Ditch The Bench Grinder: Sharpen Tools With An Alternative That Fits In Your Pocket

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Keeping your tools in top shape is key for ensuring they work properly. Any yard would look patchy and unkempt unless you sharpen your lawn mower blades, and pruning hedges with dull shears risks damaging the plant. Knives and other tools need regular sharpening for DIY projects, home repairs, gardening, camping, and more. Not everyone has a bench grinder available at all times, but tools like the Sharpal 116N Pocket Diamond Sharpening Card allow you to sharpen from anywhere. It comes as a three-pack of sharpening cards with coarse (325 grit), fine (600 grit), and extra-fine (1200 grit) surfaces for a variety of uses from setting edges to honing.

These portable Sharpal sharpeners are roughly the size of a credit card, which means you can fit them into your pocket, wallet, or bag with ease. They feature a stainless steel base covered with monocrystalline diamond grit that gives it a durable, uniform surface for sharpening tools. The set includes a ring grip that helps to keep your fingers safe while sharpening, and it comes with leather storage pouches for each card to keep them protected on the go. You don't need water or oil to use them, and they work on blades, small tools, and pointed objects, like fish hooks, as well as steel and carbide hardware.

When you're working on a DIY task or taking care of yard work, it's inconvenient to stop what you're doing to refresh a dull blade with a large sharpening stone or grinder. That's especially true if you have to leave the room you're in to take care of it or if low mobility makes it difficult to get around unless absolutely necessary. With the Sharpal pocket diamond cards, you can have a sharpener on hand whenever you need it. Due to the diamond grit surface, you don't have to push hard against the blade for it to be effective, which could damage the edges of your tools. Instead, consider the level of grit you're using to determine how much pressure to apply. The coarser the grit, the harder you'll need to push down, and you can lighten the pressure with finer diamond stone surfaces.

The portability, convenience, and cost is what many Amazon shoppers cite as the reason for purchasing the Sharpal sharpening cards and keeping them for years to maintain hunting knives, dental supplies, yard tools, and more. "Normally, it would be a bit awkward to sharpen a curved blade all the way down to the pruner's axis with a conventional-sized whetstone. But these thin, card-sized stones made the job pretty easy," says one Amazon reviewer, who notes, "They were easy to hold and to fit into the constrained space. They also seem to be a high-quality stone, sharpening the blade surprisingly quickly."