hand sanding a hollow grind

[Jack Henry]

hey guys. I just stared doing hollow grinds and i want to and sand some blades. But i dont how if it is even possible. my problem is i obviously cant a flat sanding stick but if a just use my thumb or something soft it will smear the grind lines and just look really bad. if you have any solutions to this problem i would love to hear them. Thanks in advace

 

[Bill DeShivs]

Cut a radiused backing plate for your sandpaper.
It needs to be close to the same radius as the wheel the knife was hollow ground on.

 

[ChristoDart]

Take a piece of scrap wood and grind the radius into it with your wheel. Spray glue it and apply sandpaper. Take a rough shaped piece of g10 or micarta and hand sand it with that negative until it fits. Go up in grit and you'll get a perfectly radiused hand sanding tool.

 

[TexasWade]

I used a radius sanding block as mentioned but I also glued a piece of leather onto it as a cushion. After the leather was on I also gave it a slight radius at the end for working the plunge line. Finish the flats last and it should turn out crisp. Hope you don't mind the big pics, but here's an example finished to 2000 grit with my leathered block. Forgive the extra scratches on the knife, it's been handled a fair amount and has been rolling around in various drawers for the last 23 years or so.

 

[jdm61]

Some of the razor guys use a cork as a sanding block.

 

[Varga Knives]

Grinding the sanding block radius to perfectly match that of a 10" wheel sounds a little iffy. The leather backing should go a long way to make up any inconsistencies but I was thinking (but haven't tried for this purpose) Instamorph. If you haven't picked up any it's good stuff to keep around the house for various projects. You can mold it right into the contour and it hardens like plastic. Just a thought.

 

[Bob Ohlemann]

I also have made hardwood blocks to match my wheels. My blocks are faced with 1/16" 70 duro rubber which allows them to slightly flex as necessary. They do not need to be an exact fit to the radius to work well, they just need to be close.

Bob