Oh, I see...

rasret01

rasret01

Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
153
I've been trying to grind knives for almost a year now on a very fast craftsman 2 x 42 grinder. My results have been, ok, but undependable, and a lot of blades came out a quite a bit differently than planned - and then only after a lot of draw filing and tedious hand sanding.

Then I changed to gator belts and watched Wayne Jarrett's Twisted Cripple grinding vidio clip. When I next approached my grinder, there was an almost audible "click" as everything fell into place and I started producing the kind of blades I've dreamed of. No more draw filing, and damn little sanding!!!

For all you newbies like me - watch that vidio! Spend the money for some decent belts! ...and wait for the "click"

Dick
 
Glad you mentioned that. You can see that is grinder is running relatively slow and he is letting the belt do the work. Sometimes it is hard for me (another noob) to keep that in mind. I really like videos to describe things that it would take pages of text to accurately describe.
 
Thanks for the tip. Can you elaborate a bit on the click phenomena? What is you get now?
 
Now, I get a lot more satisfaction and the feeling that, with a lot more practice, I might just become a real knifemaker :D
 
You can describe techniques but until someone actually sees and does it it won't click. I'm going to tell on someone here, Charlie and I were talking on the phone about forging issues he was having (the usual straightening a banana blade issue) I described my solution then told him to come over. We were forging and he said "see, this is what happens" I told him to be patient... couple more heats and I bring out the whompin stick. The look on his face was priceless, you could hear the click. That's the reaction you work for when you teach, it's the reaction you hope for as a student. Either way it's a good feeling.

Good for you and here's praying for more "clicks" in your future.
 
He doesn't really show how to get the nice round grind lines though. That's something I struggled with a bit; I could do it without even trying on one side but the other side was always a sharp, straight cut. So I had to really analyze how I was getting it to happen on the one side and then work to reproduce it on the other side.
 
Here's a question, from a pre-noob... I've never ground a knife, but it always seemed to me to make the most sense to always have the grinder perpendicular to the edge of the blade, so that the butt of the handle ends up dropping as you go 'round the belly. Seems, however, that most knifemakers pull the butt of the blade out to accomplish the same thing, which works for flat grinds but changes the geometry as you go along for hollow grinds.
 
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