Horizontal Finish

[Lycosa]

Hi Gang. Larry Mensch made me a ATS34 Kwaiken and he put a horizontal finish on it. I swear that blade finish hides scratches better. Has anyone noticed this also? Would a horizontal "grind" work also? Thanks.

 

[Leu Custom]

it hides scratches better because that's the way scratches come about ! Especially with a kydex sheath !

 

[Will Leavitt]

Rolf, all my blades have a "horizontal finish" I call it a hand rubbed finish

 

[Lycosa]

Thanks Po and Will.
A horizontal finish would be easier to do on a horizontal grind, no? Japanese blades are polished horizontally. That is what got me thinking about this.

 

[Will Leavitt]

Horizontal grind? I'm assuming you meant flat grind? A lot of people have gone to using sanding blocks with matching radii if they're hollow ground. A cheaper trick is to use some polymer clay, match it to your blade grind then bake it and voila! you have a sanding block that matches the hollow grind.

 

[Lycosa]

Will---I mean grinding the blade from ricasso to point, front to back, like a surface grinder.

 

[Justin King]

I hand-finish all my blades lengthwise with a hard sanding block. This is the final tuning of the geometry and will show you just how straight your grinds are.

 

[silver_pilate]

So, let me paraphrase the question. You like the hand finish that runs from ricasso to tip and want to know if there's a way you can actually grind the knives with the scratch marks running the same way (ricasso to tip).

The hardest thing about grinding like that would be the plunge area as there aren't really any readily available attachments that can back that type of small diameter change in belt direction. That being said, Kyle Royer made an attachment that would work for finish grinding that I saw on one of his WIP threads a while back. Here's the pics:

This wouldn't work for the bulk of the grinds. They would be done the same way you normally would. This would work with a J-flex belt for cleaning up your plunges and maybe establishing the ricasso-to-tip scratch marks on a mostly finished blade in prep for hand sanding.

--nathan

 

[cfendley]

looks dangerous unless the grinder is running backwards.

 

[Lycosa]

SP--- That's it! This would work for a flat or convex blade styles, correct. Here in Lewisburg, a few years back, an older gent was making knives like this. They were simple yet beautiful and Sharp! He passed away and that's all I know about him. I'd like to see one of you guys make one to see how it looks. Whatcha tink??