heimlaga
Established Member
To me as a Scandinavian the big water cooled slow running sandstone wheel is the basic tool for all edge tool sharpening and I think it is a natural thing that people in various pars of the world use other methods depending on local resources.
If those Indians lacked a local source of evenly grained ans suitably hard sandstone but had a local plentiful source of flint sand this method makes perfect sence to me. Just as we lack flint sand but have acsess to both Gotland sandstone and Orsa sandstone.
The American habit of using a file to sharpen axes is a lot more strange since it requires the axe to be tempered a bit on the soft side so some edge retention is secrificed because of the sharpening method.
If those Indians lacked a local source of evenly grained ans suitably hard sandstone but had a local plentiful source of flint sand this method makes perfect sence to me. Just as we lack flint sand but have acsess to both Gotland sandstone and Orsa sandstone.
The American habit of using a file to sharpen axes is a lot more strange since it requires the axe to be tempered a bit on the soft side so some edge retention is secrificed because of the sharpening method.
