Question for the seasoned pro's

Josh Dabney said:
"Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice make perfect. Practice doing it wrong and it'll be ten times harder to get it right."
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That's what my baseball coach used to say. And that's the reason why I want to learn to shoot a rifle, from the Marines, because they teach you the RIGHT way.
 
Will Leavitt said:
A few things that occured to me while I was grinding some SFCs out, Dave Cole probably told you but I'm going to repeat it for people that may be reading and don't have the benefit of a teacher:

Firstly remember when practicing that practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes better. When practicing with mild steel or paint stirrers it's easy to get into a "it doesn't matter, toss it away" attitude. You won't improve like that, after a few for practice, start treating that paint stirrer as some high dollar damascus, if you make a mistake correct the mistake. Don't practice with the attitude of it doesn't matter, it does.

Lock your elbows in to your sides, this makes YOU a more stable platform to work the steel.

Don't use your arms to move the piece side to side, sway your body with your arms locked to your sides. Yes you will look goofy but it works better that way. Don't try to cop a feel while dancing with your grinder :p

Grind with your weak hand first, it'll be easier for your strong hand to match the weak side grind rather than the other way around. Try to use your weak side as much as possible to train it. I do most of my profiling with my weak side.

I usually rough in the plunge with a coarse belt then "back" into it with a fine belt.

Steel is usually the cheapest thing in your shop (USUALLY!!!!) sometimes you just gotta know when to toss a blade into a bucket and walk away or fling it out into the yard.

Belts are the second cheapest thing in your shop. You'll find that you'll make most of your mistakes when trying to force a dull belt for just one more blade.

Well that's all I could think of, hope it helps someone.
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Great words of wisdom. Many thanks from the self taught. :)
 
I learned with a tool rest, and still do most of my work with one. There are a few set in stone rules that if you follow them will make the tool rest no more of a hazard than going without one- 1. Keep your tool rest as tight to the platen as you can, I like to throw a couple sparks on startup. 2. Never, and I mean NEVER approach a tool rested platen with the knife edge down. Some grinders have "other" issues that make tool rests worse, Baders have a really lousy tool rest set up that gathers hot sparks just below the rest and can cause the belt to pucker and break in use, thus it is not a tool rest friendly machine in my opinion. I built my own grinder and it is very tool rest friendly. I also think that tool rests need a totally different height and angle of attack than free hand grinding, trying to mix and match the two will give you an attitude about one or the other for certain. I also have a Hardcore grinder that I use mostly freehand but it is at a totally different height. It is best to be well above the platen so you can look down on it when free handing, this also results in dragging the metal into the belt (smoother) instead of pushing the metal into it (jerky and rough). To get the idea, take one of your paint stirrers and angle the tip upward into the platen and feel how the belt kicks you away from it, then angle the tip downward and drag it into it and see how smooth things go when you are above the grind point.

Having said all that, I would recommend that you learn freehand, not that I feel one is any better than the other but as has been mentioned it will make you more versatile. I can do both, and not only have to do freehand in my "Intro" classes, I have to teach how to do freehand when it is not the way I normally do it. It took me some time to learn both and it would have went faster if I had learned freehand first.
 
Kevin,
Thank you for your comments they are greatly appreciated ! I like your idea of being above the platen looking down at the work and think due to this I've built my bench a little too high. I think I'd be in a more comfortable position with shoulders a bit more relaxed and a little more room between the top of the platen and my face. I understand what you mean about dragging vs pushing and I'm thinking that maybe I'll cut a little off the legs of the bench to correct the height issue. Thanks again for sharing your opinions :D -Josh
 
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