Jumping in head first…a mistake?

I'll give you my advice. Get what you can afford and start making knives.
There are people making very nice knives with only a charcoal fire and files.
There are people making pretty bad knives with $10,000 in equipment.
Posting your sketches and progress here in Shop Talk where many successful smiths can critique them and offer help is a good way to speed up the learning curve.

The skills needed to make a good knife are gained by practice and study, not by bigger and better equipment.
 
I think your $$$$ would be better spent here:

B277CA5D-5FCA-49C5-8020-48A2F19E46E1.png

These classes from the American Bladesmith society are worth the cost of admission - 40m from Asheville, taught by a certified master of the craft - and even if you’re not looking to forge, you do plenty of grinding and they have top tier equipment
 
ISKski said:
I think your $$$$ would be better spent here:

View attachment 1881489

These classes from the American Bladesmith society are worth the cost of admission - 40m from Asheville, taught by a certified master of the craft - and even if you’re not looking to forge, you do plenty of grinding and they have top tier equipment
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Man, if I had a resource like that close by, you couldn't keep me away!
Alas... W. Texas.
 
Just catching up on this…. My interest also is cullinary knives … imo, cullinary knives are quite different from hunting or edc knives … the longer blade and wider blade make for a more demanding control of the grind to keep the bevels flat and uniform. 1x30 might work “ok” for a hunter, but imo for a culinary knife it is a waste of time. I have never gone the file route, but my guess is you would be better off doing that than a 1x30 … at least at first. A 2x72 variable speed with a glass platen makes a world of difference with longer/wider blades, but even then takes practice.

I might also suggest that there are a different set of skills when it comes to attaching and shaping handles. There is nothing wrong at all with buying some pre-ground blades and putting your own handles on … if even just for the practice
 
Cushing H. said:
Just catching up on this…. My interest also is cullinary knives … imo, cullinary knives are quite different from hunting or edc knives … the longer blade and wider blade make for a more demanding control of the grind to keep the bevels flat and uniform.
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they are also a way huger pain in the ass to hand finish, especially without fully developed grinding skill:rolleyes:
 
Lorien said:
they are also a way huger pain in the ass to hand finish, especially without fully developed grinding skill:rolleyes:
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Lol. Definitely. More surface area (equals more finger/knuckle pain). I go back and forth on that one! Maybe. Maybe! I will do a mirror finish on a cullinary knife …. Then regret it the moment it gets cleaned with *anything* abrasive in a lengthwise movement (which, yeah, i do with my user kitchen knives on a daily basis). Honestly, i just dont yet have an answer to that one yet…
 
I'm scrubbing away at one now, and I thought it would be relatively quick going, since it's AEB-L and I've done some pretty high grit finishes in much more wear resistant steels with less work or maybe my brain is shutting out how much it sucked to do them 🤔 . But it's kicking my ass! It's like 9" long and I'm guessing it got pretty hard when it got heat treated.
Currently at 400 grit and that's where I'ma top out, (even though the masochist in me wants to push it further) for the reason you mentioned and also because that satin finish is really nice.
I think that with stainless steels, a high polish is really the best way to take full advantage of the stainlessness of the steel. So, who knows, maybe I will take it further...anyway, I'm babbling it's late and I'ma sleep on it
 
Lorien said:
I think that with stainless steels, a high polish is really the best way to take full advantage of the stainlessness of the steel. So, who knows, maybe I will take it further...anyway, I'm babbling it's late and I'ma sleep on it
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Hmm, the kitchen knives I've made with a higher grit hand finish all got scratches in use, and they stand out against the high grit finish. The ones I've made with length-wise Scotchbrite belt finish have the same scratches, but they are a lot less visible. A fine Scotchbrite belt after hand sanding to 400 grit looks really good. If I use coarse, medium and fine Scotchbrite to eliminate hand sanding, the finish looks just a little bit coarser, but still pretty good. I guess I cannot get all the scratches from the previous grits out with the Scotchbrite progression, but the coarse Scotchbrite belt is the only one that works for me to take the cross wise scratches from the Trizact out.

The one good thing about hand sanding is that I can do it in the air conditioned shop, which makes it almost pleasant.
 
I ground several of my first knives with an angle grinder and the blank clamped to a 2x4. They were small paring or steak knives. It took a while to hand sand them, but I was using 80 grit cubitron paper then, so not too bad. It was AEB-L at 61 ish RC I think, so relatively easy to remove steel. Some of them got polished all the way to 2500 grit which makes a decent mirror (not perfect, a little cloudy). Honestly, the first grit is the hardest to do well, but progressing finer is pretty easy.

In the middle of that group I switched to a 2x42 Palmgren. It is way faster and easier to control (for me) but you are limited to very coarse finishes. I do 36g ceramic, 60g ceramic, A300 trizact (80g ish). That puts it close enough to hand sand a chef knife with 1 sheet of 120g Rhinowet paper. Next time I will try adding a A165 trizact and see how that goes, but heat is a real issue with the fast 2x42 grinder. Dunk early, dunk often, watch out for auto tempering color changes, and alternate sides a bit to minimize warping.

I also use the grinder for handles, but I will only use 60g aluminum oxide belts and am extremely cautious of heat even at that grit. Good enough for roughing and thinning to close to final shape, but that's it.
 
I, like Hubert, use a Scotch Brite finish on thin culinary blades. It is a working finish on a working knife. In most cases I just do a clean 120 grit belt finish and then hit it with a medium Scotch Brire belt.

A second advantage is that the bevels can be touched up quickly easily when a knife comes back for sharpening or edge repair.

I can't see any reason to do a fine finish, or a mirror finish, on a user knife.
 
ISKski said:
I think your $$$$ would be better spent here:

View attachment 1881489

These classes from the American Bladesmith society are worth the cost of admission - 40m from Asheville, taught by a certified master of the craft - and even if you’re not looking to forge, you do plenty of grinding and they have top tier equipment
Click to expand...
Wow! That’s an awesome resource, I’ll look into it. Thanks!
 
Cushing H. said:
Just catching up on this…. My interest also is cullinary knives … imo, cullinary knives are quite different from hunting or edc knives … the longer blade and wider blade make for a more demanding control of the grind to keep the bevels flat and uniform. 1x30 might work “ok” for a hunter, but imo for a culinary knife it is a waste of time. I have never gone the file route, but my guess is you would be better off doing that than a 1x30 … at least at first. A 2x72 variable speed with a glass platen makes a world of difference with longer/wider blades, but even then takes practice.

I might also suggest that there are a different set of skills when it comes to attaching and shaping handles. There is nothing wrong at all with buying some pre-ground blades and putting your own handles on … if even just for the practice
Click to expand...
Forgive my ignorance, but I see a lot of people say a bigger culinary knife is not feasible on a 1x30 grinder. Is this because the platen/workbench are too small? Too much heat generated from more grinding? Would it be worth trying some smaller culinary knives on a 1x30, ie utility, paring, bunka? I figured a distal taper would be pretty challenging with a hand filing jig.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I, like Hubert, use a Scotch Brite finish on thin culinary blades. It is a working finish on a working knife. In most cases I just do a clean 120 grit belt finish and then hit it with a medium Scotch Brire belt.

A second advantage is that the bevels can be touched up quickly easily when a knife comes back for sharpening or edge repair.

I can't see any reason to do a fine finish, or a mirror finish, on a user knife.
Click to expand...
Stacy … you go just to 120? There are times when i have gotten there and said to myself “you know … this looks pretty good just like this …. But everyone says you should go to a finer finish….. ill have to rethink that the nexttime i am grinding…
 
AlexBill said:
Forgive my ignorance, but I see a lot of people say a bigger culinary knife is not feasible on a 1x30 grinder. Is this because the platen/workbench are too small? Too much heat generated from more grinding? Would it be worth trying some smaller culinary knives on a 1x30, ie utility, paring, bunka? I figured a distal taper would be pretty challenging with a hand filing jig.
Click to expand...
It is a matter if uniformity of the finish (and hence appearance). With the larger 2x72 belt platen you have more surface area to register the flat … and so it is easier to keep the grind uniform. Without that, it is easier to create multiple “facets” on the bevel, each with a slightly different, but very noticeable, angle.

This is why a lot of people go to a disk sander after the grinder … even easier to produce a nice uniform bevel all along its width and length
 
Lorien said:
would you disagree with the concept that a polished or mirror finish is the most corrosion/stain resistant option?
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Yes, a polished finish is slightly more corrosion resistant then a rough one.
 
Cushing H. said:
Stacy … you go just to 120? There are times when i have gotten there and said to myself “you know … this looks pretty good just like this …. But everyone says you should go to a finer finish….. ill have to rethink that the nexttime i am grinding…
Click to expand...
8n9WShu.jpeg

Worn 120 vs fresh 400. Not much difference there. I ground 95 % of this blades with a 40 grit ceramic. I grind with a push stick and once the basic geometry is established, I remove the work rest and tilt the blade across the platen to flatten everything out with the same 40 grit belt. I use less pressure so the scratch pattern is completly different (much shallower) then when I use the push stick and it is diagonal. Once I got all the 40 grit scratches from push stick out with the same 40 grit, going through the higher grits is really fast. With more practice with the push stick and a machined D2 platen my grinds are starting to turn out really flat and regular, so even handsanding is much quicker, although I prefer to do the belt finish. 40 - 120 - 220 - very fine scotchbrite - cork with orange dialux is my go to now.
 
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