How to sharpen your trowel

A requirement of all truly dedicated archaeologists is a trowel so sharp it cuts holes in your pockets

Difficulty Level: Average Time Required: 30 minutes

Here's How:

2. Buy the right brand of trowel: either Marshalltown or a WHS pointing trowel.
3. Obtain a serviceable rasp or bastard file.
4. Sit in a comfortable position out of doors.
5. Place the trowel on your thigh just above your knee.
6. Point the handle toward your body.
7. Place the trowel with the flat side down.
8. Push the file across the blade of the trowel, moving it away from your body on.
9. Move around the blade edge, gradually sharpening most of the blade.
10. When the blade edge is rough to the touch, you're done.

Tips:

2. Don't sharpen the edges of the trowel close to the handle - -you might get cut!
3. Only sharpen from the top down; don't turn the trowel over and sharpen from the flat side.
4. You can use a bench grinder to make the first painstaking grinding done, but subsequent sharpenings will need to be done by hand.

Related Features:

• Have Trowel Will Travel (an 8 part series on the field tech experience)
• Alice Beck Kehoe on the similar need for trowels and tolerance

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