Recommendation? Grinding practice and mild steel

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Cushing H.

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Question - mild steel is readily available and inexpensive. Is it a reasonable substitute for practicing grinding (and practicing plunge line refinement)???

Some have recommended paint stir sticks ... but mild steel seems like a better substitute.....
 
I have used it a few times for trial runs. Well worth doing.
Just watch out for cheap stuff at Lowe's that might not be flat. I also find that I sometimes do better on the practice piece, possibly because I'm more relaxed.
 
I think practicing on mild steel is absolutely a good idea. It is far cheaper than blade steel and you will be more willing to try things outside your comfort zone, especially if you have a halfway decent grind going. I do a lot of practice pieces in all kinds of materials before I will apply a technique to a knife. Here's a practice piece of mother-of-pearl with 24k gold piquet.

Bob

 
I made a few practice grinds on mild steel starting out. I have a fab shop local to me where I bought several feet for the price of scrap at the time.
 
I have thought about offering a few simple blade styles out of mild steel for grinding practice.
 
It’s an excellent substitute for learning bevels. And just about any knife related grinding. When I first took a grinding lesson the bladesmith told me to bring Mild steel flat bars from McMaster-Carr
 
When first learning to use your grinder, or testing out a grind style, it is fine to use mild steel. But, once you have that down, switch to something cheap in blade steel like 1070,1084, 5160. It will allow you to finish any learning projects that come out good. The ones that don't work out can be dropped in a box for later attempts. It will amaze you how you will one day take a "ruined" blade and quickly change it to another style and get a good knife from it.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
When first learning to use your grinder, or testing out a grind style, it is fine to use mild steel. But, once you have that down, switch to something cheap in blade steel like 1070,1084, 5160. It will allow you to finish any learning projects that come out good. The ones that don't work out can be dropped in a box for later attempts. It will amaze you how you will one day take a "ruined" blade and quickly change it to another style and get a good knife from it.
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Great idea. That's basically what I did starting out and there are very few blades that will not be finished. There is a pairing knife in every Bowie.
 
I agree with Stacy. You can almost always come up with some kind of useful knife even if you don't use it for anything other than cutting roots out of your tiller.

The down side of using mild steel bar stock which is the same size as your blade steel is getting them mixed up and making a nice blade only to find out it won't harden.

Besides, when you look at the price of belts used for practice, the cost of non-stainless blade steel is usually negligible.

Jim A
 
You might even check with Home Depot and Lowe's if you live near one. They carry it where I'm at.
 
One thing you can't do with mild is grind a hardened blade. I find that it is so much more predictable vs soft steel. I only grind large blades prior to HT.
 
DAMNENG said:
when you look at the price of belts used for practice, the cost of non-stainless blade steel is usually negligible.
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It is more of an immediate-accessability and quantity thing (home depot has it). Also, I am more inclined to do that kind of practice in a very targeted way (are the bevels even? Are they flat? Are my plunges ok ... and what different grinding techniques can I use to really true them up? I dont want to worry about destroying the steel for lack of trying different techniques - part of learning is learning what NOT to do..... sometimes very intentionally :)
 
I've never ground a practice blade of mild steel. My reasoning for always using knife steel was: Yes it costs a little more, but what if I ground a perfect blade of mild steel? Boy I'd have been angry! I didn't mind throwing a few scraps away but I wanted to be able to use all of the good grinds.
 
DevinT said:
I never had the discipline to practice
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Sure seemed to work for you Hoss!!! :)

just fyi - what is initially driving this question is that I am working on a skinner for a friend ... and while I have done some small plunge lines, I have not yet had designs that needed a longer, nice looking plunge line. I would rather mess up on mild steel several times, then have a higher chance of producing something much more acceptable on the real skinner... However, I do have additional grinding techniques I would just like to practice that I have not yet done, like along full flat grind, a long single-bevel flat grind (for a yanagiba), etc.
 
Jesse Latham said:
I've never ground a practice blade of mild steel ... I wanted to be able to use all of the good grinds.
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I am not actually even thinking of making "practice blades" - rather just starting in on the un-profiled square stock with what I want to hit. quick in - quick out ... no tears over a "good" blade that wont harden - because it will never even look like a blade!
 
Like you said, accessibility is a thing. The cost of the steel isn’t that different, adding shipping makes it more different, ordering and waiting when you have the itch to just try something is the biggest difference. Yes you could theoretically stock up, but that is some up front investment.

One of the reasons folks use thing like paint sticks etc over mild steel is the profiling aspect. There isn’t much to practice about profiling a blade, the hard part is the bevels. A piece of wood is much quicker and cleaner to get into blade shape to practice bevels vs a piece of steel. You can just zip it out on your bandsaw or scroll saw even. The wood does not give the same feedback or predictability of removal rate though, so it’s good for getting a feel for angles, less so for pressure. You can get a sense of what happens when you put pressure in certain places, but it happens much quicker than it would on steel.
 
I have noticed grinding mild vs good steel is more relaxing. As soon as you add the factor of oh this might be good enough to make a knife from you mess up. It’s weird, the harder you focus the faster things go down hill.
 
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