How do you make the point?

D

DaQo'tah Forge

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hi this is DaQo'tah

I'm busy today working on my knife,,,I got it heat treated,and I'm getting the blade ready to etch,, I'm on the belt sander , working it all down to a sharp edge.

And this is where I keep haveing trouble...I can get the long parts of the blade sharp, but as I move the blade along the belts, I always end up with a rounded point.

I try to stay away from the point for a while sometimes, but this seems to make me have to catch up later, and that leads again to a rounder point....

Whats the trick to getting a sharp point, that blends in the same Convex curve as the rest of the blade?
 
I was just getting ready to ask the exact same question. I'm thinking that the closer you get to the tip, the convex grind needs to fade to more of a flat grind somehow. Do you work the blade closer to the wheel at this point so that there is less slack in the belt?

Rick
 
DaQo'tah,

There is a couple ways I approach it. Baumr mentioned one of them. I do that at least half the time. The other thing I use a lot is the same principle but different method... don't press as hard. It will make the slack less and thus a more accute angle. Careful though, you have less steel to cut up towards the tip, so it will be easier to burn the blade. Just dip in water a lot. Every other pass or so. May take a little longer because of the caution, but not much more than doing the larger parts of the blade. Hope that helps.

-Jason
 
this is DaQo'tah

I got hold of a old copy of BLADE, and there is a story about how to make a sharp good point. But the trouble is that the story dont tell me Anything about how to do it!,,,,the writer just does not go over the tricks you need to use to make a sharp thin point on a knife.

I look at the knives that appear in BLADE, and they all have such nice sharp thin points,,how do they do that?.. Some points are so thin at the end that they look like needles!I have another question about belt grinding the tip.

When you are moving the knife across the belt, you start at the place near the handle correct?...then as you move the blade, as you get closer to the edge, do you drop the handle end down? I ask cuz when you sharpen a knife on a stone, I see that you have to slightly change the position of the handle to get the stone to stay with the tip area.

(oh, one last thing, How come in a Mag like BLADE, there are so few good stories on how to make a knife? Why do we never really see a story about how this or that Knife maker does some stuff?..I know that many things are held as secret, and good for them, but for the life of me I dont understand why the guys down at BLADE dont even see the need it seems, for way more stories on how to make a knife! And the very few stories we get that have something to do with knife making have such poor photos that its near impossable to see what the writer is talking about...yes, I'm venting:)
 
Yes you do kind of have to change the position of the knife as you pass over the belt when sharpening in the point.
Try this when sharpening the point area,Dont take it any farther than the center of the belt,and only rock it up slightly.Don't make the point to needle shaped to start out the design,as this will make you loose the point.Is the edge of the point a little thicker than the straight part of the edge? This can cause you to have to grind more off when sharpening thus causing you to take the point off.Just reshape (profile ) the point and try it again.
Sharpening a knife can become a art form all in itself.
Bruce
 
What Bruce said. :cool:

I tend to simply keep the blade perfect straight, as in horizontal. If you use the light touch method you can keep the blade straight and the change in convexity adjusts with tension of the belt. Some blades however require I pull the handle away from the machine and tilt the point closer into the belt. So, it will depend on style also, or mood. :p Another trick I use is to just slightly go past the center of the belt and the belt will round a little and create an angle for the point. That takes practice though. I should be at the shop today I can try and take some pics.
 
Maybe I'm doing it the harder way but I have not yet tried to profile the cutting edge on the belt grinder. All mine I have tried to grind the blade so that I have about 0.015 to 0.020 inch at the edge. After the entire knife is complete I hand sharpen the edge. This time on a D2 blade I got it alittle thicker, 0.025. I dread that one. My first ATS-34 I ground to 0.040. That one was difficult. I have not had any edge warps from HT yet even at 0.015.

Roger
 
It is not that I don't want to communicate how to make a point or any other aspect of knives. It is pretty tough to put some things into words. I am now working on another video, this one will have both pictures and words to communicate the concepts that have not been worked on. Keep letting me know what you want to see and it will be in the new video.

Just to try, I raise the angle of the blade as I come to the tip, leaving the tip a v shape viewed from the spine. Then as in the article, test it for toughness and hard by engraving mild steel with it. Do not let the full distal taper stuff influence the blade through the tip, all too many tips are way too pointy to do any work with. All the tip has to do is get you into your work. The tip should be pinpoint sharp to the feel, but backed by plenty of steel. The tips are the weak point in most knives.
 
Now Ed,

You told me that if I wanted a sharp tip not to grind it away into a round one!:D
 
See guys, I think he has got it, verbalized it real clean and to the point. That is all there is to it!!!!!!!!
 
I was just about to say what Ed did--no one is hiding information. On the other hand, there is only so much that can be conveyed in an article. Grind a few (or 50) blades and many of your questions will be answered. Better yet, set up a time to visit a good maker's shop for a lesson or two. Be prepared to pay in work, $$$, trade, or whatever the maker asks--he is a professional and you are taking his time. But it will be well worth it if you are serious about knives.

Ed, I can't wait for the school and the video. I was thinking the other day that you should do a new video. I'm really excited. As for the school. I'm moving back to CA in July/August so you're only a long drive away.

John
 
DaQo'tah here, and the melodrama that is my second 52100 knife continues. I had been haveing trouble getting the point right on this knife. Now remember this is the same knife that right after I have done some preliminary forging on, I snapped in two trying to straighten.

Forced by this first catastrophe I had to switch ends , and made what was going to the the tang into the knife blade itself.

But like I said, I was just not getting the point right at all. Everytime I got one side kinda where I wanted it, I would mess up the other side and end up with a rounded point.

Well, the story just got worse...

After I saw I had some hits on this topic, I had my wife print them out so I could read them while I worked straightening the point situation out in my shop. Apparently some things you guy's talked about must have sunken in cuz call it "Beginner's Luck", or just a "Freak " but I did get the point looking good enough to move on to the next step with this kinfe.

The next step was to cut out,file, and place the Brass Guard. I did things just like are shown in the 'Bearing to Blade' video. The guard was all set to go and all I had to do was hammer it home.

(Heres where things go wrong)

I knew that I had to secure the blade of the knife in my vice, so to protect the blade's finish I cut a wood lath in half and used the two pieces of wood to protect the blade as I tightened the vice.

I use a small wood dowel and a hammer to pound the brass guard into position. But it would not seat correctly on one end, so I just kept hitting away at the brass to force the brass down.

I was hitting the dowel pretty hard by now,,,giving it a good old swat, when I noticed that the knife was sinking down in the vice.

I figured that this was just the knife slipping past the protecting lath under the force of the many blows. Then when I was sure I had the brass as far down as it was going to go, I undid the vice and looked at my work...

How was the brass looking you ask?

Who cares, all I know is that the tip is now smashed!

Apparently there is a type of threaded bolt thingy that is the actual mechanism that squeezes the two haves of the vice together.
I guess what happened was when I placed the knife into the vice I must have rested the very tip of the knife on this vice closing mechanism. when I was pounding I was actually just driving my beloved tip into the vice.

(Oh it's okay,,,setbacks are part of the knife making fun......right?)
 
Now you get to practice some more on that tip! ;) It took my literally dozens of knives that were all given away to friends in the beginning to start to get the tip thickness down correctly as well as the edge sharpness. I will give you the same advice the other makers gave me at that point. Practice, Practice, Practice! :) Most makers have either one side or the other that is there weak side while grinding. I do mostly 3"-4" folder blades and I use a Grinding mirror block for most of it. Darrel Ralph taught me this years ago and it helped me out alot. Everyone is different and you will find out what works for you. Just dont give up, it will get frustrating at times but you will overcome! I think most makers do all there grinding free hand though so I'm sure I am not the norm. For me the light bulb lite up on the tip grinding when I would roll the knife away from the grinder lightly when coming to the tip, keeping the blade horizontal.

Also FWIW I have found that almost all makers are very open when it comes to knife making and share many of there "secrets" that they have spent countless hours and dollars perfecting for the love of perpetuating the knife trade. Alot of the things they do are better seen in person and I bet that someone that lives near you would help you out in person if you just asked. For me seeing something in person is better than reading books or watching videos.
 
Hi all,
While reading the posts I was going over the steps that I use in sharpening on the belt grinder. I sharpen for some local restaurants so I get lots of pratice. I do a little different than most, so don't look at what I do as the only way, as with most things, get lots of information then work out your own methods.
I draw the knife, edge first, along the slack portion of the belt at about a 30 degree angle. I like to use a medium heavy pressure, creating a convex edge. As I come to the tip I graduly drop the handle down, move the handle away from the belt and apply a little more pressure. The tip will over heat easly!
After completing the sharpening on the belt grinder I go to the buffer. A little buffing on the edge (edge down, please!) will help lots.
I have found that the convex edge works better for the hard use and the softer steel used in the restaurant knives.
I have a variable speed motor on order and expect my sharpening to improve with better speed control. If the motor works out I will report to this forum.
Learningly, Lynn
 
The sound produced by the blade on the slack belt is an excellent communicator. When right and left sound the same, the blade will be the same. To keep a tip cool, grind it first then go down the blade. This is not really necessary when using new belts, but when doing a re-build on a tip, and you don't want to go back to the more coarse belt,it is real easy to get the tip hot, this is when the tip first grind works best.

I wrap the screw on the vice with a old innertube, this keeps the spine from getting marked up. Bill Burke one time drove a tip into the channel covering the screw. So did I, it is easy to do, you want the tip outside of the screw.

Big tip!!! Once a week I clean the vice screw and oil it. I have been using a vice my grandfather gave me, it has been working hard for over 50 years and is still in good shape.
 
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