Whether you’re on an adventure in the wilderness with your only piece of gear or in the kitchen trying to make the perfect dinner, a knife sharpener isn’t always around. In such cases, your quick thinking can save you from a lot of hassle. You don’t need to worry a lot as there are quite a few methods to sharpen your knives without a stone.
Different Ways To Sharpen A Knife With Everyday Objects
If you’re finding a quick fix, following are some of the ways that may prove to be useful in time of need:
1. Coffee Mug
A coffee mug is an essential part of every house. To sharpen your knife at home, an easy trick is to get one of those mugs with the rough and sharp circular surface at the bottom. It might not be true for every mug, but it’s kept there to prevent the mug from sliding down. Just turn the mug upside down and a sharp edge can be used in the same way as a sharpening stone. Run it over the edge of the mug and your knife would be sharpened. The rougher the edge the sharper your blade will be.
2. Another Knife
This is very useful as you don’t have to involve anything that’s not already in your kitchen. By doing this, you basically use another knife as a honing rod or a survival knife to make your knife sharp. People often warn that you shouldn’t use a knife to sharpen your knife. Well, this is simply because people don’t know how to do it. Using the blade of a knife to sharpen the blade of their own knife can seriously damage both blades. What you have to do is use the back of the second knife to sharpen the blade of the first one. It has minimal risk of damaging any of your knives.
3. Nail File
Old nail file can be used as a sharpening stone for your blade. Nail files are rough and resemble the texture of actual sharpening stones. A nail file can come handy if you have nothing else on you that can be used. It is light and you can carry it with you if you are going for a hike in the wild or any other adventure where you might need to sharpen your blade. All you have to do is run the cutting edge of your blade against emery board and nail file will do the rest of the trick.
4. Sandpaper
This might not be a household item but it can be an effective tool aiding you into sharpening your knife. The best grit depends on the type of knife and how much you want to sharpen it. The rough and hard texture of sandpaper should be placed facing upwards on a flared surface. To smoothen the process wet the surface of sandpaper. Slide the cutting edge of the knife to get your desired sharpness.
5. Brick
In this method, a brick is used just like a normal sharpening stone meaning you exert the same techniques as the ones used on sharpening stone. What makes a brick so much important on this list is that it can be easily found in your neighborhood. To make sure you don’t end up damaging your blade, you should get a brick which is not too rough. Firstly, make sure you soak the brick in water to minimize the risk of harming your blade. After that just use it as you would use a normal smooth stone, making sure you spend equal time on both sides of the blade.
6. Car Window
As unorthodox as it may seem, a car window can be a very effective method to sharpen your knife. This method relies heavily on using the edge of the car window like a sharpening stone. The basic tact to this is that the edge of the car window is not polished, and slightly rough. This will act like a sharpening rod when in contact with the blade. Just slide it along the rounded edge 8 to 10 times from both sides and your pocket knife is all good to go.
7. Leather Belt
Alright let’s admit it right away that this method is a bit different from every other one on the list here. It is more of a maintenance strategy than sharpening one but if you don’t have anything else then it can also be used to sharp your knife to some extent but if your blade is really blunt then it would be better to use some other technique on the list. A leather belt, an old one, which is rough would be even better as it would prevent any rust or burr to stay at the sharp edge of your knife.
8. Concrete
A knife can be sharpened on concrete the same way it can be sharpened on a brick. It has its own advantages and disadvantages, it being easily accessible is surely a huge advantage while the fact that it can damage your blade seriously if not used properly is somewhat of a disadvantage. First of all, find a piece of concrete that has no grainy surface as the blade can suffer through the movements on a rough surface of concrete. Secondly, move your blade on the surface ensuring you spend equal time on both sides to make it a sharp and shiny blade.
These are some of the ways that can help your sharpen your knives.
Check out top 10 list of Survival Knives under 100 Dollars.
