Bad choice

A

aarolar

Joined
Mar 21, 2010
Messages
73
I am new to making knives, as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by knives and wanted to make my own. I have worked in industrial fab for all of my life and have access to and know how to use mills, lathes, surface grinders, water jet machines ect. I bought a harbor freight 1x30 to try out my hand and if all goes well I intend on building a larger grinder.

Now this is my delima, for my first knife I acquired a piece of D2 from work and it has been amazingly hard to work. The little anemic HF grinder will hardly touch it annealed and I am really dreading the finishing grinding after it's hardened.:barf: My question is am I going to see an enormous difference if I just set this to the side for now and order a piece of 1080 or is my troubles mostly from the cheapy grinder and I should just stick it out and finish my D2 blade?

Is the D2 my issue or just cheap tools?:confused:
 
I really don't know about your HF but you really picked a tough steel to begin on. Get yourself a piece of 1080, 1084 or O-1.
 
Thank you for such quick replies, I did not use the stock belts as they were lap spliced and impossible to work with the belts I used were the slightly more expensive HF belts that were green. I am going to visit lowes today to see if they have any belts but I do understand I need to get some better quality belts. Do yall have any suggestions for good 1x30 belts for roughing?

Here are some progress pictures I really don't feel too bad about it being my first attempt, I got my angle wrong and ground past the spine but I may throw it on the surface grinder and fix that issue.:)

IMG00023-20101016-1403.jpg

IMG00024-20101016-1404.jpg
 
I'm betting it's a combination of crappy belts, weak grinder and a very tough steel. D2 is known for being a really hard one to grind even with professional equipment.

I'm working with 1080 and saw a huge improvement between cheap belts and the 3M Trizact's I got from Tru-Grit. That's with a 2x42 from Sears, which isn't bad but has some annoying limitations for knife making.
 
D2 is hard to grind even annealed,If you want carbon steel 1080 would be better.Or stainless 440-c or ats 34,Here is a good place to get 1-30 belts.
http://www.trugrit.com/belts1.htm
Use light pressuree and let the abrasive do the cutting.Have fun.
Stan
 
Any one have any experience with the belts from lowes? I picked up a pack of 80's and 120's.
 
The belts you get from any hardware store, or HF are not going to be up to knife grinding. Order some from a knife supplier or directly from Norton, trugrit, or my favorite - Klingspor.
http://klingspor.com/products/MtlAvail.htm
They can make up nearly any belt you want in any size you can dream up. Small orders to big orders.... no problem ( serious discounts on larger orders).
For D-2 you need a really good belt. I use zirconia and ceramic belts on the hard stuff.
 
The belts you are buying at lowes and hf are for wood. Not tool steel. For that matter, so is the hf sander. That said, you did a good job!

Mike
Maker
The Loveless Connection Knives
 
D2 is about 15% carbide by volume. Assuming you have new metal, those carbides are neat little spheres which allows you to cut it without too much drama. But they still dull belts and resist grinding. A2 would probably have given you a little less grief.

That grinder doesn't have any balls. But a really good belt like a Norton Blaze cuts pretty quickly even with light pressure. Right now I'm using 60 grit blaze to clean up rough milled blade blanks in just a couple minutes of light grinding. And have to be careful not to remove too much...

If it were me, I'd rough the blades on the mill to set your edge thickness to about .040 and get things straight. That leaves a lot less grinding down to .020, which your little grinder will thank you.

I leave all the metal on the back of the blade until after the blade is rough milled, that way there is something to stick in the vice. I even grind it out this way, which helps with the tip on long pointy blades. Once to my satisfaction, then I finish the profile. Though I'm the only one I know who does it this way...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top