GET THE EDGE: KNIFE SHAPPENING SECRETS

My father, a man of good sense and few words, was the first one to relay to me long ago the importance of a sharp knife to the deer hunter’s and home butcher’s kit.

“It gets the job done better and easier,” he told me as we would work on our knives the evening before opening day, or before cutting up a whitetail a couple days later. “And it’s safer, too.”

Of course he was right. Whether you are field dressing an animal, skinning out the carcass, removing meat from the bones or trimming up cuts, a sharp knife gets work done more efficiently and effectively with less effort. That means you stay safer, too: Struggling with a dull knife is a formula for cuts, gashes and other injuries.

But sharpening a knife is not necessarily easy. It starts with understanding a