grinding frustration.....!!!!!

My first words as well are ditch the tool rest.

Secondly, use a sharp roughing belt to grind bevels. It is much easier to quickly and evenly establish a good flat with a sharp belt.

Use a push stick, or at least try it. I always rough grind with one. You can get a good flat pass established without worrying about burning your thumb.

As mentioned above, grind your 45 deg. starter bevel down to your edge scribe line(s) with an old belt, then start with a sharp belt.

Body mass centered is a good point. Another is to have your grinder at a good grinding height. My suggestion is for the center of your contact wheel or platen at about belly button height.

Grinding is like juggling in that keeping your elbows tucked in the same position will help your accuracy. Likewise (this is where the push stick also helps) keep your wrists locked once you start a pass. Be conscious of whether your movements are inconsistent; be a grinding machine that brings the blade to the belt, then slides it right or left with no variance.

Have good lighting on both sides of the platen, and constantly be watching the gap between the edge and belt.

Once you have a flat established with a good firm pass or three, look at it to see how to proceed. If the flat is closer to the spine, bring the blade up to the belt in a loose grip until it hits the flat you previously established. Once you feel that flat, apply more pressure to start grinding. Apply more pressure to the edge side of the flat, to concentrate removal toward the edge.

If the flat you established is closer to the edge, bring the blade up loose, find your flat, apply pressure, more to the spine side in this case. Grinding is like coloring inside the lines. You start in the safe area with your flat, then color the flat outward until you have reached the edges.

When bringing the blade up loose, it will likely not hit the platen exactly on the flat you established. That's the point; since it's held loose, it auto-corrects to your flat without removing much material first.

It may make a mark where it first hits the belt, though. So, you want to bring the blade up not only loose, but erring on the side of caution- so the edge side of the flat hits the belt first if anything. It's much easier to touch up and remove an unwanted mark near the edge than near the spine in most cases.

As you become more confident of where your flat is and with grinding in general, these tricks will become less necessary but still essential to know.

There's a lot more I could write if I had the time right now, much of it is already on my grinding tips page with some pics. So here's the link if you've not read them before: https://www.prometheanknives.com/shop-techniques-3/grinding-tips
 
A good time to grind is when you are relaxed and in no hurry. Use a fresh belt, and get into a comfortable position in front of the machine. I like to grind edge up, but at this point grind in a fashion that suits you. Grind freehand and dump any tool rests. Use only light pressure and make gentle passes from the plunge line at the ricasso and work towards the tip in one fluid motion. Grind back from the edge and with each pass push the grind line higher up on the spine of the knife until it looks right. Rest the knife evenly over the entire belt to make the grind even without dimples. Always keep the blade moving too to avoid removing too much steel creating wavy uneven grinds.

The first grind with the coarse belt will provide the rough initial shape of the knife, then using progressively finer grits the final shape and finish can be achieved. I do alot of final shaping using 120grit, and then fine tune things with 240 and finer grits. Then do the heat treatment followed by finishing.

Check your work often as once ground off one cannot put it back. Pay attention to blade symettry
 
If you're really getting frustrated practicing with steel, try
using wooden paint sticks. Cheap:thumbup:, easy to get and when you
screw it up it becomes kindling. Seriously, the feedback is instant and
it'll help you with locking your arms in and moving smoothly. The
wood will show you really quickly how you're doing.

Bill
 
Guys I cant thank you enough for all the tips...I left the grinder alone for a day and went back to it and I am glad I did. The first attempt back I took my time and started with a 45 degree grind along the blade edge and walked the grind up little by little..I even amazed myself with the finished product.I took a little bit from all of you.Salem, That loose grip trick worked like a charm.I'll try to post a pic or two later on or tomorrow..Once again I can't thank everyone enough for the time all of you took to respond, and for all the good advice, you really did help me out with this one.

Dan
 
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Don't ditch the tool rest. :)

I ground freehand for several years and THEN went to a rest. I can grind faster, more aggressively, and with more control. Taking the horizontal plane out of the variables equation will give you one less thing to worry about. :)
 
NickWheeler said:
Don't ditch the tool rest. :)

I ground freehand for several years and THEN went to a rest. I can grind faster, more aggressively, and with more control. Taking the horizontal plane out of the variables equation will give you one less thing to worry about. :)
Click to expand...

Dave Lisch was going to do a demo at OKCA on grinding with a rest, it seems Quesenberry is corrupting everyone. But someone stole the platen attachments from the show....so Dave instead went over the technique behind grinding with a rest. He's a great teacher so I got the concept of what he was advising.
It seems a key besides where you place your thumb on the tang is the use of push stick.

Anyhoo....
Congrats! Walking the grind up the flats isn't natural and I would t have ever tried it without a friend explaining it to me.
 
delbert ealy said:
Try grinding a rectangular bar rather than one that is profiled. You will be able to see if your grind is consistant that way, and you can always turn them into knives later.
Click to expand...
As usual, Del has great advice here. Let's break this down: we want to end up with a keen, even bevel. So let's start by scribing the centerline (or two lines equally close to it) along one straight edge, then grinding a 45-degree bevel down to it from both sides. From there it's just a matter of lowering the angle of approach bit-by-bit to bring the bevel as high as you want. I feel it's better to take many smooth, light passes than it is to try to hog off a bunch of steel at once.

Profiling a blade is the easiest part of grinding. If you have a straight bar with a straight bevel, you can then profile the tip and start working on blending the bevel around whatever belly you put on it. Simply maintain your angle of approach and turn the blank so the edge is always perpendicular to the belt.

This isn't the way I learned to grind; I started out like most folks by profiling a bar to look like a knife-shape first (because that's the easy and fun part), then tackling many skills at once to get the dang thing beveled evenly. I've learned through trial and error to do this, and hardly ever ruin a blade anymore, but I used up a lot of time, steel and belts to get here. If I were to instruct a new maker today, I'd have them start with an un-profiled straight bar no more than 6" long.
 
However you go about it and there are many different techniques; the fewer passes you make, when grinding a blade, the fewer chances you have to screw up the grind. Thats why we have these wonderful ceramic belts to grind with. They are made to run using as much pressure as you can exert and with as much belt speed as possible.
Most of all enjoy your hours in the shop:thumbup:
 
Glad you are making progress. As evidenced by this thread, there is no one "right way" but now you are on track to finding what is right for you.

Practice lots.
 
NickWheeler said:
Don't ditch the tool rest. :)

I ground freehand for several years and THEN went to a rest. I can grind faster, more aggressively, and with more control. Taking the horizontal plane out of the variables equation will give you one less thing to worry about. :)
Click to expand...

When I had first acquired my grinder, Nick took me in for the day and taught me this method for flat grinding with a tool-rest and push-stick. I have since become fairly comfortable grinding free-hand -- with some shapes and grinds, you just have to go free-hand -- but I'd say that 90% of my flat grinds are still done the way Nick showed me. As he said... fast, aggressive and more controlled... at least for me. :thumbup:

Erin
 
Well the pics aren't all that great but I think you'll get the idea..

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Looks like you took most of this to heart! Plunges are nice and even, grinds pretty much symmetrical, edge straight and centered. Not much else to say, except go grind another. It took me about 8 blades before I got one I could live with, and many, many more before I got consistent results I was happy with.
 
Thanks everyone for the great discussion- I'm less than halfway to having made my first hundred knives and it can be pretty frustrating, ALMOST getting the results I want but falling short.
I wonder if it's like blacksmithing: I'm so glad I started out doing everything with a hand hammer, learning technique from some really solid smiths. Now I do almost everything with the power hammer, but starting with a hammer really gave me a feel for steel that might have been difficult without that start.
If you CAN grind freehand but use a rest when needed, that's a pretty solid approach.
One thing for sure- Lisch is doing a class this summer just on grinding- I don't want to miss it!
Andy G.
 
I took everyone's advise and I ditched the rest so this was done completely free hand...I'm just afraid that I took it too far with the 50 grit. I'm still happy with it, I'll probably clean er' up and finish it!
 
You can always lightly grind the edge to take off a tiny bit and thicken it up if you go too far there. Not much you can do with the upper portion of the bevels without thinning the knife, but they'll come down a bit when you cleanup the sides anyway.

One thing I've started being more careful about recently is getting a nice smooth edge FIRST, rather than having it all rough from being profiled on a 36 or 50 grit. It's easier to see when you're trying to figure out where you're at and whether you're straight. I just give it a light vertical run with a 60 or 80 grit, that's all it takes. I just clean off the sideways scratches from the profiling. I figure I'm going to have to smooth it out anyway before heat treating, might as well get it close before I start doing bevels since it's really easy to trash it once it's thin. If I get it smooth ahead of time I can just take some 220 sand paper later and give it a quick touch up.

Great thread guys. I always love these because we get to hear about all the different methods folks use and learn new things. It seems like even though it might be 75% the same info as the previous ten threads like it, there's a few new tricks to be learned every time.
 
Erin- I don't want to come off as argumentative, but I can't think of a grind that I couldn't do with either the spine resting on a tool rest, or my knuckles lightly gracing the tool rest.

I have ZERO intent here on disuading freehand grinding!!!!! :) I still do it sometimes just to make sure I remember how--- but there is this long standing stigma that if you do grind with some kind of a rest then you are somehow less of a knife maker. That is something I totally disagree with. It's like "tool rest" is some sort of dirty word.

From the stock removal camp, SR Johnson starts his grinds on a tool rest. From the forging side, Tim Hancock grinds on a tool rest. If anyone can put out better work than those two and is more of a knife maker by banishing the very idea of a tool rest--- I'd like to see it. ;) :)

Personally, I really don't care how anyone does it, so long as they enjoy it and do the best work that they can. :) :thumbup:


So as to not derail the OP's thread here--- that blade looks pretty darn good. :) I could show you how to grind it to that point, with a sharp transition from bevel to flats--- in 3 minutes. ;) :)
 
Nick, do you work with a flat toolrest or something that lets you rock the blade up and down to follow the edge?

PS: Just to make sure, I wasn't implying tool rests are bad per say. :o Just suggesting a change that could maybe make something click for the OP.
 
For me personally a tool rest is a necessity. I'm not steady enough with out one and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Its silly to not take advantage of so essential a piece of shop equipment. I've posted this adjustable rest before, but its worth looking at if you are considering adding a tool rest to a grinder. I scavenged this table from the end of a portable miter saw table. It adjust in and out up and down as well as tilt. It took maybe 1/2 a day to put together.
I grind with my fingers or knuckles riding either the table surface or the rail along the back of the rest as Nick does. I'm grinding with a bubble reference most of the time and by using the tool rest, I can grind the full length of the blade keeping the bubble steady and centered.

When I see these threads that discuss the merits of this jig or that attachment or fixture, It makes me want to sit down and watch an episode of American wood worker on PBS; those three guys have a jig, fixture, attachment for every operation they do and their proud to share them with you.



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