Knifemaking fact and fiction....

FACT: If you are grinding a blade, when both hand and blade reach the same high tempature at the same time, you will always put the blade in the water first.
 
Bobby Branton said:
FACT: If you are grinding a blade, when both hand and blade reach the same high tempature at the same time, you will always put the blade in the water first.
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Great one! I've been known to drop the blade into the water bucket, as my finger goes to my mouth to soothe the burning. Simultaneous heat reduction of two parts.
 
FACT: Grizzly grinders shock you repeatedly for no reason...maybe others too, but I know about the Grizz.
 
falling items in the shop should NEVER be caught: fact

steel can just be bent back if it gets warped in HT : fiction (have to do it ever so gingerly and with just the right heat... meaning you will break your first blade if it is bent and you try to bend it back, experience talking)

you can reason with the average american as to why $50+ for a knife is worth it : fiction (i have yet to get a random person even my friends to understand why a knife should be worth much)

-matt
 
TekSec said:
FACT: Grizzly grinders shock you repeatedly for no reason...maybe others too, but I know about the Grizz.
Click to expand...

the belt acts like the belt of a VanDeGraf generator, picking up charge from friction with the air and passing the charge to the first conductive object it passes over.
I have been known to run a ground wire to the blade when it got particularly annoying

-Page
 
sunshadow said:
the belt acts like the belt of a VanDeGraf generator, picking up charge from friction with the air and passing the charge to the first conductive object it passes over.
I have been known to run a ground wire to the blade when it got particularly annoying

-Page
Click to expand...

I can tell we are having a moister winter here in MI because I have not had to ground myself and I just worked on two swords this week. Do to the edge geometry I do massive amounts of slack belt grinding with swords, regular contact with the platen discharges the gradual buildup of static electricity, you don't reap this benefit with slack belt grinding:grumpy:. I have had little 1" long lightning bolts spring from my fingers when reaching for a grounded object while slack grinding. This happens on my Hardcore and the grinder that I built, and it can hurt like hell, but it scares you more than anything. Like you, Page, when I have had enough I will tuck a chain in my waistband and sling the other end over the drill press while grinding. This is not a problem in the summer time with higher humidity, but right now is prime season for it on a dryer year.

BTW this is not the worst static electric shock I have received. I had a pile of silica sand in the corner once and decided to just suck it all up with the shop vac and then empty the bin back into my sand container. The shop vac tube is plastic and the accumulated effect of all that sand flying through it almost knocked me on my @$$! Myth Busters did a show about a guy who tried to sand blast a large PVC pipe and electrocuted himself, but all they did was spray the outside of the tube, and the myth was busted. I have wondered if it was liability and saftey reasons or just missing the obvious that they never put that stream inside the tube, as I am certain their results would have been much different!
 
You know that you are on your way when you realize knifemaking is not so much a craft or a skill, but a journey in learning. Each knife has a name, (mine do) or a purpose. The next one will be better than the last. Imagination is something most lose as children. Knifemakers strive to keep that gift alive by turning it into wood and steel stag or stainless. When someone holds your knife, it should instill purpose or wonder. Anyone can make a knife, but a knifemaker doesn't want to make..JUST A KNIFE....
Proud to say it..
Gary Franklin...Knifemaker
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
I can tell we are having a moister winter here in MI because I have not had to ground myself and I just worked on two swords this week. Do to the edge geometry I do massive amounts of slack belt grinding with swords, regular contact with the platen discharges the gradual buildup of static electricity, you don't reap this benefit with slack belt grinding:grumpy:. I have had little 1" long lightning bolts spring from my fingers when reaching for a grounded object while slack grinding. This happens on my Hardcore and the grinder that I built, and it can hurt like hell, but it scares you more than anything. Like you, Page, when I have had enough I will tuck a chain in my waistband and sling the other end over the drill press while grinding. This is not a problem in the summer time with higher humidity, but right now is prime season for it on a dryer year.

BTW this is not the worst static electric shock I have received. I had a pile of silica sand in the corner once and decided to just suck it all up with the shop vac and then empty the bin back into my sand container. The shop vac tube is plastic and the accumulated effect of all that sand flying through it almost knocked me on my @$$! Myth Busters did a show about a guy who tried to sand blast a large PVC pipe and electrocuted himself, but all they did was spray the outside of the tube, and the myth was busted. I have wondered if it was liability and saftey reasons or just missing the obvious that they never put that stream inside the tube, as I am certain their results would have been much different!
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hmmm i never even thought of them sand blasting the inside of it, send it an email and maybe they will redo it. give them as exact of a response as to how you got shocked so they can try to duplicate it.

-matt
 
sunshadow said:
the belt acts like the belt of a VanDeGraf generator, picking up charge from friction with the air and passing the charge to the first conductive object it passes over.
I have been known to run a ground wire to the blade when it got particularly annoying

-Page
Click to expand...

I have a cement floor and run a Wilton from a steel bench
when I start getting static shocks (again winter time, dry air) I look down and see that I have the wrong shows on. some shoes will insulate you from the ground you are standing on and you become a big compasator <spelling, once you come close to a ground you discharge
the amount you discharge depends on how much you take in before discharging, SNAP :eek:
 
Yup, know the reason behind it, tennis shoes work better than my rubber soled boots. I covererd by cement floor with those puzzle piece rubber mats and it still gets me once in a while. <sigh> Such is the life of a maker :) It's a small price to pay though :D
 
J.KNIGHT said:
If you are not willing to dedicate yourself to your craft, do not begin. Do you want to be a knifemaker more than you want to make knives?
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That's pretty deep, and the fact that none of us has responded to it after 3 days suggests to me that it might have rubbed a few of us the wrong way -- perhaps even me. Right now I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever make another decent knife, but I do seem to be becoming one heck of a good tool junkie.

There's a guy where I work who seems to want to be known as a beekeeper, a blacksmith, a machinist, a welder, and probably a half-dozen other things. He's not worth a tinker's dam at any of 'em.
 
FACT: When you're done with a particular knife, you should stop grinding on it.
RELATED FACT: When you think about adding that last little detail that wasn't planned in from the beginning, you'll end up reshaping the blade to cover up your "DOPE!!"


I hear you guys on the shocks. My Grizzly can act like a neuromuscular E-stim and make my muscles jump all over the place...not good when you're grinding detail stuff. I even had one shock that propagated up my ulnar nerve and somehow elicited a muscle contraction in my face! Since I switched to Klingspor belts, I've had much less of a problem, though it still gets me once in a while. I'm surprised it hasn't been much worse lately, as it's as dry as the inside of a media blasting cabinet out here.

--nathan
 
just as soon as your ready to saw out more then a hand full of blade blanks the saw will brake:mad::mad::barf:

FACT
 
TekSec said:
FACT: Grizzly grinders shock you repeatedly for no reason...maybe others too, but I know about the Grizz.
Click to expand...

My little HF 1x30 eats me alive with blue streaks. I'm desperately looking for a way to ground it or something.

Charlie
 
FACT: When you're grinding, if you smell burning rubber insulation, your lights dim, and the safety switch on your power strip trips, you are either pushing too hard, or you need a bigger grinder motor. Ok, yeah, it has to be the bigger motor one. ;)

--nathan
 
bjalongi said:
Fact: Knuckles and grinding belts do not like each other.
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actually the belts couldn't care less :p it's the knuckles that need to learn a lesson or two from time to time..:D

CShepherd said:
My little HF 1x30 eats me alive with blue streaks. I'm desperately looking for a way to ground it or something.

Charlie
Click to expand...
Charlie
there are a few threads concerning this.. in the archives , I'm not sure if I added any of them in the sticky above take a look there..
if you insulate yourself from the earth/ground in dry weather you will get shocked
do not confuse house hold currant from self generated static shock..
are you working on cement?

I found one on my site..
under Technical
http://www.knivesby.com/knifemaking.html
it's here
www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3012744#post3012744
 
SR_matt said:
falling items in the shop should NEVER be caught: fact

steel can just be bent back if it gets warped in HT : fiction (have to do it ever so gingerly and with just the right heat... meaning you will break your first blade if it is bent and you try to bend it back, experience talking)

you can reason with the average american as to why $50+ for a knife is worth it : fiction (i have yet to get a random person even my friends to understand why a knife should be worth much)

-matt
Click to expand...

"meaning you will break your first blade " I should have read this a few hours ago :jerkit:
 
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