Experienced free handers, help a rookie out

JW Knives

JW Knives

Joined
Feb 22, 2011
Messages
566
I've worked on this knife the past couple days and I'm ready to put an edge on it. In the past I just use the same 2*72 grinder that I use to grind to put the edge on. Do any of you have any tips for getting a killer, symmetrical edge free handed? I have about a 1/32" flat edge just waiting to be made sharp.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!!


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Beautiful. I like how the wood grain flows with the finger grooves. Can't comment on sharpening though still learning myself
 
Practice on all of your cheap knives first. You do have a pile of crappy old knives laying around right?


I like to use a 30 or 60 micron belt followed by a quick pass on the buffer with pink compound to knock the wire edge off.

Run the belt really slow if you have variable speed. I use the edge of the belt and make full length passes from plunge to tip alternating sides until I get a wire edge along the whole length. Be really careful not to overheat the tip. If you're using a Grizzly grinder take the contact wheel off and run the belt directly on the shaft. This is about the perfect belt speed for sharpening.

Getting the angle right is really just a matter of practice. Once you've sharpened every knife in the house you should have a better idea of what angle to hold your new knife at.
 
It's not what you asked about, but my suggestion is you grind your blades thinner. I know you said about 1/32, and not EXACTLY 1/32, but if we run with that number, that's 0.03125" or 31 thousandths for short. A knife like this doesn't need to chop through concrete, it needs to slice like a scalpel, so you can take a blade like this (with proper heat-treat!) down to at least half that thickness, but I would take it down to about 0.010, then sharpen. Okay technically I would feather it into an edge during final grinding, but that's another thread ;)

It's a very pretty knife and it looks very clean, EXCELLENT handle shaping--- well done!!! :) :thumbup: :)

But I guarantee if you put two hunting knives in an experienced hunter's hand, one with a super thin edge and one with a thick edge, he'll take the thin edge EVERY time. :)
 
I agree to the above, and starting with a really thin edge greatly reduces the difficulty of sharpening it.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys, I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of this "knife making" stuff, having a blast doing it too!

I threw a gauge on it and technically were at 28 thousandths. I'm thinking for this one I'll just throw a dull belt on the 2*72 and take my time.

And Nick I might try that "feather to zero" technique on my next one.
 
I'm with Nick. I grind all my smaller blades thin, almost zero, and they take about 10 seconds to put a small secondary bevel on medium and fine DMT diamond plates. I also use a Lansky, and it's a short process.

I'd like to think that any of my customers could easily touch up the edge with no problems too.

If your'e already done with HT, and you're going back to the grinder, have a bucket of water handy. Things go wrong fast when you're going thin.
 
That's a stunning "rookie" knife.

0.028 is thick. I sharpen on a Diamond block by hand, and once had one about that thick. It took probably 2 hours to give it an edge. Oh, and that was only 2.25" long! Then later I wanted to raise the edge to thin it out more. Personally I stay away from the grinder after shaping the handle to the tang. Now it's wicked, but it took patience. The nice thing about a block is that it's hard to screw up in an unfixable way. (though I bet I could if you challenged me...)

-Daizee
 
Sharp belts lower the risk of overheating the edge and especially the tip. A new finer grit belt is much better than a worn out courser grit belt.


I like about .010 at the edge for a knife that size too. I just reground my EDC last night because after 6 years of sharpening the edge had gotten to about .020 thick.
 
Nice, thanks for all the advice guys, ill be sure to go a littlw thinner next time. I don't want to do it on this blade though because I've already hand sanded to 1000 grit. Ill keep you posted on how it turns out, will likely be putting the edge on it tonight!!
 
Practice and sharp, higher grit belts are probably the best advice I can give. As long as you maintain the same angle on both sides, it shouldn't be too hard to center the line fairly accurately.

I'm actually looking into getting some paper wheels before too long.
 
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