Hey, I wanted to talk to you today about sharpening your garden tools. It's the winter time here
in south Georgia and it's the perfect time to get those garden tools back in shape. Most
people have a bench grinder such as this in their shop and it does fine for sharpening
your garden tools. You have to be careful with it and I'm going to demonstrate that
somewhat. The rock here is great because it takes a lot of material off really quick,
but it has some problems that you need to watch. And one of them is getting the material
hot. Now when I use a bench grinder, I do not use gloves because I like to feel the
metal. If the metal starts to get warm, I dip it into some water to cool it back off.
If it gets hot and turns blue, you'll lose your temper, you'll lose your heat treat,
the metal gets soft and you can't get it back without heat treating it. And most home owners
don't have the capacity to re-heat treat material. So whether you're doing a lawn mower blade,
a garden hoe or a machete or axe, whatever -- do not let that material get hot and turn
blue. If you do, you have lost your temper. So I'm going to demonstrate here today how
I do it. I've got an old sweep blade here I'm just using for demonstration purposes,
and I want to show you what happens when it does get hot. I hold it with my thumb and
my finger here and I try to keep about a 20 to 25 degree angle right there. If the material
gets hot really quick, just dip it down in the water and cool it off. You can see right
there I took a lot of material off, it's getting pretty sharp. Now I'm going to show you what
happens if you move too slow and you get your metal too hot. Okay, you see there that the
metal has gotten hot and turned blue. It's lost its temper. So if you're sharpening something
and you do that, you've done more damage than you have good. Another way of sharpening is
using a Farmers File. A Farmers File has this handle right here which is easy to grip and
is comfortable to use. The Farmers File has two sides. It has a double cut and a single
cut. The double cut is meant to take off more material and then we'll finish off with the
single cut. It takes off less material but kind of finishes it off. If you're out in
the field or you don't have power or you don't have electricity or you're limited on the
equipment you've got, the Farmers File is a great way to sharpen your garden tools -- and
you don't have to worry about getting it too hot. It helps if you've got a good vice. We
use a Wilton vice right here to hold it so we can work on it. I'll start off with the
double cut side here. And I put my hand down like this right here. I try to maintain a
good angle. And once I get down close to where I want to be, I'll switch over and use the
single cut side. Well I've got a pretty good edge on it there. A Farmers File is one of
the handiest tools you can have out in your garden shed. Keep one around so if you get
a few minutes or you've got a tool that needs touching up, you can grab it and touch it
up and sharpen it up. Sharp garden tools save you a lot of time and save you a lot of energy
out in the garden.