I Sharpened My Knife - and Lived!

 

    I hadn’t sharpened a knife in 35 years, until recently. I had good reasons, my best childhood friend was a knife lover and when he heard I was sharpening my knives on the back of our electric can opener, he told me to just bring my dull blades to him. On top of that, my girlfriend worked in several delis over the years and could handle a steel like a champion fencer. 

    But my friend died and my girlfriend got busy, so it was up to me. I was hesitant because I can’t tell a 20 degree angle from any other angle and thought I’d mess things up. (I was gonna say I can’t tell an Angle from a Jute, but thought I’d spare y’all the groan.) First, I started looking at pull-through sharpeners, I had a rolling one when I was a kid, it looked like a Duncan Butterfly yoyo with a stone on the axle and I’d just roll the knife back and forth and be done. But they don’t seem to make those anymore, and anyway, I wanted to do it right. I looked around and almost settled for a pull-through model, but I stuck to my convictions and found the Work Sharp Pocket Knife Sharpener and for $15, it seemed a safe bet. Not only was it inexpensive and well-reviewed, it has little ramps that showed me the angle. 

     I started out on some paring knives and, miracle of miracles, they got sharper, a lot sharper! Since then, I have used them on my pocketknives and even a pair of scissors, all to good effect. Am I a champion sharpener now? No way. I still use the angle guides and am still not completely comfortable with the process, but that will come with time. 

    My only warning to people buying the Pocket Knife Sharpener, is that it acted like a gateway drug, prompting me to buy the Work Sharp Guided Field Sharpener. I didn’t need it, the pocket model was fine, but I had to have it. Caveat Emptor.

Rough Ryder Bluegill Barlow

     

Courtesy SMKW

     For the past six months, I’ve been looking for the perfect workplace Barlow. It’s replacing a no name Barlow I bought when I was ten. The knives were competing with nostalgia and that’s a tough benchmark. 

     I bought ten knives, from Rough Ryder, Case, Bear & Sons, and Rosecraft. Almost all of them were good, some great, but none of them were quite right. Then came the Bluegill, I ordered it before they even had a picture of it up, so my expectations were vague. On initial inspection, I was thrilled, this was my perfect work Barlow. 

     Was it the best Barlow I had purchased, objectively speaking? No, that honor would go to the Rosecraft and the Rough Ryder Reserve. Did it look the most like the one I had as a kid? No, that would be of the sawcut bone variety, which I haven’t gotten yet. But it was a perfect Rough Ryder Barlow, great pull, nail nicks facing opposite directions (a must on Rough Ryder Barlows), and great looking green, thick, jigged bone handle slabs (I don’t know what to call that kind of jigging but I think of it as “rustic”), and two, not one, but two blades. I use the pen blade a lot at work. The construction was solid. 

The theme didn’t hurt. Back in the day, we kids would sneak up to a local pond, teeming with bluegill, and see if we could catch any. We caught quite a few, before the owners found us there and kicked us out. It usually took them a week or two. The pond was overstocked and we didn’t know how to filet, so eating those little fish was more like picking crabs, but we had fun. 

     Practically speaking I haven’t used the knife much, it’s brand new. But I did use it to cut up a ham steak. It was a thick steak made by Frick’s. I cut it into 8 strips and made 8 cubes from each, it was smooth sailing, all slicing, no sawing. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the clip point blade cut off the rind, sticking very close with the loss of very little meat. My dogs were a little disappointed. Performance-wise, it cut better than my paring knives (Victorinox, Opinel), but not quite as good as my D2 RR Reserve Barlow, which goes through meat like a lightsaber. 

     The knife’s specs (RR2632) are classic Barlow, 3 3/8” long, 440 Stainless steel blades, etc. If I could only have one knife, well, it would be of the Swiss Army variety, but if I could only own two knives, my second choice would be a Barlow, a Bluegill Barlow.