Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades What is a substitute for honing oil?

Mineral oil can be found in any drug store, and most any grocery store, and probably hardware stores too.
As far as splitting the pelvis bone, well I'm no expert when comes to that.
It's almost a lost art any more with the advent of the power saws.
Why waste time trying to find that seam when you can just power saw through it. I know you can't have a power saw in the field with you.
I started out working in a locker plant, since then, I've always worked retail, like the fellas you see behind meat counter at the grocery store. I've never worked "Wholesale" or Slaughter house , if you will.
Those guys are a "Breed" all their own! I know quite few and some are good real friends but man they are Animals!
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Anyway to split the pelvis, if you'll look at the top of the pelvis you'll notice a kind of Ridge that runs in the same direction as the canal the Large intestine runs through.
Hold a knife at a 90 degree angle to that and scrape down through the top layer of bone, be a little careful as not to scrape too deep, you should see a dividing line, that's the seam where the two sides are growing or have fused together. Try to place your knife point or axe exactly or as close the center of that seam as you can get. If you've got the right spot it will split easily.
If not your blade will angle off to one side. It's kind of like trying to hit pages 48 thru 52 of a 100 page magazine, a little bit one side or the other and it's not going to work. Like I said it's a lost art, not easy without lots of practice, hell I'm only successful maybe 1 out of 4 trys. But once you hit the right spot it will just POP right open. If the animal is two years old or less it will most likly still be relativly soft cartilage.
I hope this helps, I'm not very good at explaing these kinds of procedures.
Ask any questions you want and Ill try to explain better.