Wearing safety goggles with a brown “Lost Arts” apron tied around himself, 12-year-old Mozi Weisenberg demonstrates the sharpness of a six-inch knife he made in his family’s Mount Airy basement.
“I don’t love sharpening; it’s just necessary for money to buy tools for woodworking,” he says, sounding more like a seasoned pro 20 years into a career than a gifted tween indulging his curiosities., 41, a musician, composer, and Jewish music educator. Some of Weisenberg’s wooden sculptures — several of animals and people’s faces — adorn the family’s law.
Last year, he created online fliers to announce his business. Mozi now has around 20 customers, one of whom is chef and caterer“At first I figured I’d help him out, you know, the ‘That’s so cute, he’s an enterprising kid’ sort of thing,” says Schram, whose kitchen is called Hamutzim, which means“But Mozi has such skill. He’s an artisan, the best knife-sharpener I’ve ever used. I go to him every three months.
Mozi explains his process, how he uses a belt sander, then a whetstone, which looks like a blackboard eraser made of man-made diamonds electroplated to a metal plate.