ea42
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2006
- Messages
- 4,014
Lenny, glazing the bolsters is the process of fine grinding them to a smooth finish along with the pin. It generally needs to be done on a wheel since you're trying to smooth the round sides and blend the bolsters to the covers without cutting too far back. You start fairly course and end very smooth. Here are a few pics, the first is a shot of a knife that has just been cuttlered, with the bolster pin hammered and flaired. I'm at the grinder now with around a 150ish belt. I'll grind the bolster on the wheel for this demo, but normally you'd kind of hit partly on the wheel and partly on the flat so that the covers can be blended as well. Since that's normally the last process before buffing, and this knife still needs to be hafted, I'll only hit the bolster (hope you can excuse the lame phone pics):
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And here's the finish I wind up with, I've taken it down to where the pin head is VERY slightly visible:
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Now you can finish it on this machine as well with a fine belt such as Trizac, but I'll pop over to the traditional glazing wheel. This is an approx. 7" wheel (no belt) that's got several layers of emery glued to it. It's dressed so that the left side is nearly gritless. You wax this side to get a very smooth finish. I'll just hit the emery side to keep the wax off. The resulting finish is quite smooth with no pin visible. Just a few swipes on the buff and it'll have a mirror finish. Now of course the pin has to be well peined for all this to work out. You definitely don't want to just try to buff out an exposed pin, the buff will catch on even the slightest edge and suck the material off, making it look even worse. That goes for Dremel buffs too, even worse since they're so small and fast:
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As I said, there's really nothing wrong with a visible pivot pin as long as it's just a light outline and even with the bolsters. If you have a dropped pin and the blades are loose, then you've lost the seal and need to have it re-peined.
Eric
And here's the finish I wind up with, I've taken it down to where the pin head is VERY slightly visible:
Now you can finish it on this machine as well with a fine belt such as Trizac, but I'll pop over to the traditional glazing wheel. This is an approx. 7" wheel (no belt) that's got several layers of emery glued to it. It's dressed so that the left side is nearly gritless. You wax this side to get a very smooth finish. I'll just hit the emery side to keep the wax off. The resulting finish is quite smooth with no pin visible. Just a few swipes on the buff and it'll have a mirror finish. Now of course the pin has to be well peined for all this to work out. You definitely don't want to just try to buff out an exposed pin, the buff will catch on even the slightest edge and suck the material off, making it look even worse. That goes for Dremel buffs too, even worse since they're so small and fast:
As I said, there's really nothing wrong with a visible pivot pin as long as it's just a light outline and even with the bolsters. If you have a dropped pin and the blades are loose, then you've lost the seal and need to have it re-peined.
Eric
