Do you still have the first knife you ever made?? Lets see 'em!!!

[silver_pilate]

Fletch, I've used an orbital sander on blades. I replaced the sanding face with micarta and use spray adhesive to secure the paper. I have one I mount upside down in a vise, and another little palm sander I occasionally use to help sand the plunges. You have to finish out the blade by hand either way, but the orbital can help get through some of those stubborn scratches a bit more quickly.

--Nathan

 

[PIndelicato]

I tried the palm sander for a while, but I found it to round things off and wash out grind lines, which I had to go back and try to correct by hand again after the fact. It also ate sandpaper at an alarming rate...

I wish I could watch someone who uses it effectively in their shop to figure out what I might have been doing wrong, because I think it could be a real time saver.

 

[unky_gumbi]

I saw it once can't remember who or where though.

 

[Atlas Knife Company]

Early on, Stacy warned me not to use a palm sander. "Leave it for blending wood", I think he said. Then, Dave showed me the micarta backed palm sander that he uses. What I learned was that there's more than one way to skin a cat. I use it with a Ti plate for backing, only on full flat grinds or convex grinds, only up to 400 grit. It does great convex grinds because it does round off the grind lines. But, you can get past the first first steps of hand sanding(usually 220 grit) in minutes as opposed to hours.

 

[John T Wylie Jr]

I still have my first one. Made from 01 , heat treated myself , hollow ground. I still use it , finish is no longer hand satin , has a glass bead blast finish to it now.

I also have my first S30v blade , which was the first blade I had heat treated by Paul Bos , and was the first time I used anything other than 01. Will have to take a picture of that one.

 

[psycho78]

Hey fletch, not sure what kind of grinder you have now, but the gator belts work awesome for me. I use 180 and 400 grits.

A fine green scotchbrite belt loaded with a spray or two of WD-40 will give you a very pretty machine satin finish right after the 180 gator. It gets even better after the 400 grit.

I haven't tried past 400, but I'm sure the 600-800 gators are great too.

 

[STR]

I'm curious how many of you guys still have the very first knife you ever made. After seeing many of all the great knives you make today I think it would be great to compare them with your very first..

Mine wouldn't matter as its still in the works, besides I'm more interested in seeing some the knives you experienced veterans made.

Post 'em up !!!

My very first knife, a Bowie type blade, or at least thats what it was supposed to represent was given to a friend of mine. It was done with an oak handle originally. I made it at the Vo-Tech in my plumbing class in the 10th grade. It was such a boring class and the teacher so inattentive to the high school students due to being into the veterans that actually wanted to be there that we high schoolers had all kinds of time. I used mine at least once to do a knife using tools available there that I never had access to at home. That oak handle later broke off. I saw it long enough to stick a elk stag handle on it for it's current owner. This was back in the 80s and I had it long enough to take this pic of it. It is in Oregon with one of my life time best friends and has been since 1984 when I gave it to him. I had it in my closet for years before that as I graduated school in the late 70s. Apparently he uses it for a lot of things but I don't know why. Its really not that great! But, with that one I do know the location of it and I have seen it at least once since doing that one in high school. That ole knife was made from a leaf spring out of an old truck. 50 something Chevy as I recall!

The first folder I ever made was given to my brother and he lost that years ago. The original walnut handle cracked on that one once and I replaced it years later for him with some stabalized maple I think it was. Spalted but it was stabalized whatever it was. It was really rough! The blade was from a used paper mill blade. This paper mill blade was circular like a circular saw blade but with a highly polished straight edge which they used for cutting rolls of paper. The paper mill where my family all works in the area where I grew up in West Virginia used to toss them out and the stacks of these blades were in stacks taller than I am in places. Its still like that to this day. They are not high stainless as they will rust but I'm not sure what they are. They cut well I and thats all I know. They made pretty decent blades if you wanted to invest time in getting a blank out of one of them but they all had to be smaller knives and getting a blank out of one of them without ruining it was a bit tricky. I managed though on more than one occasion by using thin cut off discs and a dremmel and simply cutting them out. Took lots of patience and time doing that let me tell you. It is really not something you would want to do a lot. I never did do things the easy way though. There was an innocence to that back then. I look back and shake my head with a grin at some of the things I used to do to say I made a knife. I'd do it all over the exact same way though!

STR

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Mine from 5 years ago

I slowed drastically for about 2 years but started back about 3 years ago and I am slowly getting better. Well I hope.

 

[melsdad]

Here is my first one. Made in March of 2008.

O1 blade
Hickory scales

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Yes, palm sanders have their use.
As said, flat grinds and convex grinds will work ,because they have no lines to blur. The problem is because the platen on a hand sander moves in a slight arc, and thus sands a slight curve. This isn't a problem until you try to sand a crisp line where two planes meet.
For taking down the rough sanding and filing marks, they work well.

The small palm sanders and mouse sanders are great for some handle jobs,too.

Only other caveat is that holding a hand sander firmly for hours has got to be bad on the phalangeal, carpal, and meta-carpal joints. ( fingers ,hands, and wrist)

 

[JMJones]

Here is a pic of my first finished knife,

(stock removal d2, sent out for ht)

Here is a pic of the last knife I completed a month or so ago

Everything done by me including making the damascus and doing the ht, the thickness at the spine by the bolster is .088 iches)

Elapsed time, 2.5 year.