How much steel did you chew through while learning?

R

rockfishbrewery

Joined
Jan 24, 2012
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Just curious...........how much steel did y'all chew through while learning/developing your grinding technique?

I'm switching to working with 1095 because it's alot cheaper. I'm getting tired of spending big bucks on super steel only to screw it up on my grinder :)
 
Heh! Great question. I don't have a firm number for you dollar-wise, but it's into the 4-digit range and I'm not done learning yet. My junkpile isn't growing as fast as it used to, but like Stan said, sometimes I completely goof one up.

"Cheap" alloys like 1095 and 1084 can make really good knives. There's nothing wrong with using them to keep your budget under control. :thumbup:
 
:D I have a pile in a drawer, sometimes I look at some of them when I think I can salvage something. Most of the blades I scrapped on the grinder from trying to go thin... before developing good technique. Keep your edges a little thick while you're learning, at least you will still have a decent knife.
 
I'm still learning and still screw one up beyond repair on occasion. I never save them, I just toss em (the heavier ones go further than the light ones):D. If I had em all back it would probably be worth a trip to the scrap yard LOL.:p
 
Well it is more of a family hobby tradition but i started out with scrap steel from saw mills, leaf springs form automobiles and industrial plants. I found it more instructive as the scrap metal had cracks, rust, oil, road salt, heat and cold damage and the fact that the metal was already hardened & tempered made it even more or an education. I certainly developed a beefy hammer arm back then and i learned how to make old used metals better and worked with adding different elements to the process.
 
Early on I wrecked 2 bolsters, 1 cracked from peening, 1 from filing the hole to big, and 1 blade trying to hollow grind on a bench grinder.

The list will grow I'm sure, knock on wood
 
lots and lots of 5160 steel probably 100 + feet

lots of knives look good on paper untill you get them on steel lol good heat treating practice though.

i have not cracked any blades from heat treat but i have chipped and dented edges from testing
 
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Learning to grind ?.......... Very little actually, and I started with a Grizzly which runs twice the speed of light. Most of my "Sling-it-into-the-woods" knives were as a result of poor heat treating techniques. Someday, someone with a metal detector will think he has hit the jackpot when walking through the woods near my house.

Grinding (My style) came fairly easily, but I struggled with heat treating for a long time. I finally bit the bullet and acquired the necessary materials and equipment in order to get the best results that I can offer.

I still screw up a grind from time-to-time, but I simply make a slightly smaller knife. After 2 or 3 hundred, you start to get the hang of it.

Robert
 
About 48" of O1.

I got a little worried when I started 'cuz one of the guys I was corresponding with said he could melt his early attempts down and cast a V-8. :eek:
 
Hmm id say ive burned thru 30 feet learning and most of my knives now are keepers but I try to always expand my skill set and practice new things so the practice/screw up pile always grows and sometimes it is expected if Im trying something like a really crazy hollow grind recurve or something I haven't done before.
 
RyanW said:
Im confused... you guys mess knives up when Grinding? ;)
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Haha! Yeah, I was shocked too Ryan!;) I have asked a lot of questions and discussed many things here on the forums........but I don't usually talk about the ones that never made it to completion.....it's just too painful:D

Like Robert, my first grinder was a Grizzly, and I had to learn really fast to be careful because fatal mistakes can happen so quickly at that speed. I actually think learning initially on that monster helped me figure out good control techniques, and these days I still make many mistakes, but I rarely make a mistake that can't be adjusted and repaired. Of course, I'm not the fastest grinder in the world either. I don't usually hog off lots of steel in one pass, instead opting to make firm steady passes slowly working my grind lines up toward the spine. It takes me a bit longer on each blade, but I have less scrap metal that way.
 
I don't think I ever scrapped a blade from a grinding mistake. Now, forging, heat treat and testing?... probably 300ft+.... lol
 
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How much steel did you chew through while learning?
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All of it.

But then, I'm a perfectionist and never expect to be totally happy with my knives...
 
When I first started grinding I had access to a lot of mild steel and practiced on that. I was using a single speed Wilton square wheel grinder and it was fast and I screwed up a lot.

The last time I hauled away the scrap from all that mild steel it filled the bed of my Tacoma half full.
 
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