Well, I've been at it for a while now and finally more or less gotten the hang of how it's supposed to work (even if I may need a little more practice still), and I can say without a doubt that the first knife is a "practice."
1. Don't get fancy, and do everything you can against a platen. Slack grinding is nice as it evens things out pretty well, but flat is easier to reproduce, and good for right angles, which is hard to get in small places, so a very small-diameter wheel is pretty key (I need one of these...) if you're doing detailed choil or handle cutout work.
2. Don't get greedy. Go slow, and keep from taking too much off. You'll find yourself grinding off half the knife to take out the ridges left from the edge of a belt if you try to do too much too fast.
3. Try and make it sharp LAST. The belt will hit the edge now and then if you're not careful, and then you gotta regrind the whole edge down to match the spot you just took out by accident. Dremel tools fit into this category also (not bad for detail work around a guard or something).
4. Don't get fancy at first. Things are hard to make the same by eye, and hand-sanding things is really a pain in the rear.
5. Finish as much as you can on the grinder. I don't need TOO fancy so 400 grit polishes it up pretty darn well for hand-sanding at 600 and up, but a recent post here reccomending cork belts isn't a bad idea.
6. Plunge cuts are tough. Go slow, and try practicing it first, or you'll be left with a ramp instead of a plunge, where both sides look different and it's really hard to help the situation.
7. FLAT=GOOD. Once a dip presents itself, you can't get in there to take out the striation marks to save your life.
Any newbie tips for ME appreciated, but I figured I'd throw this up here to let ya'll know how it's going. I'll still finish the knife since I've invested time and money into it, but I hope the next one has a much nicer overall finish b/c this one's a beater, and has a totally changed design since I ground off so much by accident and had to even it all out (I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode when Jerry shaves his chest hair).
_z
1. Don't get fancy, and do everything you can against a platen. Slack grinding is nice as it evens things out pretty well, but flat is easier to reproduce, and good for right angles, which is hard to get in small places, so a very small-diameter wheel is pretty key (I need one of these...) if you're doing detailed choil or handle cutout work.
2. Don't get greedy. Go slow, and keep from taking too much off. You'll find yourself grinding off half the knife to take out the ridges left from the edge of a belt if you try to do too much too fast.
3. Try and make it sharp LAST. The belt will hit the edge now and then if you're not careful, and then you gotta regrind the whole edge down to match the spot you just took out by accident. Dremel tools fit into this category also (not bad for detail work around a guard or something).
4. Don't get fancy at first. Things are hard to make the same by eye, and hand-sanding things is really a pain in the rear.
5. Finish as much as you can on the grinder. I don't need TOO fancy so 400 grit polishes it up pretty darn well for hand-sanding at 600 and up, but a recent post here reccomending cork belts isn't a bad idea.
6. Plunge cuts are tough. Go slow, and try practicing it first, or you'll be left with a ramp instead of a plunge, where both sides look different and it's really hard to help the situation.
7. FLAT=GOOD. Once a dip presents itself, you can't get in there to take out the striation marks to save your life.
Any newbie tips for ME appreciated, but I figured I'd throw this up here to let ya'll know how it's going. I'll still finish the knife since I've invested time and money into it, but I hope the next one has a much nicer overall finish b/c this one's a beater, and has a totally changed design since I ground off so much by accident and had to even it all out (I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode when Jerry shaves his chest hair).
_z