Recommendation? Prepping for first knife, order of operations?

You mean how thick you should leave it before heat treatment? I think the standard advice is 0.5 to .75mm at the very edge is the thinnest you should go.

Once the blade is heat treated you're going to struggle to remove more material with a file so this is what I suggest: buy yourself some belts in 80 grit, the 30mm wide ones. Then you cut a length and tape it to your file and use that on your filing jig to do your post heat treat grinding. It's going to take long but it works. Will post a picture later.
 
rubberdog said:
You mean how thick you should leave it before heat treatment? I think the standard advice is 0.5 to .75mm at the very edge is the thinnest you should go.

Once the blade is heat treated you're going to struggle to remove more material with a file so this is what I suggest: buy yourself some belts in 80 grit, the 30mm wide ones. Then you cut a length and tape it to your file and use that on your filing jig to do your post heat treat grinding. It's going to take long but it works. Will post a picture later.
Click to expand...

Yes, thickness before HT. That's great advice, I've seen @Natlek do something similar.

I had intended for my edge to be .030/.75mm, but it ended up being .050"/1.27mm. I've just started draw filing with my single cut file, but I'm not sure if I should attempt to bring that thickness down by draw filing with the single cut, switch back to my double cut bastard and continue draw filing (switching back to the single cut after I get it to the correct thickness), or if I should basically start over on the filing jig?

QctThEu.jpg
 
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Whatever you do just remember you're going to be doing a lot of sanding prior to heat treat to get those scratches out and sanding also removes material. I wrap wet/dry paper on the smooth file and draw file with that. (starting at 80 grit and going up to 220 at least.)

Here's how I attach the section of belt for post heat treat grinding, I think you already get the idea:

QhlZEgy.jpg
 
I was planning on sanding to 400 grit using RHYNOWET and a sanding block, using Nick Wheeler's 45 degree technique. I hadn't considered that the pre HT sanding would take off enough material to get my edge down to .030 after draw filing.

Also, I think my stock was slightly bent before I started filing so it's a little uneven, but that's not enough to stop me finishing this all the way though.

Thanks again for all the newbie tips, I hope they help someone else as well.
 
I'm now up to 220 grit on my pre HT sanding, and it's coming along. Few questions though..

1. I have a bit of convexing near the tip of the blade, and I'm wondering if it's because I didn't cut all the way to the first 45 degree cut when I was initially creating my primary bevel? Should I be bringing down each successive cut all the way down to the top of the 45?

2. Do some knife makers freehand draw-file the entire primary bevel after making the initial 45 degree cut, rather than using a file guide w/ push strokes? Just curious what the freehand technique is.


3. Is it recommended that I sand with straight stroke before HT, or is it fine to stop here (400 grit)?:

Lw1OpDD.jpg
U6Hjwgj.jpg

IV9hKnl.jpg
 
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Hey everyone, thought I'd give this thread an update.

I've yet to fully finish a knife, but the one above is chilling out all oiled up awaiting HT. I had decided to start a second knife while I waited for my anti-scale compound, and after about 20 minutes of profiling my filing jig broke. In my frustration, I decided to work within my space/budget to buy and modify a Dayton 2x42. Here's the result:


I took the second knife that I had started and went to town using my bubble jig. I also tried out going totally free hand when I decided that it was taking too long to run the bevel up to the spine. Had some trouble chasing down some faceting, which there is still a little bit visible. At this point, I'm pretty satisfied with it being my first attempt at grinding a blade on a belt grinder, so I'm going to go ahead and heat treat this one. I think some of my issues stem from my blank not being flat, so that's something to note for the next one.

A couple parts of the edge are very thin, can I simply draw file on the edge to fatten it up a little? I'd rather not risk jacking it up trying to fix it on the belt grinder.

You can see a bit of the faceting towards the tip/spine here:

E8zgefk.jpg


FatmkuG.jpg
 
I don’t really see any facets. What I do see is your plunge line. See how yours breaks the top of the spine? You don’t want that. You want to stop just before the spine. There should be a little curve there not a straight line over the spine. Only thing you can do is take a magnet with the blade on it and run it along the belt grinder long ways down the blade like you’re trying to flatten it. That should get rid of the over-grinding. Be careful n make sure you’re flat against the platen!
 
NickBoyle said:
I don’t really see any facets. What I do see is your plunge line. See how yours breaks the top of the spine? You don’t want that. You want to stop just before the spine. There should be a little curve there not a straight line over the spine. Only thing you can do is take a magnet with the blade on it and run it along the belt grinder long ways down the blade like you’re trying to flatten it. That should get rid of the over-grinding. Be careful n make sure you’re flat against the platen!
Click to expand...

Good point, there's so much to remember that I totally forgot about that. It's just barely broken, I think I may be able to bring it down by hand as I haven't sanded the ricasso yet. I have a welding magnet that I can use if it comes down to it.

edit: Actually, will working the plunge line back a little bit with the belt off the edge of the platen fix it?
 
You’re probably better off just flattening it.

If you try to chip your way back into the riccaso you’ll end up trying to match up your plunge lines and whittling away your riccaso so much that there’s nothing left...
 
A.McPherson said:
You’re probably better off just flattening it.

If you try to chip your way back into the riccaso you’ll end up trying to match up your plunge lines and whittling away your riccaso so much that there’s nothing left...
Click to expand...

I ended up flattening it a bit last night. Let's just say that I only l now fully understand how important it is to start with a flat blank. Just need to figure out a good workflow for achieving that with non precision ground steel or surface grinder.

Here's the result
https://i.imgur.com/wWAMKtB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qHqUiR1.jpg

It's not perfect, but I need to tackle my first heat treat, so I'm going to move forward with that at this point.
 
Hallo i am a new knife maker and i wanted to ask about ordering knife blades online. The website im look to order from sells knife blades unsharpened (there is a fee for sharping or rounding the point) and i would like to know if website in general ship unsharpend blades without tempering them
 
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