Help with Bolsters. No disc grinder....

colu41

colu41

Joined
Dec 24, 2014
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So I've made a few knives with Bolsters. They turn out ok,but I've stayed away from them as it's incredibly difficult for me to get them square. As I don't have a disc grinder. As of late, I have finally ordered a ceramic platen for my grinder. Will this suffice to square up bolsters? Is it just personal preference?
Any tips would be cool as I've got a lot of 1/4" stainless bar laying around for bolsters.
 
Get 'em close on a platen, then spray glue or even tape some sandpaper to a piece of glass or a surface plate if you have one, and lap them dead flat. Works great.
 
Yes, it works even better than the disk, considering the risk of rolling while lifting from it.
For dead flat surfaces the surface plate + sandpaper should be always the last step. The best is an 8 shape path to avoid tilting the surface more toward one side
 
Agreed, regarding flattening the surfaces that will go against the blade. I think the OP is having problems square fitting the joint between the bolster and the handle material. In that case, if you can use a work rest set square to your platen, and if you can turn your belt speed down, you can probably make it work. It's a work-around, for sure though. I did a whole mess of bolsters on the 6" disk on the side of my 2x42, FWIW. You don't necessarily have to have an expensive disk, just one with a work table.
 
Jason Fry said:
Agreed, regarding flattening the surfaces that will go against the blade. I think the OP is having problems square fitting the joint between the bolster and the handle material. In that case, if you can use a work rest set square to your platen, and if you can turn your belt speed down, you can probably make it work. It's a work-around, for sure though. I did a whole mess of bolsters on the 6" disk on the side of my 2x42, FWIW. You don't necessarily have to have an expensive disk, just one with a work table.
Click to expand...

I have yet to do a bolstered Knife since I built my VS 2x72. I'll wait til I get my ceramic platen in and try it on the work rest.
 
If you have access to a mill, I would square it using that. I've done a couple bolsters and when I used my grinder to square up it was much more difficult, but can be done. I wasted a lot of material because I basically squared the angles for the joint with my grinder, then I cutout the profile. Now with my mill, I profile, set the angle and just mill it flat.

Another thing about squaring with my grinder is the work rest being square. My non tilting work rest is .5 deg off... my pivoting table gets me pretty close.
 
I made probably 40+ bolstered knives before I got my disc grinders. I lap them flat on a surface plate with sandpaper and squared the back edges on my 2x72. I don't touch the top or bottom of the bolsters until the knife is all assembled and I always freehand the front edges as a pair clamped together with a pair of vise-grips. I think a lot of people make bolsters harder than they need to be.

Bob
 
I'm with Bob on this one- for me, 2/3 of getting a tight fit is getting the order of operations right.
Also, dovetail bolsters are actually a bit easier to get looking good than 90deg flat ones- I have a 30deg. ramp that I clamp to my tool rest, and I don't move it til bolster and matching scale are done, just in case.
 
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