Help! Grinding trouble

[arkhamdrifter]

Well, I made my first knife...sort of. Try not to laugh OK? It is a small fixed blade with a swept profile. I ground the blade on a standard wheel grinder (the kind with the buffer on the other end) since that's all I had available. I know that its not well suited for the task but I just wanted to make a knife even if I had to grind it with a rock.
I chisel ground the blade with a single bevel to the edge. I did this grind freehand and it was a real chore to achieve the same angle with each pass. Sometimes I placed the knife dead on and other times I ended up making contact at the wrong angle. Is improving this grind a matter of skill that improves with LOTS of practice or is this grind better achieved with some sort of guide that helps to insure more accurate alignment at the contact point.
Also, what type of grinder is best suited for this grind? Turns out the grind wasnt the only problem but that's another story. Anyway, I've wanted to make knives for about 10 years now and I am finally getting around to trying. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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Never argue with a man that wears a size 5 hat.

 

[Osbourn]

I started on a grinder similar to what you have. I usually made convex grinds with it. What you might want to consider is to do the rough grinding with the grinder, then switch to files once you want to do the bevels. Make sure it's fully annealed first, and clamp it down. The kind of grinder you need for a chisel or flat grind is a belt grinder with a platen. Otherwise, you'll always have to do some filing. Files work great, I've made a couple of blades using only files, but it's slow going. Hope this helps.

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Oz

"When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt."
- Henry J. Kaiser

 

[shengq]

osbourn, have you tried filing 1095? I found it's neally impossible. I threw them into oven at the highest tempture for a few hours to anneal them, and my files still don't bite them well. Do you know exactly how soft 1095 can be annealed to? Can it be hand filed to a well-shaped blade at that softness? Is there a simple way to achieve the best annealling result? thank you very much! BTW, my 1095 bars are from Admiral.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Draw file your blade. Clamp the blade onto a narrow board in your vise, hold the file perpendicular with the handle of the file on your left side and pull towards the tip of the blade. Be careful not to round over the tip. Start with a bastard cut file then finish with a smoother cut file. It will take longer to sand all the file marks out but it keeps the bevel flat.