Patron Saint of Knives sharpens blades at his Vancouver workshop – and he’s looking for an apprentice

If you’ve ever tried to cut a tomato with a dull blade, you know why it’s important to keep knives sharp. But who can restore your worn blades to their former razor-edged glory?

For scores of local residents, the answer is the Patron Saint of Knives, aka Eliot Smith, 69, one of only four knife-sharpening businesses in Clark County. He’s been honing his craft for 15 years and estimated that he sharpens 17,000 knives per year. That works out to 46 knives every single day, including weekends and holidays.

On Sundays from April to October, he can be found at the Vancouver Farmers Market, sporting a steampunk top hat with goggles and wings. If you miss the hat, just look for the guy holding a knife.

“The search for the liminal edge — that perfect edge where one thing turns into something else — will change the knife and it will change you,” Smith said. “Fifteen years later and I’m still looking for it, but the goal was never perfection. It was the process.”

He was searching for that elusive edge in 2015, when The Columbian first profiled him. Now, as he nears the age of retirement, he’s ready to train an apprentice, someone who’s as dedicated to the craft as he is. Upon his death, Smith said that his apprentice will inherit the entire business.

Smith turned to knife-sharpening not to make a living, but to preserve his own well-being. He was working as hospital security guard at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, where he came into daily contact with the hospital’s most volatile — and sometimes violent — patients. The job took a steep emotional and physical toll, and he began to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

He soothed himself by coming home from his job and “eating and watching TV,” he said.

He felt a desire to do something constructive during his off hours. As a kid, he’d made a little pocket change by sharpening knives for families in his neighborhood. He decided to sharpen his own knives. When he ran out of knives, he went to Goodwill and bought more knives. He said his wife got exasperated with the number of knives they owned, so he started sharpening his friends’ knives. He offered sharpening services to strangers.

He purchased a magnet plaque for his car and printed business cards. He charged a flat amount per knife, no matter how big or small — and he still does. (His rate is currently $9 for knives, scissors and pruners. Hatchets, machetes, axes and mauls are $10 to $15.) Within a few years, his blade-sharpening crossed the liminal edge from hobby to livelihood and he incorporated as a limited-liability corporation. On his 65th birthday, he told his supervisor at the hospital “this is my last day.”

He earned his unusual moniker, Patron Saint of Knives, through a string of unlucky (or perhaps lucky?) twists of fate that began with a hate crime against him and a Black friend in November 1976. Both were shot by a gunman on the street in Santa Cruz, Calif. Smith was shot once in the hip and his friend was shot twice in the back. (He survived.) When Smith got to the police station to give a statement, he couldn’t understand why his hip hurt so badly but there was no blood. Then something metal fell out of his pant-leg: a mangled piece of the Swiss army knife recently given to him by his father. The knife had a small icon of St. Christopher on its side, the face now disfigured and dented. The saint had taken the bullet for Smith, but he was shaken.

“I couldn’t sit with my back to the door in a restaurant. I was paranoid. I was scared. I had nightmares,” Smith said. “But then I had a revelation. I was freed from worrying about death. What’s the worst that can happen? It gave me a kind of calmness in life.”

He traveled to Japan and held a number of jobs, including teaching English as a second language, journalist, photographer and maker of elaborate feathered masks for fine art galleries. Back in Santa Cruz in the 1980s, he became a cab driver. He adopted St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, as his mascot and created a logo — Smith as St. Christopher, wearing a cabbie hat — to promote himself. He became a “cabbie counselor,” he said, a willing listener to his passengers’ troubles. He was also an unofficial public health advocate during the AIDS crisis, handing out condoms and AIDS awareness pamphlets.

After his parents died, he moved to Portland “looking for meaning,” he said. He got security jobs at Portland’s Benson Hotel, the American Red Cross and University of Portland before being hired by Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center. He had a knack for defusing tempers and for helping even the most distressed patients regain their equilibrium. His co-workers called him “the people whisperer,” he said. He held patients’ hands and talked to them, disarming them with his relaxed demeanor. There were, however, many nights where his body bore the brunt of violent outbursts, when he tried to put himself between enraged patients and others, he said. The job was a double-edged sword.

“It was the milk of the vipers. It kills you while it sustains you,” Smith said. “At the same time, there were so many emotional moments with people, moments where I would reach out and touch people. It was 16 years of great stories.”

Smith said he’s not “particularly religious,” but believes that knife-sharpening is his calling. When he started out, he tried to figure out how to sharpen faster, he said. He watched YouTube videos and sought training from more established sharpeners. Then he found a microscope at a yard sale and “that turned into a deep dive into what I was actually doing,” he said. He developed his own technique. Instead of speeding up, he slowed down, giving his knife-sharpening a meditative quality.

“My studio is a holy space. I burn incense. I put on my apron. I love what I do,” Smith said. “People say, ‘Are you a knife guy?’ and I say, ‘No, not really.’ ”

He considers himself to be more of a philosopher or maybe it’s more accurate to say “acolyte.” He attributes his placid outlook to knife-sharpening and believes that dedicated attention to detail — focusing intently on “a quarter-inch of the world” — can be transformational. He also credits knife-sharpening with improving his health because holding blades against a silicon carbonite sharpening belt several hours a day requires strength, stamina and muscle control.

In the beginning, customers would drop dull blades in his mailbox. Smith would sharpen them and return them to the mailbox, then customers would collect the knives and leave a payment. Smith still relies on the honor system for payment and says he’s hardly ever shortchanged, perhaps because people are reluctant to cross a man with a lot of very sharp knives.

Smith abandoned the mailbox system after someone left “about a thousand dollars’ worth of knives” in his mailbox, he said. He installed red metal lockers on his front porch. Customers leave their knives in one of 46 red metal lockers and Smith removes them, sharpens them and puts them back. The owners collect the knives and leave payment.

Smith said he’s doing such a brisk business that it’s hard to go anyplace locally without running into customers.

“It’s a spiritual pursuit. I don’t really care about money,” Smith said. “I love people. I love what I’m doing. I try and produce as wonderful a product as I can, and I try to be as kind to people as I can.”