Grinding Workshop in Kamloops June 18 & 19th

[KellyGlanzer]

Sat morning i was up early and ready to try my hand at grinding at the workshop of Knut Lie, the president of the Western Canada Knife Association. Knut had arranged to have Bob Lay demonstrate and oversee a bunch of newbies like me for a couple days. In Knut's shop on the grinders that Knut has built and set up for us to play on Fifteen of us enjoyed getting hands on experiance with an awesome Knifemakers Guild member like Bob Lay. Bob demonstrated how to hollow gring on an eight inch wheel and i have to say after watching him it looked pretty easy He grinds very fast and while he was using a one horse motor i think he could put a two horse to good use.
I figured after watching Bob that i was ready to grind knives, after all he made it look simple. :footinmou For practice Knut and Bob had arranged to have some mild steel for us to practice with although i didnt see the need to practice after seeing the simple way Bob did it. I grabbed my "practice" piece and started to make my first masterpiece which i was sure some collector would eventually buy for a handsome sum. Hmm. this grind wasn't quite as smooth as i thought it would be,i wasn't staying in my groove. Every time i would do a pass it seemed i was makeing a new grind path. Damn this steel gets hot fast and when my gloves get wet it transfers the heat even quicker to my burning fingers. The shape my masterpiece started out with was not what it was now. Everytime i would take to much off the tip i would make the knife a little smaller to fix it. At this rate i would end up with a miniture Bowie. I finally gave in to the realization that i had just made a piece of crap and threw it in the piece of crap pile where a few others where putting there first attempts. We continued on thru the day getting excellant instruction and feed back from Bob and a few other knifemakers who showed up to support the Workshop. Roger Hatt, Marty Beets and Gerry Wozencroft all stopped by on Sat and it was great being surrounded by all this talent. I think the highlight for me and the most terrifiying was the moment when Bob Lay was looking over my shoulder on one side and Roger Hatt looking over my other shoulder. Talk about pressure i was pissing in my pants. I admire the work of both these gentleman so much that i can't even begin to say how lucky i feel having had that experiance.
I will sign off here as it is late. i will post a few pictures taken by Ron Nelson who captured some great images of the event.
I believe the the club is going to try to do this kind of thing more often if they have enough interested people.
By the way the grinder that Knut is making is awesome. Mine should be put together this week as we had it sent out and anodized Gold color.

[wyrm]

Thanks for sharing!

Sounds like it was a good time. Too bad all these cool events take place out west (this one & Ed Storchs').

I'll be staying tuned for the pics.

D.

[KellyGlanzer]

Bob Lay doing his thing at one of Knut's custom built 2x72 Grinders.

[KellyGlanzer]

The man who brought us all together and built a crap load of grinders for us to use. Knut Lie. Thanks Knut!

[KellyGlanzer]

My buddy Dave's grinder. His is already anodized


Here is me, myself, and I ,focused on wrecking a piece of steel



I think Ron has a picture of all the mild steel practice pieces that went in the scrap pile.
The next day on Sunday now that we had experiance we broke out the 440C and the ATS-34.
Gerry gave me a piece of 440C and I still owe Bob a case of Bud for the ATS-34 I hacked off his bar that he had.

[KellyGlanzer]

Here is the results of practicing on mild steel day 1.

[marty123]

It looks like you guys had a great time.
Thanks for the story and pictures.

[rjlay]

Kelly,
I enjoyed instructing the grinding lessons. It was fun to have a bunch of guys together talking knives and learning to grind. The class was well attended even though we didn't do much advertising. Knut and I have talked about doing another one in the fall. We already have a waiting list. I will post a notice when we decide on the time. Hopefully it will be the same price as this time. (Free)
Good to see so many enthusiastic and interested people.
Thirsty Bob.

[KellyGlanzer]

Bob, It was a great time and a great location with all Knut's toys at our disposal like his CNC milling machine.
I really haven't done anything since then except work on my house but I hear that my grinder should be almost ready to pick up.
I'm working on the new shop as we'll so i have a place to put it. Here is how it looks so far.



I'm definately looking forward to the next get together. I have a couple people interested in the next time as well.
I've actually bought your Bud several times but people keep drinking it.