Primitive Knife Sharpening

[glw]

I'm not sure where to put this question.

If you find yourself in the middle of nowhere and your knife gets dull, how would you sharpen it if you did not bring your whetstones?

Surely the mountain men had to deal with this although, I guess they were smart enough not to leave home without a whetstone.

 

[LRB]

You just find a stone hard and coarse enough to remove steel, and reasonably flat. Not so easy here in central Florida, but concrete is easy to find.

 

[crockett]

Yeah, I would think a stone out of a river bottom would work. There is this guy, Ed Fowler, in one of his articles he just mentioned a hockey puck sized stone from the bottom of a Wyoming stream would work.
In short, it could sharpen but not like a milled Arkansas stone. In any event a whole bunch of folks all of a sudden had to buy a Wyoming river rock to sharpen their knives. Oh boy....
The Museum of the fur trade has a whetstone that is in a small leather pouch. NDN's used files (I believe) A later day Apache supposedly showed a greenhorn in about 1870 how to draw file an edge.
I've seen one NDN sheath for a wide, upturned skinning blade where the inside of the sheath was a hidden pocket for a whetstone.
I'd just carry a whetstone- pc

 

[robinsroost]

The edge of the door glass, on your truck, works pretty good.......Robin :wink:

 

[Elnathan]

The edge of the door glass, on your truck, works pretty good.......Robin :wink:

So does a piece of ceramic tile, but it isn't really primitive, alas.

 

[ohio ramrod]

While on the subject of finding a stone to use to sharpen your knife. About fifteen years or so ago I was at an Old North West and a woman there had an odd sized nipple that was mushroomed. I used a piece of sand stone that was on the trail to grind it sharp. It took some doing but we did it. I took a fairly round stick , split it and wedge the nipple onto it threaded end in the stick and used the stick as a "hand drill " to spin the nipple against the stone. The gun fired well the rest of the week. And she paid me with some nice hand thrown ceramic mugs she made. My wife still has the mugs on the shelf.:idunno:

 

[Elnathan]

About fifteen years or so ago I was at an Old North West and a woman there had an odd sized nipple that was mushroomed.

I did a double-take on that sentence. :shocked2:

 

[tenngun]

me too

 

[lonehunter]

:haha:

 

[Grizzly Adams]

That makes three of us :haha:

 

[Grumpa]

Until I saw the next 4 replies, I was going to ask if she didn't find all that drilling and stoning downright painful! :shocked2:

 

[Nic16]

How about 4 of us. Haha