I finally broke down and purchased an electric knife sharpener, a Presto Eversharp, which cost me just under $30 total on Amazon:
Yes, I’ve NEVER owned an electric sharpener until this purchase preferring, instead, to sharpen knives by hand perhaps because I wanted to be “manly”… or just because I figured I shouldn’t rely on anything electric for such a basic task as sharpening a knife during SHTF.
Perhaps I was wrong.
Why?
Because an electric knife sharpener is far better and much faster than attempting to sharpen a knife by hand. In fact, I’d say that unless you have a grinder you’re not going to be able to put an edge on at all with puny little sharpening gadgets like this:
I’ve owned a few of these (this is the one I’ve been using) but I’ve never been a huge fan because, unless you’re just trying to put an edge back on a knife that’s already relatively sharp, these aren’t going to do much good.
It was only until I sharpened my kitchen knives with the electric knife sharpener that I realized just how dull my knives were!
No doubt there are other electric knife sharpeners to choose from but this one got good reviews, didn’t cost me much, can sharpen thick knives (like my pocket knife shown in the first image above), and perhaps most important: doesn’t use much power.
Looking at the specs, it uses 1.1 amps (132 watts) which isn’t much power considering that you would only be running the knife sharpener for roughly 30 seconds or so per knife. I think I sharpened all of my kitchen knives and a few more in about five minutes.
Hook it up through an inverter to a deep cycle battery and you’ll be able to sharpen your knives in no time during SHTF. Heck, even connected to a regular car battery–there will be plenty of those available for SHTF–I’m sure it will work fine too.
Of course, don’t give up on the ability to sharpen a knife by hand but to get it done fast and easy then go with a simple electric knife sharpener such as this one.
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