Maintaining Your Tools

Everybody knows you should keep knives sharp. Did you know I also keep my shovels sharp? Yeah, I do. Same thing goes for my hoe, and other hand tools. Now, I’m not fanatical about it, but everything gets sharpened a coupla times a year anyway, more with heavy use. It not only makes them work better but work easier as well. Read on for more of my tool secrets, this is part 2.

Any Lubricant will do

I also oil wood handles yearly. It doesn’t matter what you use for lubricant. Any lubricant will do. You can even use Wesson oil. For this purpose, oil is oil. Its purpose is to add life to the wood handle. WD 40 is your friend. Every time I see it on sale, I grab one.

A Little Sand Paper and A Brush

I have gotten some really sorry condition tools given to me that I was able to clean up and restore to life. Sometimes you need to clean off accumulated rust from a new acquisition. Sometimes I use a wire brush. I even use sandpaper. Really rusted tools may require a liquid called Navel Jelly. It eats rust. Mine’s still working on eating the bottle. No dice! Plastic is forever. Rusted metal often means lower quality steel. IDK as long as the price is right, like free! Once I get the rust removed and the metal where I find it presentable, I may spray it with rust preventative paint like Rust-oleum. I have several cutting tools that I acquired and have been using for years that started out looking like rejects from the junkyard.

All About Sharpening

On to all about sharpening! All cutting and chopping edged can use a good sharpening. I have lots of sharpening tools. I even sharpen scissors. You needn’t get that carried away. I just prefer sharp edges. This is much easier than you may think. Once again, I have purchased few of my sharpening tools new. Some have one sharpened edge. Many have two. The second is usually ceramic rods set at the proper angle. The ceramic part is used for polishing the edges once they are sharpened by the other edge which is made out of a very strong metal alloy like carbide.

Here’s the real secret to using these kinds of sharpeners, do not bear down! Light easy strokes work best. You need a lot of them too. Fifty wouldn’t be too much before you switch to the ceramic side for finishing. Since you are using a light stroke, it is not taking much off at a time. Hence, you need many of them. If you bear down, you’ll mess up something like your fingers or the edge you are trying to sharpen. If you have any serrated knives that get dull, only sharpen the back side, where the serrations are not. The rest of your knives will have two edges that need sharpening and need to be sharpened equally. Count your strokes! Keep it balanced.

All About Edges

When it comes to dressing the edge of bigger tools, like shovels and hoes, I use a file. About any flat file will do. No need to be picky here. Of course, the attack angle is not pre-set for you. This is strictly manual. Also, the angle of attack for these tools is quite different than for knives. Typical knives get sharpened at about a 20 degree angle. That will put a fine edge on them. If you put too fine and edge on a shovel, you’ll only dull it up and need to sharpen it more.  Somewhere around a 45 degree angle is okay. Close enough is good enough. We’re not making a watch here, just dressing up a hoe or shovel.

Go in one direction and on one side, the backside. They are known as single bevel tools. You do not sharpen both sides, period. File it until all the dings are removed, or at least flattened. Finish up by hitting a lick or tow on the other side to remove the burr form the filing. It cleans the edge nicely. The other good news is files seem to last forever. I have used the same ones for decades.

Things I Didn’t mention

You may notice I have not brought up oil or lubricants at all. I also have not mentioned whetstones or any kind of sharpening stones. If you want to learn how to use them, go elsewhere! This is for quick and easy, down and dirty. I have not mentioned stropping either although I strop my knives. I like to. Stropping serves the same purpose as using the ceramic side of a sharpening tool. It’s old fashioned and I like doing it. I have an old leather belt that I use for a strop. I use the back side and briskly rub both sides of the knife’s cutting edge up and down the strop about a dozen times. It polishes the edge. I strop moving away from the cutting edge.

Machetes And Axes

One final thing, I seem to accumulate machetes for some reason. I guess I have five of six of them in a variety of sizes. I sharpen them with a file. Machetes are for chopping. They don’t need as sharp an angle as a typical knife. They should be dressed more like you would a hatchet or axe, which I haven’t mentioned because there is not much use for them in gardening. Stay sharp!

Stay tuned for more info on other tools. As you get more into it you’ll want them, and next, I’ll tell you what they’re good for.

A Vice.

Post hole digger

PVC tools for trellis and poles

Pitchfork

Garden rake