Submitted by Eric Daniel
Making beer one day I was rooting around my buddy's garage looking for a razor blade to cut open a bag of hops when I came across an old folding blade pocket knife in his tool box. Opening up the main blade, I could see that it was dull as hell, but, being too lazy to go into the kitchen for shears, I figured I'd just blunt force the bag open with the knife.
"Hold up", my buddy said, "Gimmie that knife."
So I did, and he pulled a tiny orange square out of the box and proceeded to pass the knife blade through it a couple of times before passing the knife back to me.
"There you go, good as new."
Sure enough, the knife functioned as advertised and the reinforced mylar vacuum bag opened with ease.
The tool he had used was a Fiskars Pocket Sharpener. The FPS is a square of plastic maybe 1 x 2 inches, with a pair of pre-set of ceramic sharpening stones. One pair is for coarse work, while the other pair is for fine finishing. I was amazed at the number this tiny little sharpener did on that knife. To be sure, I would imagine there are stones and sharpening systems out there that could put this little gem to shame, but not for the price ($3) and the size (less than an ounce and you could carry a dozen in your pocket.) This thing is just the ticket for a quick touch up out in the field.
For some odd reason, Fiskars doesn't mention this sharpener on their website, and they are no longer orange, but they are still available.
P.S. -- Apparently Gerber also sells a version of this sharpener, so they are also available from Gerber in both ceramic and diamond versions.
Get a Fiskars Pocket Sharpener here.
