Making Plungless grinds

Greenberg Woods

Greenberg Woods

Joined
Dec 27, 2013
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Hey Guys, I've always been a big fan of plungless ground kitchen knives, but I havent been able to find any good tutorials.

If I were to take a guess, I would think you just grind the bevel back towards the handle and blend it in with high grit belts and hand sanding, but what do I know?

Any advice on this?

Thanks a bunch

Ben Greenberg
Greenberg Woods
 
Subscribed. I wonder about this too. I just finished my second kitchen knife and was surprised at the difficulty of it.
 
Butcher block has a good one that I'm sure someone will post a link to. I do mine similar. First I kill the edge on my belt so it doesn't establish a crisp plunge. I start from the tip with good pressure and then ease off as I approach the plunge. You want a sweeping plunge line. This will also incorporate some distal taper. Once I get close to 80 percent of the way up the blade I hang even more belt off and start to blend the plunge in. Then switch to an A65 gator and do the same. After this I switch to a contact wheel and hold the knife in the same direction as the belt. The tip is facing away from you. Now with the A65 start about halfway on the tang and ride it until you reach the plunge. Let the knife roll so that now you're on the bevel. Make full passes until you have blended the plunge. I hope this makes sense.
 
greenjebadiah said:
Subscribed. I wonder about this too. I just finished my second kitchen knife and was surprised at the difficulty of it.
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I only make kitchen knives, but all of mine have had plungess

Dont worry though. Matt is in this thread, and he was what made me think of it.
 
Matt R said:
I start from the tip with good pressure and then ease off as I approach the plunge.
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So, i learned that when you are grinding the "normal" way "ie starting at the plunge/ ricasso" you dont actaully bring the tip all the way across the platen, but rather pull it off about 1/3rd of the way across to avoid a wonky tip.

When you say start at the tip, do you mean put the tip on the far side of the platen so it will traverse the whole length, or put it halfway/ somewhere in the midle so it does not travel the whole distance on the platen.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
So, i learned that when you are grinding the "normal" way "ie starting at the plunge/ ricasso" you dont actaully bring the tip all the way across the platen, but rather pull it off about 1/3rd of the way across to avoid a wonky tip.

When you say start at the tip, do you mean put the tip on the far side of the platen so it will traverse the whole length, or put it halfway/ somewhere in the midle so it does not travel the whole distance on the platen.
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I start near the tip as in the last 1" or so and go to the plunge and back to the tip. This will make a sweeping plunge because their and middle will spend more time on the grinder than the plunge. I leave the tip a little thick and thin it out after I'm done with the 50 grit belt. I also don't hold the blade at a 45 like Butch but both ways work as you can see.
 
there was a post about this just within the last week or two, basically you can grind the bevel all the way down the knife. Most Japanese knives Ive handled had the hidden tang part thinner than the blade road so it never even got in the way of the grinding. Many of the western style knives are thinner in the belly of the handle than along the spine, showing how they grind the bevels all the way down the knife, not just the blade.
 
When I grind I start with my off hand. The hand that has the least control of the 2 which is my right. I start the 45 and grind to the tip. But like you said I don't that the tip off the belt. I mostly watch the Sparks and that tells me where I'm grinding. Once the tip is on the belt I pull the tang to me and watch the sparks move to the tip. Once I get a bevel started that's big enough to locate on I start my grind in the middle of the blade and grind to the plunge cut. This seams to create less plunge trouble for me then trying to start at the plunge every time. I then go from the plunge all the way out to the tip. I have a scribe line down the middle of the blade so I just work the bevels to that and move the top of the plunge to the spine. I have not done plungeless grinds yet but have wanted to, but I think I would atack them the same was just sweep the plunge area more not allowing the plunge cut to develop. But I think you could do it like the seax blades I ground and just run the flat grind all the way down and off the tang. Being that normaly the edges on kitchen knives is lower then the handle you will still have some thickness on the bottom edge. Never tryied it on a kitchen knife but it worked great on the seax.
 
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I will see if I can make a video at some point showing how I do it with a combo of Butch's method and a contact wheel. The other thing is when hand sanding use a soft backer to help with the blending.
 
Make a flat platten out of 2" square tubing. The edges are rounded and do not support the edges of the belt which creates a round transition instead of a cut in plunge line. Grind with your normal technique, just make sure your belt is centered so the two sides match up.
 
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