Anyone hollow grind with a tool rest?

Mitchell Knives

Mitchell Knives

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I've recently started using a tool rest when doing my initial hollow grinding at 60 grit. Further grits are done without the rest. It seems as though this allows me to grind faster and more accurately.

Does anyone else use a tool rest when hollow grinding? Are there any downsides to this method?
 
John - you may run into an issue where you can't make the grind follow the pattern that you want unless you have a very narrow rest. The other thing to watch out for is to make sure the rest is absolutely as close as possible to the wheel. I got one blade caught between a workrest and a wheel and swore them off for anything other than profiling/squaring bars.
 
I do use a tool rest to grind hollow and flat grind blades a majority of the time,especially with the heavier grit belts.
I do slipjoint size blades and use variable speed grinders, and do not wear gloves. It is what I have gotten used to doing.
If I did large and/or complex grind blades, I wouldn't use a tool rest.
 
I have been meaning to make me a round tool rest. Just a round bar, 1/2" or less, running straight into the 8" wheel. I have never seen one like that but it seems that it would help keeping the start of the grind following the knife curves. I don't think it would be useful in higher grits.
Just what I do,
Lynn
 
I use one , well this one the other day . worked great.
vern


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AcridSaint said:
John - you may run into an issue where you can't make the grind follow the pattern that you want unless you have a very narrow rest. The other thing to watch out for is to make sure the rest is absolutely as close as possible to the wheel. I got one blade caught between a workrest and a wheel and swore them off for anything other than profiling/squaring bars.
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I'm going to see if I can come up with a narrow rest. I'm currently using the standard KMG tool rest. It actually works fairly well, but I have to lift the tip of the blade considerably at times.

After I install the tool rest, the gap between the rest and the wheel is about the thickness of a playing card. I had a blade get caught over at Alan's a while back; pretty scary.

BTW, not sure if anyone told you, but the October Guild meeting got cancelled.
 
I have tried using a rest for starting the Grove. Once the Grove is set it is easer to free-hand.
 

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I do it all free hand. If somebody would have showed me the other way 20 years ago maybe I would do it that way. I watched a seminar with Tim Hancock and he uses a rest to make the initial bevels almost to the center line and then goes to free hand.
 
I hollow grind (and re-grind old) straight razors using the rest that came with my Bader B3. I've used it on knives too, but I haven't hollow ground many of those. As long as the rest is close enough to keep the blade from dropping between the wheel and the rest, I don't see a downside.
 
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