The Amateur Crafter: Project 3.0 - Such a Grind

Well the profile of the blades is done. I've also put these to the 4 x 36 belt sander to clean up the sides. So before I start to grind away the primary bevel, I'll need to drill out any holes I need for mounting pins and also any holes that I want to put into the handle to lighten its weight. This may be a critical step in the process but I don't know how well to try and balance the blade. I suspect that with the deep finger choil area that the blade will balance well at that point, regardless of how much material is left on handle.

This little guy is a 2 x 31 hand-held belt sander.

This is how I held the 2 x 31 belt sander. Note the zip-tie on the handle, which is used to keep the trigger button engaged - forcing the sander to remain on constantly.

This seems like it may be dangerous. But keep in mind that this machine has very little power and runs the belts much slower than my bench sander. This means that to finish the choils would require a lot more time to complete than first thought. But it still went much quicker than by hand. Even accidentally bumping my hand/fingers into the belt as it is running did nothing to injure me. From this photo one can also see a bit of water still on the blade to keep it cool.

From the photo, one can see that the choils have been cleaned up to size and have a good finish.

Next is a part of the knifemaking operation that I was experimenting with different methods. The first method I actually started to draw file each knife with a good Nicholson mill file. But I thought that maybe using a 4 x 36 belt sander would grind the sides quicker, even if the finish wasn't that great, I could always clean that up myself.

Cleaning up the sides of the blades. Originally, I used painter's tape and fashioned a sort of "handle" to hold onto while the blade is engaged with the belt sander, similar to how I held the piece in the photo. This work piece is for a modification on the Grizzly. 

But this didn't provide a firm grip of the work piece against the belt sander. So I changed to a heavy-duty magnet. This works okay but the magnet is so strong that it sometimes sticks to the platen of the belt sander. As a rule of thumb, the nicer the finish going into heat treat, the easier it is to reproduce that finish once heat treating is completed. Here in this photo I've used painter's tape to cover the magnet. This helps in cleaning up the shavings removed from the metal.

While this may not seem that important, it is a crucial point in the process. In order to ensure that my holes are drilled perpendicular, and to ensure that each blade grind is even on both sides, each side of the blade must be true flat and parallel to the other side. Without true flatness and parallelism, the blade grind my come out uneven.

The Klutch 4 x 36 belt sander will get me in the ball park as far as removing high spots and providing a good starting point for truing up each side but it won't provide the accuracy I'm looking for. This could be the construction of the belt sander (cheaply made) or it may have to do with the magnet I was using. In any case, I finally had to go back to a manual method and simply complete each finished side by hand.

I decided to make a couple of flat surfaces for sanding by hand, I'll call them sanding tables. I purchased 2 x 2 x 36 inch square block and a 1/2 x 6 x 48 flat block. Each piece is oak and it is milled flat (supposedly). It should be noted that this is not the bulk lumber one can purchase for building, outdoor work, etc. I cut the 2 x 2 piece into thirds and I cut 2 of the 1/2 x 6 into 14 inch lengths. Then I took simple wood glue and clamped the pieces together. The result provided me with a portable surface that I could stick a bit of sandpaper to with spray adhesive. I can also clamp this sanding table into my bench vise, very handy.

Using the 60 grit sandpaper and my strong magnet, I can now grind each blade side true flat and parallel to the other side. This part of the process can be labor-intensive and time-consuming depending on how much sanding is needed to clean up a side flat. Because I used my 4 x 36 belt sander first, each blade finished up fairly quickly, but there were two blades that took nearly 20 minutes of sanding to clean up.

From the photo, one might be able to see the "divot" in the middle of the blade. I'm not too concerned for any low spots along the handle unless it's at the edge. The handle will receive scales to cover it anyway. Here I'm using 60 grit sandpaper glued to one of my sanding tables I made.

Here I've used a large permanent marker on part of the blade to identify the low spots. After a bit more sanding, part of the low spot is still visible because it's been stained by the permanent marker. This gives me a very helpful visual reference to go by when trying to determine if I've clean up any low spots.


I've also needed to make a modification to the Grizzly. The platen that the Grizzly came with had to be adjusted. Note the following photo.

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The flat plate that sits vertical between the two wheels is called the platen. A platen is a flat section of a sander where the belt will ride upon. The flat section provides a backing to allow a technician to press a work piece into the belt as it's running - thus grinding away material. The original platen on the Grizzly had a graphite imbued tape, almost like double-sided duct tape pressed on the platen. This had to be removed before I could put any grind on the knives.

The platen after a good bit of time on a belt sander at the school where I work. It has a motor with much more horsepower than my consumer grade belt sander.

I decided to try and use a bit of ceramic tile for a platen. I've seen this done before on other machines and some folks have even made videos and posted them on Youtube for demonstration. The only problem was I didn't know how I was going to cut it. I couldn't get the exact size I needed to attach to the platen, so having it cut with any precision at the hardware store was unlikely.

At first, I tried a method offered by Dremmel. This is an attachment that will fit most Dremmels and it was to provide a way to use a small routing bit to cut away sections of the ceramic. And, it's pretty cheap.

Fairly simple setup.










I clamped the tile to a piece of 2 x 4 left over from making my chop saw table.

This is how far the bit made it into the tile before becoming so dull that it wouldn't cut anymore. Oh well. The cheapest method isn't always the best method - in this case it wasn't even a method because it didn't work.

I wasn't planning on purchasing a wet cutting tile saw just yet. I would've needed one eventually to help rough cut G10 material. G10 is a glass epoxy laminate. Basically, take plastic, epoxy resin, and layer each material with glass thrown in, and you've got G10. This material is usually found on terminal boards, electrical equipment, and induction heating machines. Because it's very durable and stable, and because it's available in a variety of colors, it's recently gained popularity among knifemakers as handle scale material. But I've worked with G10 as a machinist and it's not easy to machine. It will quickly dull high-speed-steel tools and to machine it means wearing a dust mask if no coolant is used. Instead of removing material in large chips or shavings, it machines off in a fine dust similar to talcum powder. But, no tile means further delays in my current project, and I've had enough of those already and they're pissing me off.

 It doesn't produce the straightest cut, but it does the job well. I had to purchase rubber coated gloves because the water makes this material very slippery to handle.

I needed to cut a small steel support piece for the tile to rest on.

The finished modified platen, after much swearing and a lot of effort put into cleaning up the excess JB Weld that I went WAY OVERBOARD in using.

The platen after some use. I see no noticeable wear. The ceramic tile seems to be virtually immune to heat damage - with the gloss being the exception.

The shop after a good bit of work.

This has been a pretty busy week in the shop mainly because I've been off work for fall break. The blade sides are now thankfully true flat and parallel. I've also purchased some angle iron as I intend to make a fixture that will allow me to reproduce a flat grind for each blade. After all of this effort, I'm glad I'm making progress again. That will be the topic of my next article. I've got a good idea on how I want it to work and a rough design idea in my head. We'll see how it works!