Sharpening tools

The diggy-dirt guys got called for me, shortly after I bought this house, because I had spoken with the city forester about replacing a tree between the sidewalk and street, and so they called for the check.

Soon I was able to go out and take a picture of the lawn with different colors of spray paint showing where the utilities are.

Only spray-painted in green (the sewery color) was the word PRIVATE.

I asked the city engineer what that meant and he said, well, back in 1928 the guy who built your house laid some pipes to somewhere, and none of us know where.

Hmm, said I, imagine the seller forgetting to mention that to me. So I called a guy out who had a long video snake that also gives off a radio beacon that can be followed from above ground.

Now I know where (and that it's still in fairly good condition).

 

Your 'rural' place has underground utilities? Then you really should be obeying said law. But where I came from, anyplace that has any underground utility service isn't considered rural, that is considered 'in town'.

The farm I referred to has been in the same family since shortly after the region was stolen from First Nations settled by White People, back when it was still labeled a Territory, not a State. The only utility service is overhead on poles, plainly visible, and there is still a living human who remembers the day it arrived. The buried spring water and septic pipes are entirely the responsibility of the property owner anyway, not of any external provider. Any other-owned object accidentally 'discovered' underground will trigger a major legal fight over how it got there without permission or notice. I.e. trespass.

And as previously mentioned, it is not in a Blue or Purple or Red area, but Infra-red. I just can't imagine there is anyone local to even enforce such a call-first law on that type of undeveloped property.

 

If there's a requirement in your county to call before you dig, and you hit glass, gas, copper, etc then the state won't be the ones who come after you....it will be the folks who have to weld the glass back together or otherwise restore the utility that you have disrupted.

Spoiler Alert:
Most counties require some notification.

SO...while it's true that for 99-percent of property owners this isn't much of a concern, the price for not knowing what's underneath your auger, trencher, etc...can be quite high.
I've personally seen repair bills that run deep into five figures....and I also saw somebody drive down a city street before remembering to lower their dump truck bed DIRECTLY cause a 6-figure outage and not get billed one red cent.
I've heard of certain utilities that will not (or usta-not) charge contractors that 'fess-up when they mess up' just to save the time in locating the break....but most contractors like MAKING money and they nearly always call before they dig.

It depends on the utility.
THEY are usually the enforcement agency, and their lawyers are already paid-for.

I recently installed fence posts in my backyard, and I know for a cast-iron fact that there are no utilities of any sort where my post holes were dug.
However (comma!) I STILL called 811.
The call was free....the paint isn't permanent, and there is a zero-percent chance that I will be liable for striking anything while digging my 30" holes.

 

I've already told the story about the diggy-dirt incident near me that cleared the block of houses where our CVS now stands.

I imagine there was some money changed hands in the epilogue to that.

 

I live way out in nowhere and I have underground electric and telecom. They were put in in 1970. And, they run -- gosh -- I forget exactly, like 700 feet or so....through forest. Back when we first got here, the various utility companies did all the locating. Nowadays they all use the same "locating service."

Liked it better when they located their own lines, because then we would get local people that like to tell local stories and gossip.

BTW, had a local excavating contractor over about 10 years ago to clear a pad for a new building. We were going to do it ourselves, but found out he was only going to charge $250, so decided that was worth the five days it would have took us with shovels and rakes.

But, even though he said he KNEW there were no utilities there.....yep, he called for locate. The utility locator person got here....got out of the rig, I showed him the spot. He grabbed a can of paint and marked no utilities, did not even check.

kris

 

Managed by the county? Now I know that free digging at my family's farm location is just fine. Politically and functionally speaking, it isn't even on the same planet as my suburbia home, where such rules are much better enforced, out of actual necessity.

Checking that state's digging laws, the first-timer penalty is not sufficient to give me pause there.

Our farm's electric service arrived on poles just after WWII, over 3000 feet from crossing the property line, more than three decades after the current (not original) house was built. The old one-wire crank telephone system was replaced with the 2-wire dial tone system about 1960-62, and runs on the same poles. (The old phone wire had to be maintained by the rural customer. When decommissioned, dad kept that old wire for various fencing and bracing uses, and we still have a good supply of it. I remember a stack of insulators too, but it was given away long ago.)

If either of those had been undergrounded, then I'd consider calling 811 before digging there.

There is no inhabited development beyond, just forest and protected wilderness.

Did he even look where your underground electric and telecom lines ran?

 

He muttered something about the site being nowhere near the house (it was beyond the house by about 30 yards) and he knew power only ran from the county road to the house. There was nothing beyond the house for miles and no reason for any utility lines to extend beyond the house. Still no reason....thankfully.

Now, you want to talk about hauling gravel to the pad, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow full....Good thing I was still young at that time and place.

 

I was hoping to encourage you by saying you are only as young as you feel, but I suspect you are feeling pretty painful at times.

I wish I could help but I know you have a good hubby by your side.

 

I ended up getting a Lansky-like, angle-adjustable thing under the name of Ruixin. Maybe more cumbersome than the Lansky if that's possible, but also continuous on the angle adjustment, rather than just four choices. That seemed like maybe a good feature, as I distinctly remember paperwork originally with my kitchen knives saying what the bevel angles were and that they might not match other stuff ... and I have failed to lay hands on that paperwork, three moves later.

Even completely restored the one ruined by the BRZZZZZZCH guy years ago. He had left maybe a cm of the original bevel way back by the handle where his brzzzzzzch wheel didn't get, and I was able to adjust the tool to that and make the whole edge match again. Can't tell the brzzzzzzch ever happened!

Getting a good edge all the way to the pointy end still confounds me.

 

looked up Ruixin. Yeah that is complex.

==
I suppose bevel angles relate both to material and the uses knives are put to. Bevel set by manufacturer may not be the best one for you. So these bevel kits have some nerd potential. No offense.

 

I categorically disclaim ever being interested in anything for )shudder( the "nerd potential". What could you be thinking?

On the other hand, one thing I liked about being able to match the old bevel was to avoid/undo the unsightly change of angle partway down the blade that was left by the brzzzzzzch guy.

 

I got myself an early Christmas present. Chosera #800 grid professional whetstone. This is my first professional grade "splash-and-go" whetstone. At $80 apiece, this stone is the one of most expensive whetstone on the market. I have always used budget consumer-grade whetstones, soaking type and diamond type. Cheap stones do the job, but they take more time and with less consistent results.

I was very impressed with the results of Chosera #800. It was so much easier and resulted in a far better edge than with a cheap stone. Ony this single stone was used to sharpen several kitchen knives I can gather from our kitchen. All resulted in a razor-sharp edge that passed my slicing newspaper test like a machine paper shurreder.

 

And I thought a Lansky set was expensive…

 

Yeah, I have a much cheaper consumer-grade, made in China, combination stone like this. This particular brand is Kota Japan, but if you dig deeper you will find out that they are a Chinese brand of "Exquisite, Useful Homeware Inspired by Japan", not from a real Japanese whetstone manufacturer. There are many other similarly priced consumer-grade whetstones. To be fair, they are of very good value. It works. I sharpened dozens of knives using those cheap stones, all came out razor-sharp. But it took more effort and the results were less consistent. Also, in order to get very good results, I had to use several grits successively finer, so had to buy at least two different sets, 600-3000 combinations, and 1000-6000 combinations.



I also have a few sets of diamond plate-type sharpening stones like this one. It also works, but it tends to be more aggressive in taking material off the steel. So, I mainly use it for repairing chips, not so much for final sharpening and honing.



But as I progress my experience in the art of whetstone sharpening, I started wanting to try those professional-grade stones from Japan. IMOH, $80 spent for the Chosera #800 stone was well worth it. For home use, the Chosera #800 is probably the most useful grit and can be used alone without any other stones. BTW, it is an expensive stone compared to some examples I mentioned above, but there are a number of notable stones that far exceed the price tag of the Chosera #800, like this one. Of course, I will never use #30000 stone on my kitchen knives. Anything higher than #5000 is only for a cosmetic mirror finish on ornamental pieces.

 

Grit?

 

I spoiled myself with one of these this year.

I wasn't interested in learning to properly use whet stones, or in taking such time to do my knives. Work Sharp has a $80 version, with an angle guide for the two most common blade angles.

 

You mean @Grit ?

10.
Maybe 25....not sure exactly but fairly......(and I hate myself for this......) "coarse."

 

Well, the word substitution I was noticing has now, I see, been edited. Now there's nothing left to pick on, other than 'horning'.

 

OK, I fixed the misspelled words. The spell-checker doesn't work when the substituted word actually exists. Admittedly, I was never a good spelling bee.

 

I kind of liked it with horning.