A Guide on What to Use to Sharpen Garden Shears, Pruners, Scissors, Shovels and More

Ok, we’ve all experienced it. Excited to clip those new flowers or that just ripened vegetable, you anticipate the clip, excited and ready to go for it, and with a squeeze of the hand, bleh. The stem mushes in your blades or fails to cleanly cut. Our tools enhance the pleasure of gardening, and having sharpened, clean blades can enhance the gardening experience and speed with which we glide through our rows or throughout our landscape.

So what is the best tool to sharpen a gardening tool? There are a number of garden tool sharpening tools and techniques, and below is a list:

The File

The old standby: the rusty file. You can use any fine file to sharpen large blade tools like shovels, hoes, weeders, lawnmower blades and more. Note: this is will not produce the sharpest edge, but will remove rust and get rid of the dull edge on large tools.

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The Rotary Tool

Rotary tools are a great power tool for general garden sharpening and maintenance. They are relatively inexpensive and can do rough sharpening, and fine blade sharpening as well.

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The Diamond Stone

Diamond stones are a great multi-purpose sharpener for a variety of garden tools. You can use them once you have a dull blade, and have removed any rust. They have a fine and coarse side typically, and can help you hone a nice edge on any tool.

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Diamond Paddle

These paddles arelight and portable. They usually come in a set, and are portable. They are typically used for touchup after initial tool sharpening and maintenance, and are quite handy. See our Garden Tool Sharpening Kit

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Angle Grinder

The angle grinder, aka "the beast", is a great tool for quickly getting through rust and steel on large gardening tools. Shovels, hoes, lawnmower blades are no match for this tool.

So how do you use these tools? Subscribe for follow on posts on how to use them to sharpen all you garden tools.