Gadgets to hold small blades for flattening

J

JoshEarl

Joined
Sep 30, 2007
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I'm trying to come up with a better way to hang on to my straight razor blades when I'm grinding the tangs flat. I currently have one of the big knife magnets from Texas Knife. It works pretty well, but it's a little clumsy for such small blades. And once I get past rough grinding and start polishing, the steel and magnets tend to scratch the tang up on the side I'm not grinding, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Does anyone have any clever jigs or contraptions to hold a blade flat against the platen?

Thanks,
Josh
 
I have two with articulating falanges that hold each end of the blade/tang and position it to the grinding media. How ever they are somewhat sensitive to heat and when over heated they tend to turn loose of the blade and it falls to the floor and can get really messed up there.
 
What about embedding a magnet in something like a 2x4 then covering it with something like duct tape? Stick the blade to the magnet and then put the block against the grinder. The tape will help prevent scratches on the tang.
 
I use a piece of 3/8" g-10, with pivot holes drilled into it. i just slide pins in it, lay a piece of paper towel down put blade on top secured by pivot pins and grind away. saves the fingertips! paper towel keeps blade from being scratched above 220 grit.
 
Get some of these magnets mount one like I described here and then glue a thin piece of rubber over the magnet. You could make it even smaller, by removing the magnet from its backing plate and then using a good high temp glue to glue it directly to a smaller piece of aluminum with the handle you prefer. I'll whip one out today and try it out.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=724703
 
Bill Burke said:
I have two with articulating falanges that hold each end of the blade/tang and position it to the grinding media. How ever they are somewhat sensitive to heat and when over heated they tend to turn loose of the blade and it falls to the floor and can get really messed up there.
Click to expand...

:D Don't we all...
 
Mine have phalanges. They are covered in a tough pliable coating which I seem to be constantly repairing.
 
Too bad we don't have opposeable toes or I could burn four sets of elastic phalanges coating membrane at once.
 
ib2v4u said:
Get some of these magnets mount one like I described here and then glue a thin piece of rubber over the magnet. You could make it even smaller, by removing the magnet from its backing plate and then using a good high temp glue to glue it directly to a smaller piece of aluminum with the handle you prefer. I'll whip one out today and try it out.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=724703
Click to expand...

That looks like exactly what I need. If you end up making an extra one, I'll buy it from you... :)

Josh
 
No problem, it works great but, when I tried rubber cementing a thin piece of rubber on it the rubber would slip as soon as it was warm. I got another idea. I am going to put it in a baggy then rubber band it at the knob base. Then I will have a soft cover on the magnet and when I get filings built up just undo the baggy turn it inside out and dump it.
I am grinding out over 20 D2 drop point hunters right now, so I will know if there are problems shortly.

Anyone want a big pile of D2 filings

Well the baggy melted. Of course I was getting after it with a 80 grit belt and straightening out my plunges and flatten my primary bevels. Might work if you dunked it every pass on HT steel. A piece of duct tape worked better as a pad and held on longer. That would work to prevent scratches on HT steel you didn't want to scratch and didn't let get hot.

I have to make a hardware store run. I will pick up another good knob and make up another if you want it. Might go into the handy dandy magnet business LOL
, but, I don't anymore like these on Ebay.
 
Last edited:
The duct tape or something similar sounds like a good option. Mainly I will be using this post-heat treatment, so I will want to avoid excessive heat.

I'll send you an email and we can make arrangements. :)

Thanks,
Josh
 
:D
JoshEarl said:
I'm trying to come up with a better way to hang on to my straight razor blades when I'm grinding the tangs flat. I currently have one of the big knife magnets from Texas Knife. It works pretty well, but it's a little clumsy for such small blades. And once I get past rough grinding and start polishing, the steel and magnets tend to scratch the tang up on the side I'm not grinding, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Does anyone have any clever jigs or contraptions to hold a blade flat against the platen?

Thanks,
Josh
Click to expand...

Josh

I used to work in a micro electronics lab where we would use a high temp hotmelt glue to hold substrate material to a brass plate while feeding it through a diamond saw. We then reheated the glue to break the bond. The residual was washed of with acetone. The stuff was called Crystal bond and was a styrene based plastic adheasive.
You might use a similar technique to bond your blades to a work piece.

Jim Arbuckle
 
ib2v4u was kind enough to send me one of his little hard drive magnets and a machined aluminum holder for a reasonable price. I assembled it with a little JB Weld and gave it a whirl tonight. It's exactly what I was hoping for--very little scratching, much easier to control on small blades, and a solid grip on whatever I'm working on. An added bonus is that it's all metal, so I can dunk the whole thing. My other blade holder is mostly wood, so dunking to cool wasn't a good idea. :)

Thanks, ib2v4u!

Josh

ib2v4u said:
No problem, it works great but, when I tried rubber cementing a thin piece of rubber on it the rubber would slip as soon as it was warm. I got another idea. I am going to put it in a baggy then rubber band it at the knob base. Then I will have a soft cover on the magnet and when I get filings built up just undo the baggy turn it inside out and dump it.
I am grinding out over 20 D2 drop point hunters right now, so I will know if there are problems shortly.

Anyone want a big pile of D2 filings

Well the baggy melted. Of course I was getting after it with a 80 grit belt and straightening out my plunges and flatten my primary bevels. Might work if you dunked it every pass on HT steel. A piece of duct tape worked better as a pad and held on longer. That would work to prevent scratches on HT steel you didn't want to scratch and didn't let get hot.

I have to make a hardware store run. I will pick up another good knob and make up another if you want it. Might go into the handy dandy magnet business LOL
, but, I don't anymore like these on Ebay.
Click to expand...
 
I picked up one of these from Harbor Freight for a couple of dollars. They have different sizes.
 

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Glad it worked out for you Josh. Actually for me the bigger setup has worked best for me grinding blanks pre HT as it doesn't get as hot as the little one. I do a lot of D2 and don't want to have to grind it after HT. I have found a piece of thin 304 stainless that I chisel ground the edges on to work best to scrape off the metal fuzzies they accumulate.

If anyone is interested in this setup check out this thread. I don't want to make anymore except for myself, but, they are simple and very strong.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=724703
 
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