CNC belt grinder

Natlek said:
Me too .But , what if you need to make a bigger series of same knife ? One of your knife is so popular and you have a great demand ,you need to say a hundred pieces :)
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I'm not even close to selling one knife a month, however If I made good enough knives to where someone would want to order that many I think my grinding skills would be on the level of some very good makers.

Watch the Entrek videos on youtube. He grinds a blade in 1 min 40 seconds.
 
Automating bevel grinding is not a bad thought. Most folks that are CNCing bevels are using some form of milling machine. I was going to post that video you found, but obviously you beat me to it. :)

I just went in with a couple of more technically-minded knifemakers to buy a used Bridgeport CNC mill in good shape. Hope to have it milling bevels soon.

There are a lot of makers (and a growing number) using CNC mills to increase their production.

Another option if you have the volume of sales is to have the blades beveled on a Berger grinder. The unit price isn't bad, but you're typically looking at a 200 unit minimum per design.
 
KnuckleDownKnives said:
I'm not even close to selling one knife a month, however If I made good enough knives to where someone would want to order that many I think my grinding skills would be on the level of some very good makers.

Watch the Entrek videos on youtube. He grinds a blade in 1 min 40 seconds.
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Ray Innis is the real deal. He is one of those knifemakers that has been around forever but many do not recognize his name.
 
I completely agree on the machinist vs knifemaker thing.
A very successful maker (he is not on BF) makes his $20,000 integral knives from BG-42 on a CNC mill. He does do the hand sanding himself. He contracts out the engraving. He puts on a micarta handle .... which was CNC shaped ... and sells his high priced "custom" knives (mostly daggers) to movie stars and Arabian sheiks. Occasionally he buys some damascus and does them in that, and charges extra.
 
If I had an order for 100 knives, for the purpose of this discussion I'll say 3-4" drop points, something simple, I'd pull up a chair, take a couple advils, and get to grinding. I'm far from the fastest knifemaker out there, but even at the rate I grind I could rough grind 100 blades in a day if I had the demand to back it up. And after a a few batched of that you'd get a lot faster.

Look at guys like John Shore. He could grind a blade in less time than it would take you to stick it on the jig, let alone grind it.

Do you want to make knives, or make machines to make knives? That's ultimately what it comes down to.
 
KnuckleDownKnives said:
Watch the Entrek videos on youtube. He grinds a blade in 1 min 40 seconds.
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That video is eye-opener to me . I owe him a beer ...a lot of beer :thumbsup: 7500 ft/min is 37 m/s .My first /two wheel/ belt grinder run 32 m/s and I m almost done with next one ..............with max . of around 50 m/s :)
 
I've been looking for the video Nathan the Machinist posted of his CNC setup for milling knives from start to finish. He's got a slick setup there. Shows what production really is. Anybody got a link to that video I would appreciate the link.
 
OOops, I had said Nathan the Machinist, but that's not right. Nathan is such a GREAT machinist and provides so much knowledge to the forum his name is what popped in mind. The guy I'm thinking about is Canadian (I think???) and just got into production knife making a few yrs ago. He posted about finding a CNC mill and fixing it up (I think???) and has some extensive testing of different alloys. He has posted several videos in the past, but the last I remember seeing was a really neat video he with with taking a group of knives from start to finish with CNC setup, from profiling, bevels, handles, holes. It showed what CNC production could do, while still leaving a good bit of hand finish for a semi-custom knife.

Darn, I wish I could think of his screen name.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Yes, That is a better idea. However, I think most makers could do a basic bevel grind by hand in about 60 seconds.
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I think I might be a below average maker because it takes me a lot longer than that. Would one of you guys be willing to demonstrate a 60 second basic hand grind for me? I would love to see a video of that.

In fact, if anyone wants to come show me in person at my shop I'll offer a permanent full time position here at our company to anyone who can do a good finished hand grind in under ten minutes.
 
Yep, that's it - and here's the video I was thinking about. Aaron does a good job with putting this video together to show what CNC can do for knife production.

Thanks for finding that for me.
 
Nathan, First, I wasn't at all denigrating the superb work you do with a mill. The person I was referring to sells "Custom Handmade Knives" for very high prices. That was the point of my comment.

Natlek wasn't talking about a finished blade. He was showing a grinding setup to do the bevels. I can grind the basic bevel flats on a 4" blade FFG in two or three passes with a 36 grit Cubitron belt. Of course there is much more work to be done. Natlek's setup would work, but need to be constantly monitored and adjusted for belt wear and tracking drift (The CNC may be rigid, but belts aren't the same as carbide end mills). Belts could be changed to finer grits, but that is another setup step and more time.

What I was saying was that your hands and eyes will do all the calculations for you in less time ... for the basic bevel grind. I don't need to know that the included bevel angle is 7.1676° and the best feed rate is 10 IPM ... my brain does it automatically without and setup time. My eyes tell my brain to make any needed adjustments, and my hands give the feedback and make the adjustments. You could consider the time it talks to learn to grind freehand as the "programming " time, but that is a skill you will need anyway.

I would suggest that people trying to find a faster way to learn grinding use a Fred Rowe Bubble Jig. That helps keep the angle while you learn to control the grinding.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
I think I might be a below average maker because it takes me a lot longer than that. Would one of you guys be willing to demonstrate a 60 second basic hand grind for me? I would love to see a video of that.

In fact, if anyone wants to come show me in person at my shop I'll offer a permanent full time position here at our company to anyone who can do a good finished hand grind in under ten minutes.
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I can do that , in less time .But with jig , still no good enough freehand .I took off VFD from my grinder ,working on another one , better one I hope :) So I can t go faster then 30m/s in the moment.But if you insist I will mount back VFD and do that , 4 inch long blade inch and half wide and 1/4 thick FFG in less then minute . But that is irrelevant here .................
I would like to hear your opinion about this idea ......CNC belt grinder ?
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Nathan, First, I wasn't at all denigrating the superb work you do with a mill. The person I was referring to sells "Custom Handmade Knives" for very high prices. That was the point of my comment.

Natlek wasn't talking about a finished blade. He was showing a grinding setup to do the bevels. I can grind the basic bevel flats on a 4" blade FFG in two or three passes with a 36 grit Cubitron belt. Of course there is much more work to be done. Natlek's setup would work, but need to be constantly monitored and adjusted for belt wear and tracking drift (The CNC may be rigid, but belts aren't the same as carbide end mills). Belts could be changed to finer grits, but that is another setup step and more time.

What I was saying was that your hands and eyes will do all the calculations for you in less time ... for the basic bevel grind. I don't need to know that the included bevel angle is 7.1676° and the best feed rate is 10 IPM ... my brain does it automatically without and setup time. My eyes tell my brain to make any needed adjustments, and my hands give the feedback and make the adjustments. You could consider the time it talks to learn to grind freehand as the "programming " time, but that is a skill you will need anyway.

I would suggest that people trying to find a faster way to learn grinding use a Fred Rowe Bubble Jig. That helps keep the angle while you learn to control the grinding.
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Oh I didn't take it any other way, I was just amazed at the thought of grinding your bevels in 60 seconds.

It takes me about 10 minutes of grinding just to do the finish grinds on a small knife.
 
When you are a machinist and your weapon of choice is a CNC of course you are going to use that to its fullest potential.

For others the traditional belt grinder is the easier path for sure.

The learning curve and cost for someone (Non machinist) starting to make knives to do a simple flat or concave grind would be huge and a big undertaking with a CNC.

With a belt grinder a person can learn to grind proficiently in a weekend with a pile of belts and steel.

I am not a fast grinder at all and actually it is kinda therapeutic to wrestle with certain aspects of a grind, I like it.

Here are a couple video of guys who can really grind quickly


 
Natlek said:
I can do that , in less time .But with jig , still no good enough freehand .I took off VFD from my grinder ,working on another one , better one I hope :) So I can t go faster then 30m/s in the moment.But if you insist I will mount back VFD and do that , 4 inch long blade inch and half wide and 1/4 thick FFG in less then minute . But that is irrelevant here .................
I would like to hear your opinion about this idea ......CNC belt grinder ?
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I considered it at one time. I think it could be done.

One thing to consider is a CNC has absolutely no feel to it at all. A CNC is deaf blind and dumb and doesn't do well taking up play. I'm certain it could be done but I think I would start with a real CNC machine tool. I don't see this working well with something under a ton.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Natlek wasn't talking about a finished blade. He was showing a grinding setup to do the bevels. I can grind the basic bevel flats on a 4" blade FFG in two or three passes with a 36 grit Cubitron belt. Of course there is much more work to be done. Natlek's setup would work, but need to be constantly monitored and adjusted for belt wear and tracking drift (The CNC may be rigid, but belts aren't the same as carbide end mills). Belts could be changed to finer grits, but that is another setup step and more time.
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Stacy , that s way I start topic . To discuss about the advantages and disadvantages of this .Nobody has to do this, maybe not me either .........for now it's just another idea , poor man CNC :)

Now , look what I found ...........I imagine this CNC something like this ......... go forward to 45 sec ...
 
those who cant grind build machines to grind. hence why im building one myself. tired of screwing up bevels. it wont be cnc but it takes human error out of the equation on flat grinds.
 
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