The Daily Grind

The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick maker, Landscapers, Barbers, Hairdressers, Chefs and Carpenters all seek out  81-year-old Antonio Borrelli to keep the tools of their trades in good working order. When  Steve Gary of Havertown was growing up in The Bronx, New York in the 1940’s and ‘50’s it was not an unusual sight to see tradesmen plying their craft on his block from horsed-drawn wagons or carts pushed on foot.  “Stephen, take these down to the man in the street with the grinding wheel,” his Grandmother would say, giving him a handful of knives and scissors as the sharpening man was coming up the street. Today, keeping knives and scissors and saws and cleavers and other cutting tools sharp is an art form practiced by fewer craftsmen each year.  Antonio “Tony” Borrelli has traveled half-way around the globe honing his sharpening skills.

Tony began working on keeping things sharp as a boy in his native Italy where he walked through farm fields looking for large stones that could be fashioned into grinding wheels. He learned about sharpening knives in his southern Italian hometown of Volturara Appula, in the Foggia region.  After WW II, with few jobs available, he like many other Italians migrated to Argentina where he worked in several Buenos Aires factory machine shops using his grinding skills.   He became more experienced after moving to America in 1963, spending 10 years working in a machine shop at the General Electric plant on

Elmwood Avenue

in Southwest Philadelphia.  It was in 1974 that he opened his own business, A&A Tool Sharpening Service, in Upper Darby (

788 Garrett Road

, near

Avon Road

, 610-352-4499). “There used to be seven or eight shops nearby doing this work when I opened my shop,” Tony recently recalled. “Today I’m the only one in the neighborhood doing it and there is only a handful left in the Region.”  

Steve Gary can easily attest to Tony being an artisan who can breathe life into a rusty, banged up tool with ease. Steve collects buys and sells antiques and collectibles and has, over the years, acquired many butcher cleavers and knives.  He spends weekends set up at markets in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Dutch Country, where many deer hunters dress their own kills and are always searching for good butchering tools. “{I have found many cleavers and butcher knives that have appeared to be beyond resuscitation,” Steve said, “until that is Tony laid his magic hands on them. He’s turned them out as clean and sharp and useful as they were on the day they were made.”

How does Tony go about it? “I use different grinding wheels for different types of metal,” he explained. He uses four machines with four different grades of wheels for a heavy grind, a finer grind, to hone and to polish. He employs various industrial compounds, grease mixed with paste, to get the job done. Tony then uses different materials to check the sharpness of the tool he’s worked on including fine, sheer silk for barber and hairdresser shears and fine paper for knives.

How much longer does Tony think he’ll go on working?  “I’m 81,’ he said proudly, “and as for longevity, keeping active like I do keeps me sharp.