How did On Point Sharpening all begin?
From a very early age Ethan has always enjoyed crafting things using his hands, building, making, painting, drawing, sculpting, gardening…. His life sent him into a career of critical care nursing but in his spare time he would always be creating, whether it was restoring an old piece of furniture, building, renovating, in fact, anything that allowed him to create with his hands.
He stumbled onto the hobby of wood carving. Making wooden spoons by hand using just a tomahawk and carving knives. He, understandably, had to quickly learn the art and importance of sharpening and keeping his own tools sharp. He found that over time, he was actually enjoying sharpening his tools more than the actual crafting, to the point where other people were asking him to sharping theirs as well.
This all lead to Ethan looking into more formal training and education, steering him into working alongside and being mentored by Mike Herbert from M & L Blades (Wahl and Oster warranty service centre). Now, if anyone has been in the industry, I’m sure you will have heard of Mike’s name. Wahl even approached Mike to train their sharpeners from the USA, knowing he was one the best in the industry, so Ethan knew he was in good hands, learning all there was to know in the world of sharpening. Ethan and Mike’s working relationship over the next 5 years only cemented Ethan’s love for sharpening. If they didn’t have a tool for a specific job, they would build or make one. Mike was starting to wind down his sharpening business and asked Ethan if he had considered going out on his own. Let me just say, it was a no brainer!
With both Ethan and I having had some crumbling life blows dealt to us, creating our own small business was our way to ease out of working for a large corporation and into a more humble and simple community-based way of living. Being able to speak and support our customers the way we feel is important without the plethora of red tape, rules, guidelines and politics being dictating to us. Thus, this is where our small family business of On Point Sharpening began.
With the amazing skills of the family around us OPS was being brought to life. We are so lucky to have a Web / Graphic designer expert @HeathDesignStudio, a Business Branding expert and Professional Photographer @ReneeSheaPhotography, On Point Sharpening began to take shape with Logos, photos and web pages designed and created. A special acknowledgement needs to be made to Ethan’s brother, Heath. Without him and the painstaking hours he has spent designing our logo, stickers, website, business cards and fixing stuff ups of us social media challenged people, we wouldn’t look as slick as we do. Plus, a shout out to our 24-hour helpline for Instagram and Facebook expert, Renee. Both of you have helped us look pretty cool to the outside world.
So where do I fit into the OPS story? Well, after years of being in both the health industry and Administration, I felt my skills were best put to use speaking with our customers, getting the OPS name known out there and keeping everything running smoothly. With Ethan’s introverted nature and my outgoing people skills, we work well as the OPS team. If he is working away in his workshop, I am the conduit between the craftsman and the customer.
In conclusion, On Point Sharpening’s ethos has been around for decades but really only formalised in the last few years. We love what we do and only ever want to give our customers the best quality service possible. We want it to keep growing and reach more customers so if our sharpening is On Point, maybe you could spread the word.
