Hand Sanding 101

Great stuff. I personally appreciate the interjections and little things you say. Some provide humor, others provide that human element that keeps a longish video eminently watchable. FWIW, I used to coach a high school speech and debate team, and, with my other job, have done hundreds, if not thousands, of presentations. I know a little about the whole public speaking bit.

I do think you could make money off of these. Heck, even if it's just burning them to a DVD-R and scrawling a title on them with a Sharpie, I suspect many, myself included, would buy enough to make at least a little profit that might be nominally worth the hours you put into making them. I know I've learned a lot from stuff that you and Bruce Bump have put up for free, and I definitely appreciate it.
 
Finally had time to watch this. Great video Nick! Excellent presentation. But there is one thing that goofs up a lot of makers and that is sanding the plunge. I know you are extremely busy but if you do have a couple spare hours could you possibly put a video together of how you sand the plunge line?
 
Fine presentation Nick. Thank you for putting this together. You have a seriously generous and selfless attitude; especially considering this is how you earn your living. I owe you another tall frosty one!

Barry: Never enough for you - is it guy??? Seriously though, hope I'm not putting words in Nick's mouth but wanted to be sure you caught the section around 25:15. This specific motion has worked well for me if I choose the right backer. I try to concentrate on keeping the bar parallel to the plunge's shoulder step AND on focusing the pressure into just the radiused transition. Until the last few strokes at least.

Some folks begin their finishing pulls from behind the future guard shoulder and make continuous straight pulls by dropping into the plunge radius on the way to the tip. IME this WILL wash out your plunge's shoulder very quickly at anything grittier than say CAMI 800 or 1000 (and then Nick will see his video here as a failure and quit making more - so don't do that pls).

Another practice that can potentially help refine a satin finish at a given grit is to loosen clamping enough so you can SLIGHTLY shift the blade point right/left on your support as you apply your final dozen or so strokes (just 1/32" to 1/16" off center for smaller blades and ~1/8" on anything longer than say 8 - 9"). These tiny changes in angle are imperceptible in the blade finish except you'll find that your satin's uniformity, spine to edge, is higher than if all pulls were dead parallel to each other (even with fresh premium papers). I think because many makers remove/remount their blades a zillion times for inspection without any real indexing, this effect happens sort of naturally without intent. Think about this on the next FFG blade you finish. If it doesn't happen on its own because of your particular approach/setup, then force it. I bet you'll like the outcome.

Thanks again to Nick and all of you who continue raise the bar. What a fine group of gents!
 
Who the hell is Nick Wheeler?


...wow, I haven't said that in a while. : )
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Who the hell is Nick Wheeler?
Click to expand...


Damn if I know!!! :confused:

I heard something about a robot... ;) :D


Glad you guys got something out of that.


I started to show some other stuff in the video, but decided it would make it too long. And that's when I thought I could keep the whole thing around 10 minutes! :foot:

Sure glad I didn't include anything else, it would have been 6 hours long. LMFAO :)

I would like to do a "102" video... I just have to find the time (which is VERY VERY scarce around here lately!!! :eek:).
 
Nick, the secret to getting free time is to have some grunts (interns? Apprentices???) come around and do all the time consuming tasks you would normally do.
 
I've picked up so much from watching videos and the camp knife WIP about how Nick Wheeler does things that I feel like I owe you money... Thanks for posting the great info.
 
Thanks to Nick. I have learned a lot about hand sanding that has made my knives come out looking much better by watching his videos. Great video on hand sanding.

John
 
Thanks for putting in the effort Nick. Excellent video, I certainly picked up a few tricks. This sort of info wasn't around when I was learning.
I think ill be making some shaped sanding blocks tomorrow...
 
Thnx for the vid, realy enjoyed it.
Just one question: what is the use of the softer material on the sanding block you use for final gritt? What does it do?
 
Nick, thanks for making and posting this video! :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
Great video Nick! Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge. Hope to see you around since we are nearly neighbors. Do you have any shows planned locally?
 
Thanks for the video! I'm just getting into all of this so being able to actually watch someone explain stuff is a great help.
 
Glad to see that some guys got something out of it! :)



Thanks for taking the time to post as such... that makes me feel like it was worth doing it. :cool:


Doing the final pulls with a slightly softer backing just seems to give a nicer, more consistent finish. A big part of that for most of my knives, is the fact that they're slightly convex and not dead flat. But I have found it to work well even on a hollow grind. I honestly don't know the exact reasoning, but there are MANY other makes that do it too, so I don't think it's just a placebo. ;)


I think it's worth mentioning, that while I normally try to start hand-sanding from a "precision" starting point... it doesn't always happen. I'm working on a big-azz khukuri, and I did it exactly like the process I outlined in the video. I figured I could either stop work and make a 3/4"-1" wide flat platen that would allow me to grind the blade up to a high grit belt.... or I could grind it off the edge of the platen with a 60X and then move to hand-work.

Since hind-sight is 20/20... I should have made the damn platen!!! :eek: :foot: :D

A 52100 blade that's over 12" long and 2-1/2" wide is a whole lot of quite abrasion resistant steel to try and true-up/smooth out with frick'n sandpaper!!! :eek: :)


Dan- I'm sure we'll meet up at some point! I think my uncle met you at a gun show held at the Chehalis fairgrounds. :) Did you realize there's going to be a world class show with some of the biggest names in custom knives, held up in the Seattle area in a couple months??? :thumbup: :cool:


Oh, and I had missed the question about toilet paper, LMFAO. It's actually a roll of paper towels that I stuck on an extra long peg-board hook, so you're seeing the end view of the roll.... :D


Thanks fellas. :)
 
Nick, I did meet your uncle at the Chehalis gun show. He really liked the feel of an Ed Fowler style sheep horn knife I had on the table. I plan to be at the Eugene Oregon show table C-14 and visit the Seattle International Knife show in late April. May see you there. Keep up the great work.:thumbup:
 
Thank you so much Nick - amazing video!!

I've only finished two knives so far and both still have some vertical scratches from the sanding belt - not bad but I know they are there. My blades are basically convex, partly because that's the only way I know how to do them and also I have been told that with my Sears 2 x 42 sander, that's really all I can do. If I put the blade up against the belt with the platen in place in just jumps around and puts dings in the blade. So, I just take it all the way to 600 grit on the belt sander with the belt running vertically and platen removed. So the two questions:

1. Since I go to 600 on the belt sander should I still start hand sanding with 150? (Or should I switch to hand sanding before I get to 600?)

2. Will the hand sanding technique you show in the video work OK on a convex blade?

3. In the video were you hand sanding before or after heat treating the blade?

Thanks so much

Steve
 
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