Postby RBphoto » August 28th, 2015, 7:26 am
The lost art of peining a cutlass to draw out the metal of the blade to a razor thin edge is one that was taught to me as a boy. Not many people understood why my grandfather's cutlass was always razor sharp, and some even laughed at him when they saw him with a hammer beating out the edge of his cutlass, without ever bothering to ask what he was doing. Some even attributed it to obeah, but when "Ali" (His name was Albert, but, that did not go over well in the canefield) swung his blade, you could be sure he would cut through anything, even if a spirit was in front of him.
The idea of peining was to precisely beat out the edge of the blade with a special hammer so that a fine, razor sharp few millimeters of paper thin metal was drawn out. It was a tedious task, but much less tedious than hacking away at cane with a dull cutlass. after drawing out the metal, he would run a whet stone along the edge to give it a the shine of a sword.
One day a neighbour asked my grandfather to sharpen her blade just as he did. First, he put it on his pedal grindstone and made the most impressive show of sparkling metal. The abrasion theat ran the length of the blade was bright virgin band of metal about 3/4 inch thick. Then, he peined the edge and honed it down on a stone. Unbeknownst to Gladys, when he took it back to the stone for a "Final sharpening", he put the blade directly on the stone, effectively blunting it to a millimeter wide useless edge. needless to say, he was never asked about his technique again.
