Fresh Cut: Cabinet Builder Adapts Skills to His Own Blade Sharpening Business

Rich Mikula pulls one of the two pointed blades on a small pair of beautician shears across a grinding wheel, setting off a handful of white sparks.

In the basement of his Crest Hill home, the 56-year-old then drags his thumb across the blade to see how much of a small jagged lip, called a burr, was made by the grind.

“When you get the burr up that means you’ve sharpened the edge,” Mikula said. “To remove the burr, we open the scissor and then we drag the opposing one across it. That knocks the burr off, and we go back and do the other side. That’s the process.”

One of many things Mikula learned while sharpening blades is shears need some jaggedness to their blades so hair can be cut well.

“I can polish an edge and make it smooth and clean, looking like chrome,” Mikula said. “It’ll be very sharp, but it’ll have no tooth. When it cuts, it just pushes whatever the material is instead of cutting.”

Three years ago, Mikula needed a new career. After about 30 years in woodworking, mostly in the cabinetry business, he learned a different craft and built a new business for himself.

“I worked for someone else for 25 to 30 years and felt like I was never appreciated,” Mikula said. “One day, I sharpened an old lady’s scissors, a pair she had since her mother gave them to her. When I gave her a cloth to cut, and they worked, she was ecstatic. Thanking me all over. Amazed that it worked.”

But the sharpening field was not an easy new path. Mikula had to learn the skills, find his own equipment, build a customer base and learn to interact more with people as customers.

Along the way, he has learned a lot. For example, farmers markets such as Orland Park’s and others in the area .

“I’m not making tons of money doing this, but I had some savings sitting,” Mikula said. “I put out about $15,000 into my trailer, equipment and legal fees. If I’d left the money in the bank I’d just be getting pennies on the dollar. Instead, I made back what I invested.”

Cabinets to Blades

In 2008, Mikula was laid off from his job in a cabinetry shop. He spent the better part of 30 years doing woodworking, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of interest in those skills on the job front. His restlessness and appreciation for working with his hands, solving problems and fixing anything that’s broken led him to a small repair shop in Joliet.

There he first discovered blade sharpening.

“I noticed in the phone book around that time that no one else was really doing blade sharpening,” Mikula said.

Mikula asked the storeowner if he could apprentice, and later the owner asked if Mikula was interested in buying his shop, but Mikula had other plans.

“I did more reading and research in the first year of my exploits then the past 20 years,” he said. “It was fun and exciting but it was also nervous for me. I lost my job, and was out on unemployment.”

Mikula found a whole network of online message boards, including many through Yahoo Groups, full of people who developed their own sharpening businesses. Many of these people work for themselves, out of their homes or trailers with small workshops built inside. On the boards, he learned even more about what businesses would patronize a blade sharpener, such as salons that use sheers costing anywhere from $100 to $1,200 a pair.

He also learned about different sharpening machines, such as one using a stone wheel and a water bath to limit spreading of dust while keeping the blade cool. Around the same time, Mikula trained hands-on with a Decatur-based sharpener before he set out on his own.

For most of his life, Mikula has worked with his hands, so learning how to sharpen wasn’t all that hard. He made it through about 30 years of wood working with all of his body parts intact.

“The worst I did is I took a little nibblet out of one finger,” he said.

But the real challenge would be all of the additional roles a business owner must take on.

Rich’s Sharpening Service can be reached at 815-302-5757.

Look for him this summer at Orland Park’s Farmers Market.

Visit his website for a pricing guide and other information.

With the changing economy, the way people define the American Dream also is changing. Got a story to tell about ? Contact Editor Ben Feldheim at Benjamin@patch.com.