back. And then you have your hollow grind. This is also known as a concave grind. This is really only appropriate on, like, straight razors. Really thin, really fine. That edge is gonna be damaged easily. You only wanna use it on really delicate stuff. And I cannot express deeply enough how inappropriate that grind type would be on your garden tools, or your kitchen knives, or anything like that.

And now let's talk about a few terms you’re gonna need to know as I continue to chat up here. First of all, what's the difference between stainless steel and carbon steel? For your purposes at home, it's really gonna be that stainless steel doesn't rust as easily as carbon steel. It’s a little easier to maintain and take care of. The downside is it's not quite as hard as carbon steel. So carbon steel, that edge is gonna last a lot longer. So if you can put up with babying it a little bit, making sure it's not ever wet or that you dry it off really quickly after you wash it, always washing it by hand, all your blades, wash by hand, no dishwashers please. But that edge will last you quite a bit longer.

Next, what is a burr? That photo up there is a burr magnified about eight times. I used a little thing, and I tried to get my phone in there to take a photo of it. It looks really cool, I think. It looks like a beautiful little forest. A burr can be formed in two ways. It can be formed from when you're using your blade. And it's gonna form irregularly along the blade, sort of folding and bending in different places. And you can typically feel it if you take your finger and you run it along the edge of the blade like this, not like this, like this, on the flat side of it. And you can feel a tiny ridge. That’s when you know you have a burr. A burr is also formed when we sharpen something. And when we're sharpening something, our intention is to create a perfect burr, that when we remove it, all that's left is a really clean, beautiful edge.

And then we have a swale. And I know that's a kitchen knife, but it's the best example I could show you. Because a swale,if you are familiar with the term in agriculture, it’s a depression in the land, and it fills up with water. Farmers really don't like 'em necessarily unless they're strategically planned.Sharpeners don't like swales either. That swale is really commonly and easily formed from a lot of different sharpening processes. And it's gonna typically mean for your blades that have to meet a cutting surface, it’s not gonna meet the cutting surface anymore. If you can imagine putting that knife on a cutting board, you’re not gonna be able to cut through much of anything. It’s gonna have, like, a big gap left.

Really small ones. You may have 'em in your blades and you never even noticed. And so whenever you're cutting, and this is gonna come up with your garden tools too, but if you're not going all the way through something, you might want to check for a swale. And we'll talk about how to do that a little bit, too. So our next myth,"My stuff isn't good enough to sharpen. It wasn't that expensive to buy. I just don't think it's worth sharpening.” Well, maybe it's not, maybe, or maybe it's super damaged and we'll talk about what to look there too. But 90% of the time, whatever problem our customers are talking about is totally fixable. And we don't charge if we can't sharpen something or we don't like how it turns out. And usually that could be because of a problem. Even if we start and we're starting to work on it, if it doesn't turn out how we like, we’re not gonna charge you. And that's because we might not see that problem until after we start sharpening it. It might have not been visible until then.

But, fact, a good sharpening is better than brand-new, and it's gonna last a lot longer too, especially with our convex grind or other sharpeners who are doing that little microscopic convex grind, beautiful. So we can achieve an edge that’s better than the manufacturer. So sometimes I tell people to think about it as if you are adding to the value of whatever you have. You're adding to that value. So, plus, you know, some tools come with a paint coating on them, like some trowels that you might find. Almost all of your lawnmower blades are gonna come with that paint coating. So sometimes customers will say, “Well, I could buy a new lawnmower blade for $11.” We all know not all lawnmower blades are $11. But that might be the case. And even if they did, they’d still have to pay somebody to sharpen it or sharpen it themselves because lawnmower blades brand-new need to be sharpened before they are used.

So how do we know when a tool is worth restoring versus buying new? At Moleta, once again, you can just call us or text us a photo of it, and we can typically give you an assessment. But if you give it a shot too, we’re not gonna charge you if we don't like it. So if it's rusted, it can usually be restored with a soak. The main thing we look out for here is if the steel is deeply pitted. And that means it has little pits and grooves in it, 'cause sometimes if it's too deeply pitted as we start sharpening it, it’s always gonna have nicks in the blade, little chips and little nicks out of it ‘cause that pitting will show up on the edge, no matter how much steel we're taking off of it.

Another thing to look for are bends and swales. Now, bends can form a swale sort of as well, especially with your bypass blades, and usually, the bending will come from trying to cut something too big with, like, those long-bladed trimmers we have on the screen. So it'll twist 'em a little bit, and now you have a gap between your blades. And a swale can form the same thing. And so that means when you're trying to go to cut something, it’s gonna bend it more than actually cutting it. So that's something to look for. You can usually see it by holding your tool up to the light and closing it slowly, and making sure that you can see sort of a black bead moving up along that's, like, blocking the light. That typically means your blades are meeting, and that it's just time to get them sharpened.

If there are chips in the blade, nicks, or even a broken tip, we, honestly, it can be broken in half, and we're gonna fix it for you in about 60 seconds. It really doesn't take long to fix those things when you have the proper training. And then two, is the handle intact? If your handles are broken, that's the thing that might be more expensive to fix. If you have a wood handle, even on wood-handled knives, they start at, like, $60 when we repair them. And we are one of the lowest costs on that. If you have a plastic handle, it’s gonna cost three to four times as much because plastic needs, you have to create a silicone mold, you have to pour in the resin. It’s a lot more expensive of a process than making a new wood-handled blade. So something to think about when you're looking for those new ones, too.

And so when you're going to buy things new, a couple things you can look for: replacement blades. And I have a tip for finding those’ cause sometimes you're on the website and it's really overwhelming and the description doesn't say whether or not they have replacement blades. I would recommend, no matter what site you're on, go directly to the manufacturer's website. Search replacement blades. Up are gonna pop all the options of the tools that have the replacement blades. So you'll suddenly have the model numbers for everything they make that you can buy a replacement blade for. And it could save you a lot of money in the long run. And if you care about the environment, it’s gonna help there too.

And then, let's see. This one is a little bit more obvious, but we're gonna wanna find more natural material parts instead of plastic. Again, because it's more expensive to replace, but also they do tend to last longer and not break as easy to begin with. And that's the great thing. You might think, “Oh, that's so expensive and hard to find these days." Go to an antique store; go to a secondhand store. Some of those older tools are still in beautiful, beautiful shape. And with a little restoration, you can get 'em working like new. A lot of those older tools have a really high carbon content, which we just talked about, can really make those edges last a lot longer for you too.

Now, if it's a bypass tool like this long-bladed trimmer up there, another little trick is to look for, some of 'em are riveted and some of 'em have bolts. And if you get one that has bolts, you can replace that if you ever need. If it gets loosened or so corroded that it won't move anymore and it's gotta be forced out of there, if it's a bolt instead of a rivet, you can go to a hardware store and find a little replacement part for it as well, keep it in working order and keep it out of the trash.

And lastly, I cannot emphasize enough that your bladed tools are worth every penny. So if you are in the position that you're going to buy new, buy at the highest bracket that you possibly can, that your budget will allow. It’s absolutely worth it in the long run. It’ll save you money in the long run because a higher quality tool won't need to be as sharpened as often. It's gonna hold its edge already better. And you're gonna work less. If its edge is holding better, you’re gonna have a lot easier time of working. So it's gonna save you time too when you're out doing your gardening.

Myth number three. The manufacturer's edge is as good as it gets. Surprise, surprise, making blades and sharpening them are two completely different skill sets. But most often, people assume that somebody who makes knives would be better at sharpening them. But that's not true. In fact, we sharpen for some manufacturers. Like I said, some people who make, like, small batch knives, they’ll send them to us to put an edge on it. So a good example I can give you is if somebody learned how to make beautiful paint brushes, do you think that would make them a better painter?

- Audience Member: No.

- Alena: No. So a lot of knife and bladed tool makers don't actually know how to sharpen. They either have machines that'll put the edge on for them or, like, gadgets that guide them, which is called a jig, and we'll talk about those in a little bit too. And brand-new edges are rarely sharp even from the back end to the very tip. And that's kind of to be expected with a lot of that machine sharpening. We have customers who are so spoiled that they bring us their new blades as soon as they get 'em because now they're so used to our edge that the new edge is, like, not good enough for them.

So people ask me if I make knives, and the answer is no. I have just been focused on being the best sharpener. And that's the same thing I train our sharpeners to do. So we are specifically a sharpening company, not a manufacturing company of blades of any kind. Sharpening professionally requires memorizing a lot of little micro movements. It’s a lot of muscle memory. And that's partially why it takes us so long to train, ‘cause even once you understand the concepts of it, it’s practicing these tiny little movements over and over so that your hands just automatically do what they're supposed to when it comes to sharpening.

So let's talk about some of the different edges you have on your garden tools. These are gonna be your double-bevel or double-edge garden tools. They’re gonna include your hatchets, your sickles, your machetes, and your anvil pruners, specifically the anvil style. Versions of each of these, they’re gonna have thinner edges on 'em sometimes or thicker edges on them sometimes. For example, a small hatchet is gonna have a nice tight angle on it, whereas your big splitting mauls and axes are more wedge than edge. They’re not gonna be very tight or sharp. You’re not gonna get a slide test or a push test with that edge intentionally. If they did, they wouldn't be doing their job very well.

So at Moleta, I teach our sharpeners to be able to match angles by sight and feel. If the original edge is so badly damaged that we can't see it anymore, we have to know what's supposed to be there based on the thickness of the tool, based on what it's gonna be used for. And if you're trying to figure out this angle for a device at home, it’s usually not gonna be on the website. You may have to call the manufacturer. And it's probably gonna take a little bit of digging around. But you're gonna wanna try to find that because that edge, that angle, can vary within brand,
from brand to brand. It can vary within the same brand from tool to tool. Those edges are not always--Those angles are not always consistent.

So first, I'm gonna talk real quick. This is a great example. We have the same tool, the same job. But one has a single edge and one has a double edge. So your anvil-style pruner is gonna have a more powerful cut, and it's that double edge. But that blade isn't gonna last as long because as you take it off, you have that risk of swale because it's meeting a flat plate. So as soon as you have swales, like, formed in that, you’re no longer meeting that plate. And some of 'em have like a little bit of adjustment room where you can move it over to get a few more sharpenings out of it.

On the other hand, that bypass pruner, and when I say bypass, it means that the cutting action is happening because it's passing by either a flat plate or another blade. And that's how you're getting your cut. It has a less powerful cut, but that edge is gonna, that whole blade is gonna last through a lot more sharpenings. 'Cause as you sharpen something, you have to take steel off of it. So the blade is gonna slowly get smaller and smaller. The good news is that both of these, you can find with replacement blades. So you wouldn't have to buy the whole tool all over again. Now, not all of 'em have that. You have to look for it and make sure you can find something like that. And I highly recommend you do because saving those handles can be a lot less expensive for you throughout time. 

All right. So like a bypass pruner, most of your garden tools are actually gonna have a single edge. This surprises a lot of people. So reel mowers are one item. I’m gonna give you a few tips on, like, sharpening these. Your reel mowers, I don't have listed up there, but they are one item you can sharpen at home. That one, most people will bring to us just because it's a pain. They’re kind of a pain to sharpen. It's a lot of adjusting, a lot of adjusting back, a lot of testing, and it's just back and forth. And every single one is different. I’m not gonna get into how you adjust those because you wanna look up your specific brand online. And there are a lot of good videos for that. But it's like $35if you want somebody else to do it, typically.

Now, your lawnmower blades are another one of the easier items to sharpen. But I'm gonna say specifically when it's a flat blade. Some lawnmower blades have curves to 'em. Those can be a little trickier. But if it's that flat straight edge, I meet a lot of people who do those themselves. There are a few tips I'm gonna get into later with the safety stuff that most of those people are, like, giving me the drop-mouth face because they can't believe that they have been doing things, like, in such a dangerous way for themselves or their family. But it will cut your lawn cleaner if you have a single edge on it.

I see a lot of these come into Moleta where it has a double edge put on it. And they'll tell us that they took it to another sharpener and that sharpener did that. Now, that's a little bit of a, it's easier. Doing a single-edge blade is gonna take you a little bit more time. If you sneak a little angle on that backside, that’s going back to, they’re expecting you to not know any better and not to care. But your lawn is gonna cut a lot cleaner and that edge is gonna last a lot longer if it's single-edge as opposed to double-edge.

I’ve also seen companies that appear really reputable on the outside that do not balance their lawnmower blades.
That means you can go home. If it's not balanced properly, put it back on your machine, and the way it spins is gonna wobble a bit, and it can ruin your machine. And most people wouldn't think that, you know, oh, their machine broke down a couple months later or something. They wouldn't assume that’s because I went to the wrong sharpening company. So again, that's something they're counting on you not knowing, that balancing is really important. So I would check with the company you're going to, that they actually balance their blades, and then two, it wouldn't hurt. You can get for, like, maybe $8, $9,a little lawnmower balance. You can take 'em home and balance 'em yourself and make sure that they were balanced properly.’ Cause that can save you a lot of money
and from buying a new lawnmower all over again.

Saw teeth are also single-bevel blades. Those are one that we do not do at Moleta. And the reason is each tooth is an individual blade. We are freehand artistic sharpeners. We would have to treat each tooth like an individual blade and charge, like, $5 a tooth. It would be very silly. But I grew up on a farm. And a lot of the farmers I grew up around, we'd treat it like a social occasion. You get your file, you get your friends, and you sit around, and just file those edges. Since they're a single edge and since they're really short, this is pretty easy to do with a file. It’s just a little time-consuming. But it's a great way to keep those saws workable and keep 'em out of the landfill.

I also wanna touch on electric hedge trimmers. Does anybody else have those at home? Worth sharpening by hand. It’s really, really difficult to find a place that’s gonna sharpen those professionally. I’ve tried a couple places, and even they will call us and be like, “This has taken a month longer because this one is so particularly hard to line up and get on our machine.” And they usually do that with more of a machinist knowledge. That's gonna be your flat grind. The convex grind isn't gonna make a huge difference on these tools that have teeth on them as opposed to something that's a straight-edge blade or a serrated blade.

And then we also have, like, garden hoes, like the one in the photo. Most of them, not all of them though, are single-edge blades. You’re gonna have a few of those specialty hoes that are like, I believe it's a... I forget, cut that out.

[chuckling]

But there's a couple different kinds that do have a double edge on 'em. If you learn to inspect your blades little bit more carefully, you’ll be able to see that when you buy them, if you're trying to sharpen at home and you wanna know what to put on there. And then we finally have our big scissors. That’s what we call long-bladed trimmers at Moleta. That's essentially what they are. You know, they're a giant pair of scissors. And both your regular garden scissors and your long-bladed trimmers are bypass-style blades, which will not function at all if a double edge is put on them. If you put an edge on the back of your scissors or the back of your long-bladed trimmers, and there are a lot of YouTube videos telling you to do this, please don't, please don’t. We can fix them. We just have to take off a lot of steel. We have to take off the amount of steel that that edge on the backside dug into it.

And if some of those tools have serrations, which bring us to our next myth, that serrations can't be sharpened. Not true. In fact, they're not just for bread knives either. You see that's a serration on a long-bladed trimmer I have a picture of here. And it's sort of a toothy serration. And people will throw them away thinking that they can't be sharpened. But the purpose of these is to bite into whatever you're cutting or help you bite a little bit more. And if you bring them to a professional place, they definitely, like, ask them if they can maintain the serrations or if they plan to remove and flatten 'em ‘cause some places won't even ask you. They’ll just take 'em off. But it's not necessary.

Serrations can be sharpened, and they should not cost you extra. That's a big one too to watch out for. And if somebody is trying to charge extra for serrations, I would ask them why. Why? They're not more work, or they shouldn't be. I’ve definitely seen some sharpeners who make them more work than they need to be. But that's unnecessary. And some places will tell you that they're filing in between each one. Also unnecessary.

But if they are putting serrations back on a tool, that’s a different story. And that is worth paying a little extra for if that's what you're looking to get. Serrated blades are really sharpened like single-edge blades. The ones here, you’re typically gonna try to use a really tough buffing compound to push that burr back over so that it can be removed. But on serrated, like, bread knives, you’ll notice they're flat on one side too. And that backside can be sharpened. The serrations don't need to be touched until they're more fully removed. But we also see serrated blades, long-bladed trimmers too, that people decided to try to put through a pull-through sharpener. That’s gonna put an edge on that backside. That’s not what we wanna do. Again, they're not gonna work at all after that. 

So now let's talk about a few of those devices. Besides pull-through sharpeners, we’re gonna talk more about pull-through sharpeners. Besides those that you can use. The photo you see, that’s a device for sharpening a lawnmower blade. But you see the lawnmower blade in the photo has a curve to it. So kind of the point here is that this device that costs about, I think that's a $556 machine, that's also 56 years of getting your lawnmower blade sharpened by a professional, which you do about once a year. And it's not gonna be able to accommodate those blades that are curved.

So sometimes when we're looking at these devices, we’re gonna have to ask ourselves, is this gonna sharpen both my single-edge blades and my double-edge blades, or do I have to get a second device? Can it accommodate curved blades? And remember, they can be curved convex, like a pruner blade. They can be curved concave like a sickle. Or like the lawnmower blade, it’s a curve that pops out at us. So do I have to get a second device to do all of those? Will it maintain the shape of my blades over time? For some blades, a slight swale might not matter. Like in your lawnmower blades, a little bit of a swale, you're gonna get away with that. As long as it's balanced properly, you're fine.

But a swale in your anvil pruner isn't gonna fly. It’s not gonna work anymore. So you have to check, you know, is this device gonna create a swale? Can I reach all the way to the back end of the blade? Does the back end of the blade have a thicker steel on it that I'm gonna have to learn to adjust freehand to get it to not, to straighten out and work again for me?

So I personally have not seen a home gadget or device that won't put a swale in your blades. Not a single one. So what some people do who use those though is learn the freehand skill to just adjust the blade after they've sharpened it. Creating a swale is sometimes a natural part of the sharpening process. You just wanna make sure that you can work it out independently. It is, though, the most difficult thing teach our sharpeners to do, is to correct a swale. It’s really difficult. It takes a little bit of an artistic vision. But if you enjoy sharpening like us, you can definitely learn to do so.

And lastly, ask yourself, do I have to learn a skill to use this device? Because a lot of these devices, they’ll claim that it requires no skill. But I'm gonna argue that you do still have to learn a skill. You’re gonna have to learn how to use the, like, device itself. And two, you're gonna still have to learn some muscle memory movements because you're gonna have to learn how to keep even pressure along the blade as you're pulling it through whatever device, and to keep the angle exactly the same because a lot of those jig devices that are gonna hold it at a certain angle have a little give to 'em. So you're still gonna have to work within that.

So if this has already felt like a little bit of an overwhelming amount of information, let’s bust another myth. Pull-through sharpeners. Okay, so these are the worst and the most, and the most common device, the pull-through sharpener. They are the absolute bane of professional sharpeners' existence. The most damaged blades that we see come into our shop, the answer is always the same. They say, "I don't know what happened. I was using my pull-through sharpener. It seemed to work pretty well for a while. And then one day, one pull, it went thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. And when I pulled it out, it looked like this." And these are just two little examples that we have, but we see this all the time. And you can see that scissors has an edge ground on the backside of it. That's when we pulled apart so we could get a good picture of what that looks like. But that went through a pull-through sharpener.

So I have a hypothesis, and if you wanna read more about this, there's a whole blog article on moleta.com. But I have a hypothesis that they seem to kind of work at first 'cause they maybe are removing that burr that you have on there. But as soon as it really starts to try to remove any steel and create a new edge, your angle is slightly different. Your pressure is different along the blade. So what I think is happening is that it's deteriorating the blade in different parts until one day, one pull, it’s gonna break out big chunks of your blade. And I've seen 'em even deeper than the example up here. A lot of that damage is gonna happen on that back end of the blade from when you're first starting to pull it and where the blade starts to curve because that's another thing you have to learn to do if you're gonna use, like, a jig-assisted style.

I recommend staying away from the pull-through style, even if it's the, there’s a professional version that's like two giant wheels that spin and pull. That is more likely gonna be creating a hollow grind, which you don't want on these garden tools anyway. But it still will create that swale. And it still runs the risk of maybe breaking some chunks out of your blade. So while pull-throughs are responsible for the most chipped up blades we see, I really, like I said, I haven't seen a home device that isn't going to create those swales. And even jigs, which are considered a more professional option, will create swales as well.

So we talked about how it's really difficult to keep an even angle with those pull-through style sharpeners. What about devices that lock the blade in and are at an intended angle for sharpening? They're jigs and they come in many styles. Some will affix to a whetstone. Some will affix to a grinder. Others will affix to a file that you can push along the edge. So you still are gonna have to do your research about what types of blades you have and what angle to set that jig at. These are like a more advanced pull-through sharpener and are less likely to deteriorate your edge. But they will still create swales. So you still have to learn some freehand skills to correct those. And for the record, that is again the most difficult thing I teach our sharpeners to do. And I repeat that because those of you who want to learn, please be patient with yourselves. It is really difficult to do.

In my opinion though, you would be better spent just learning to sharpen freehand than any of these assisted devices. If it's something you're interested in, you’re gonna have to invest more time and more money, probably similar amounts to learning to use that jig properly than you are just to learn it as a freehand skill.

So our next myth is that sharpening is easy. And here we have another home attempt that put an edge on the back of their long-bladed trimmer. And there are about 10,000 YouTube videos and another 1,000 sharpening gadget manufacturers who really want you to believe this, that you don't actually have to learn a skill, just buy another device or like their video. And sometimes, people send me these videos because they know they make me scream.

[audience chuckling]

I just turn into a Muppet when I'm watching them. I saw one while doing research for this class that told you, you can use an egg to sharpen your tools. It had almost a million views and people commenting, “This is great information; thank you so much.” I saw another one that had another million views. And it was a guy literally telling you, “Go ahead, put a ten-degree angle on the back of your scissors. Use a file to do it." And people were like, "Thank you so much for this information.” This is why I am here.

[chuckling]

And I am so glad I'm sharing this with you because I cannot stress that enough. I’ve said it about three times. Do not put an angle on the back of your bypass blades. They need to meet flat. I don't even know where to start with the suggestions that you cut tinfoil to sharpen these blades.

[audience laughing]

I can’t. So really, some items are easier. But sharpening is an art form. And chances are, if it's easy without practice, it’s probably not good for your blades. So what's even more frustrating is that a lot of these home devices are upwards of $100.And they will create problems down the line, if not right away. And $100 buys you a lot of professional sharpening from a person who has years of experience and probably thousands and thousands of dollars invested into their training.

So let's talk about the options you actually have at home that aren't going to ruin your tools. There’s one that I recommend. And it's the classic: whetstones and files. Also takes a skill to learn. And I know it could be really disappointing to some folks that don't want to have to learn a new skill. But, again, those professional services area lot more accessible these days than you might think. But for those of you who, like me, think that sharpening sounds fun and relaxing, between a whetstone and a file, you should be able to do most of your items at home.

And they are gonna cost a fraction of what some of those fancier devices are gonna cost. So I do recommend that you buy some secondhand tools to practice on, because again, it's a learning process, and you don't wanna put your good stuff on there right away. But there are a lot of good videos to help you learn this online. Look for somebody a little more reputable who’s been in the game for a while, but there are a lot of good guidances online to help you learn. And again, just be patient with yourself because if it was easy, we wouldn't have to invest so much time and money in training our sharpeners.

The only downside to a whetstone is that it can take 20 minutes to sharpen a blade. Gonna take a little bit of time. If you have a broken tip or a big nick in your blade, it might take you an hour or more. So I hope you're really interested in doing it. And there are a couple reasons why I wouldn't recommend the motor system at home. First of all, it moving so rapidly that it's gonna take off steel a lot faster. And if you make a little mistake, it’s gonna show up as a big mistake on your blade. Number two, sharpening on a moving belt or wheel, infinitely more dangerous than a whetstone. A lot of people don't think that 'cause it, we make it look pretty easy. But we are wearing protective gear and we have a lot of training in our safety. So I know some people are gonna use these at home anyway.

So I wanna go over the safety tips ‘cause I would like you to be doing that safely. Thank you. Purchasing the machine is just step one. Make sure you have all this safety gear before you get started. Glasses are important because learning which metal sparks is a process. Sparks vary in size and are more prevalent in tools with a high carbon content. As a beginner, I would recommend you wear your glasses all the time. Sometimes you will see us not, but we are doing that in a calculated situation. For example, if I'm sharpening outside and my glasses are fogging up, and I know I'm sharpening a steel type that’s not gonna spark, and I know those bits of steel coming off of it are so small that they float; they don't shoot at my face. It’s gonna be safer for me to see what I'm doing than it is for me to wear my glasses and be a little bit blind sharpening a tool.

But again, those are, like, really specific situations that I’ll have, and I know there's a strong wind that's gonna be helping carry this stuff away. So when you see a professional not wearing some of these things, they’re probably doing it in a really calculated way. If you are at home and just learning, please wear your safety glasses. You’re also gonna want a leather apron that protects your vital organs. That’s what a lot of people don't think about either. But if you catch one of those blades on the tool that you're using, it can shoot at yourself or at somebody standing in the room. I have seen professionals who have been doing this for years put an eight-inch knife through their leg. The more overconfident we are, the easier we tend to make mistakes. So I highly recommend wearing a heavy-duty apron that’s gonna protect you if something flies at you.

Now, this one is the least known and every time I meet a customer who's sharpening, mostly lawnmower blades at home or maybe they're doing it, one gentleman, he was doing it for his condo association that he owned. He was like, "I do a lawnmower blade repair service, and I sharpen the blade as part of it." And I go, "You wearing a mask?” He goes, "No." I go, "You got a dust collection system? “He goes, "I got a woodworking dust collection system.” I go, "Oh, no. You got other people in your house?" 'Cause this is one of the most toxic things you can breathe. Dust particles from metal are about one micron big. That’s about the size of a germ. They are 10 times to 30 times smaller than a woodworking particle.

So if you're wearing a woodworking mask or using a wood dust collection system, you’re not keeping yourself safe, and you're not keeping anybody else in the house safe either’ cause those little particles are so light that they will travel. They will go throughout your whole home. And you have the extra sort of wind that's being created from the machine running, that’s really gonna send 'em out all over the place. And because they're so small on top of that, if you're just wearing a mask while you sharpen and you take it off afterwards, those tiny particles take 24 hours to settle. And they're easily disturbed by just, like, walking by, picking something up. So you really have them floating around your house.

And those little particles have been linked to a lot of health consequences, especially if your tool is rusted, which I know a lot of our garden tools can be. And no shame, we’ve all left something in the garden over the winter. But those rust particles have really been shown to be linked to certain types of cancer too. So just please watch your air quality. But this is something that deceptively too can make your home sharpening a lot more expensive than you expected because a metal dust collection system is a lot more expensive than a woodworking dust collection system. And some of the least expensive ones I've seen were somewhere around $600, $800. One of the most, like, smaller ones for us to use in an industrial kind of way was $1,200. That's on the really low end of it. You can get up to $33,000 for, like, a big HVAC system or something too. So really, really tiny particles, really easy to kick up.

And another thing, if you are sharpening on a grinder and you've done woodworking projects on that grinder too, you could start a fire by now doing your metalworking on there as well. Those sparks can set any of that little dust particles from your woodworking, they can set 'em on fire. So definitely make sure then too, you have two separate machines for your metal and your woodworking, if you're gonna sharpen at home. If that all sounds like way too expensive and way too much work, you're in luck. We got professional services.

But I'm gonna tell you, these are some questions. First, questions you can ask yourself, then questions that you can ask the sharpener you’re trying out. And finally, red flags for those sharpeners you might be trying out for the first time. So questions to ask yourself. What items are you bringing in? Not all sharpeners sharpen all items. You might have to go to more than one place. Like, we don't do saw teeth. But we'll do, like, knives, gardening tools, and scissors all day long. And that's because, like, saw teeth, you wanna do on a machine, it takes more of a machinist knowledge, and you might not want a person with just the machinist knowledge sharpening the things that are a little bit more artistic in your home.

So I would ask them too if they're using, like, a jig, what, ‘cause hair shears in particular, you might want somebody to use a jig on. But hair shear sharpeners are rarely gonna be garden tool sharpeners as well. So definitely ask them what tools do you all sharpen before you go so you can collect them up around your home. Are you comfortable going to somebody's home, or would you prefer a storefront style? There are a lot of sharpening services that are out of somebody's home. It’s an option there. But definitely look into where you're going if that might not be something you're comfortable with.

And then do you want sharpening while you wait? Are you okay with 24-hour or longer turnaround? And turnaround periods can drastically vary between different businesses. Another thing you can ask them is, how do they test their blades? Do they test them at all? The most common is paper testing. And I'm sure a lot of you have seen, like, videos of people testing blades on paper on the internet. Those usually drive me a little nuts too because they're doing a slide test, and that's not that impressive. I can take one of the blades I sharpened maybe six to nine months ago and still pass a slide test with it. What it can no longer do is a drop test. And that's where the weight of the tool drops through the paper straight. And you can use a paper test on some of your garden tools, especially those pruners are a good one. With a lawnmower blade, we might only expect to get kind of a slide test. But definitely ask them how they're testing ‘cause there are places that don't test at all.

Can you watch them while they sharpen? Do they have a clear policy for what happens if you don't like how something turns out? Are they using a water-cooled system, or are they heating up your blades and messing up your blades with too much heat? ‘Cause it can affect the temper of the steel to have 'em heated up too much. And I can't emphasize enough, they got two options there. You’ve got machines that run water-cooled, or you can use a quench tank. But a quench tank, they’re used in blade making to cool down the blade. If you're sharpening, the intention is to never let the blade get hot in the first place. So we dunk and dunk to keep it cool, not to cool it down.

Another thing to ask is, how long have they been sharpening, and what was their training program like? There is no school or standard for sharpeners. Anyone can buy a machine and start offering professional sharpening. But if they're training by themselves, I'd say they, it's probably gonna take 'em five to six years to get really good. If they're training under somebody and have really intensive training, maybe a year. Are they sharpening freehand, or are they using a jig? Are they sharpening on a hard surface or a soft surface? Are you getting a flat grind or a convex grind? Do they charge extra for serrated blades, broken tips, chips in the blade? Because in my opinion, a professional should be able to fix those things so quickly and easily that they don't need to charge extra. How long will it take to get your blades back?

And then some red flags for when you're asking these questions. Sometimes even if you're not getting pinking shear sharpened, ask them if they sharpen pinking shears because if they say no, I might not trust them with any of my bypass blades, because a pinking shear is technically the same. It actually has a flat edge on it. It's just like any other scissor. Do they do single-edge blades? You can ask them if they do single-edge gardening blades. If not, I wouldn't give them any of your single-bevel blades that you have for the garden, which as you know now are most of your garden tools. And if too, here's just one. If they make you feel silly or stupid for asking questions, they might be trying to pull one over on you. That shouldn't be. No earnest question is a dumb question. So if you're asking questions and they're trying to make you feel like you don't know what you're talking about, they might be banking on it so that they can do whatever they want to your blades and send you home with them and you don't know any better or what's really available.

And lastly, what kind of information do they either have listed on their website or are they answering their phone really quick? Because I've definitely called places where I've had big jobs where I'm like, "Hey, I wanna support another company. We can't handle this much work right now." And I've called places and left them voicemails, left them three voicemails, never gotten a call back. So before you go drop your stuff off someplace, make sure that they're communicating with you clearly too.

All right, we're almost there. Storage ideas! This is so you can keep those blades sharper longer. One of my favorite that I learned growing up is to take a container, and you're gonna put some sand in it. And then on top of it, you're gonna put oil in it. Now, I suggest putting this container where it's gonna live because it's going to be very heavy. You could do it with a small container though, like the one you see on screen. You could do it with a big five-gallon bucket. That oil is gonna really help prevent the rust and corrosion. And it can help keep your blades shut as you have 'em in there. You could also use, if you ever had, like, one of those shoe containers that hangs on a door, that's a great way to keep your tools nice and dry and off the ground. And by storing 'em in there, you can put your smaller hand tools in one of those. Really excellent way to store them.

You can also, instead of going and buying some fancy system to hang your tools on, just use some screws or some nails. Put 'em close enough together. You can hang your items on the wall upside down. And then this one, also a little less well-known. So after you use those tools, every single time, I want you to oil them. But I also want you to sanitize them. That’s something that can really help prevent the spread of disease between your plants. And by oiling 'em, you’re gonna help prevent that rust and corrosion. Because usually from working out in the garden, you know we have a little damp, we have a little dew. It’s gonna probably leave a little bit on your blades. But it's important when you're sanitizing those blades, do not use bleach. Bleach will corrode metal. It can start rust process a lot faster if you use something with bleach in it. So stay away from that. Make sure whatever sanitizing solution you’re using is bleach-free.

So I really hope that having this information makes you feel motivated to make your tools last a lifetime, which they can, or at the very least, reminds you that sharpening is alive and well, and that you don't have to throw away that next pruner you accidentally left in the garden over the winter. So I wanna say thank you, stay sharp, [audience laughing] and I'll take questions in the hall for those of you who have them.

[audience applauding]

Thank you.