Poor man's surface grinder?

Joined
Oct 4, 1998
Messages
696
Here's todays delema. I make strictly folders. I learned a while back that everything on a folder has to start perfectly flat, or at least as flat as I can get it. (learned this one the hard way
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)Well here's the question? I have everything down pretty well except for the backspacer. I use the platten on my wilton square wheel to bring the material down to size. I also try hand sanding when I am close to size. I almost always tend to make the front and back of the backspacers width a few, like .004 thinner than the middle. I asume this is either from the sand paper, either by hand or machine bowing or flexing as you push thus rounding the thickness of the front and back of the backspacer. Just wondering if anybody has come up with a better way without buying a surface grinder? Thanks in advance.
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If you sand in a figure eight motion, on a perfectly flat surface like a mirror or piece of glass, it should come out flat. Pushing back and forth always exerts more pressure one way or the other, causing the material to come out thinner on the ends.
Hope this helps.

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A Knife is no more than an Iron Tooth
 
Take a look at the big chunk of rock in the
right corner at http://rayrogers.com/edm.htm ...might not solve your problem today, but maybe for the next one...

[This message has been edited by ski (edited 11-06-2000).]
 
I use a Moss finishing plane. Well, actually, it's mine, that I made after I took his class.

It's 2024 aluminum bar that has been precision ground on top. It is 18" long, 1/2" thick, 4" wide. The main idea is that you can stretch a 4" wide shop roll over the length of it, creating an extremely flat, abrasive surface.

This gizmo is mounted in the bench vise and with the help of a Starrett mic and equal pressure you can sand anything down to exact size, including the back spacer.

Wish I had some pictures to show you. I know there have been pictures of them in KI back a while ago.

Just a thought
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Nick

[This message has been edited by NickWheeler (edited 11-07-2000).]
 
I've only made a couple of knives when I was working as a tool and die maker so I'm not an expert on that, but I have used several methods, including surface grinders for grinding things to a uniform thickness. I'd like to point out one thing first and please feel free to get back to me if I haven't been clear or you think I'm way off base. First - a piece that has been heat treated or not, will probably have a bow to it. Lay it on the plate glass and you'll probably see that either the ends or the middle of the piece aren't touching. I like to start with a 320 grit paper and the ends touching. Don't press the middle down or you might end up with a piece that's a perfect .125" thick, but still bowed causing it to bind when assembled. When one side is flat - flip it over on the glass and make some pieces to hold in it place to allow you to slide it under a rotating disk in you drill press. There are two important steps here. Make sure you slide it under the disk edge that's rotating away from you and slide the whole piece under the disk from different positions making sure that it clears the disk each time. This will allow for any disk wobbling or the drill press head not being perfectly square with the table. Once you have both sides of the piece flat and parallel, it's a matter of taking off the final .001 or .002 with finer grit paper or stone. Hope this is some help.

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Fran (CT)

[This message has been edited by ruffscruff (edited 11-07-2000).]
 
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