One of the best advices, I got when starting my career of fly fishing was: "Have you hooks always sharp!"

I have a HOOK SHARPENER or GRINDER always with me when fishing. I test the sharpness of the fly hook (wet/dry fly, streamer, salmon fly etc) every time when it has touched the bottom or stone to my fingernail and use the grinder quite frequently!

When planing the cane strips for bamboo rod the sharpness of the palne blade is critically important. Several builders use a serie of SANDING PAPERS (e.g. 200 -1000 grit) on a glass plate to sharpen the blade and I have found it very practical. This was the background to build a simple hook sharpener using two sand papers fixed with epoxy glue to a hook grinder. The grinder is thin and you can easily sharpen even small hooks.

MATERIAL

SANDING PAPER : Two sheets abbrasive papers of diffent coarseness, e.g. 240/300 and 600 grit. The paper has to be wet-type paper ("waterproof", black) to be used while fishing, in rain and on the river!

EPOXY GLUE: A fast (5 min) epoxy glue is very suitable (SuperEpoxy etc)

CONSTRUCTION

Spread epoxy glue on the back-side of the papers, put together, use some plates to clamp together. The epoxy between the sheets makers the grinder firm in use.
After the glue is hardened cut with scissors to pieces of proper size (0.4" x 4"). From one sheet you get more than 20 sharpeners to you and to your friends (you may even give some pieces to your wife or girlfriend to grind the nails!).
Fix one sharpener to your fly fishing west to have it always with you. Use the finer grit for final sharpening. When the paper is worn-out, change to a new one!


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