Domhnall...a little continuation for you about meatcutters and sharp or not so sharp knives. It is hard to believe but not every meatcutter can sharpen and keep sharp the tools of their trade. When I started cutting meat I WANTED to work with a knife, and I watched like a hawk for anybody that seemed to know what they were doing, to see how easily and smoothly they were able to do their jobs. I used Forschner 5 inch boning knives and an F. Dick steel to keep them going. The steels that we used were called a " slick ", because when you bought them, there wasn't a groove on them....totally smooth. Then you got some med to fine grit emory cloth and worked over your steel from handle to tip and you were ready to go. Where I worked we had 2 big old round grindstones that were both out of round and had a water drip on them. We would use these to put a slight hollow grind on the blades when we wore down into the thicker portion of the blade from too much sharpening. Those out of round stones made the grinding sort of interesting trying to anticipate the bumps, but even so still did the job.
I worked with a guy named Bob...I think he had worked in this meat plant since the early '50s. He looked a little like Charles Bronson....Slavic, slim build and the meatiest hands. Mechanics hands, farmers hands. I nicknamed Bob....Rapid Robert. Bob did not know how to sharpen a knife and didn't even know that he didn't know. Bob would take his stone in his left hand and knife in his right and he would "sharpen " it about 6-10 strokes per side, then pick up his steel and steel his knife as fast as the TV chef guy, only it was clackety, clackety, clackety, clack. Banging his knife on the steel like a crazy man. Bobs technique for boning a ham was to see-saw the knife back and forth like crazy until the ham surrendered the center bone. His work looked like he had done it with a chain saw. He would do this 8-11 hours a day depending on the season. I have no idea how he never figured out a better way.