But First, a Sharp Knife
What is 20,000th of an inch? To Mike Solaegui, founder-proprietor of Perfect Edge Cutlery in San Mateo and Perfect Edge Sharpening Systems in Half Moon Bay, it is the difference between a sharp knife and a dull one. Solaegui (pronounced “so-lie-gee”) who grew up in Stockton as the son of a butcher and became a butcher himself, considers the careers of meat-cutting and knife-crafting to be inseparable.
“I knew sharpening was a good idea because the San Francisco hotels and restaurants [that were our clients] would send knives back with the delivery truck,” Solaegui says. “We knew we’d get another order of meat because we had their knives.” The system, you see, was perfectly circular.
After selling the butcher business and a stint as a fisherman, Solaegui turned to knives and sharpening, setting up a mobile sharpening system in the back of a station wagon in 1992. A life-long tinkerer, he custom-built a system to handle the multiple steps required to return any knife’s blade to proper sharpness. The business’s first customer? The San Francisco Marriott in Burlingame.
“The guy who hired me was so happy with my work, he asked me to come back every two weeks,” he says.
Over the years, Solaegui built the cutlery and sharpening businesses, developing lines of knives to meet every culinary need for professionals and dedicated home cooks. He can spot a dull blade from across the room, the knife’s dull edge flashing the telltale sign of a white line. His station wagon morphed into a van where the PE-2 sharpening system he designed has been installed according to his exacting specifications. His five-step process hones any knife’s blade—including serrated knives—to the proper bevel, edge and angle for its use.
“No white line? It’s a sharp knife,” Solaegui says.
His daughter, Tara Ransfer, runs the business now while Solaegui runs the vans and trains the next generation on how to sharpen knives. You can find him and one of the Perfect Edge vans at Larkspur’s Marin Country Mart, the Napa Farmers’ Market in downtown Napa and St. Helena’s Farmers’ Market as well as other farmers’ markets around Northern California.
