Custom knives and steady hands

golok

golok

Joined
Oct 20, 2000
Messages
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I was wondering if a good grind on a good steel has more to do with a pair of strong, steady hands than with a pair of good eyes, or is it a combination of both, or maybe nothing to do with the first two.

Some knifemakers I was told are just natural born grinders. They just get hold of a piece of steel and before you know it, they turn it into a work of art.

Can an ordinary person learn to do that? Does it take a lot of hours, weeks or maybe years of training and practice?

I read that some very young chaps are doing it better than a whole lot of old-timers. How can one explain that?
 
Definitely, some people are more artistic than others. But, just about anybody can grind a decent blade, given plenty of practice. I have proven this to myself.

When I first met Russ Andrews at a local knife show, I was amazed at the fit and finish of his knives. I had seen plenty of custom knives before, and immediately noticed that his knives were finished more finely and ground more evenly than 90% of what I had seen. I commented to him and asked him how he did such fine work. His response? "most people don't take enough time, and get in a hurry". Pretty simple explanation that says it all.
 
Golok: It takes hands, eyes and motivation. The reason that younger makers are progressing so rapidly is due to better equipment, better abrasives, and more information/teaching. New makers today can start way up the learning curve, because they don't have to "invent" the process-they can just ask other makers on forums like these.
 
There's definately an art to doing a good grind on a blade golok. But mostly, I think it all boils down to mechanics. I learned to develop a connection between my hands and eyes. It's hard to explain, but when you 'get in the groove' it just comes automatically and it's like a reflex more than anything else. If you watch a knifemaker grinding very closely, you'll notice very imperceptible changes in angle and pressure on the blade at the beginning and the end of each stroke.

When I was learning to hollow-grind blades several years ago my teacher used a very unorthodox approach to help me train my eyes and hands to 'talk' to each other. I learned on an open faced 10" rock wheel bench grinder. Once I established a groove in the blade I would look away from the blade and only use peripheral vision so I could get the 'feel' of how the grinding progresses from that point. When it's right you can feel it better than see it. I messed up a good bit of steel in the beginning but I finally got the hang of it.

Strong hands aren't necessary but the ability to concentrate fully on what you're doing is very necessary.
 
I'm doing very well Dork, Thanks! I've just been out of the loop for a while. It was an odd year for me. Could have been a case of the middle aged crazies I guess. :D
 
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