QUESTION ; when to sand and with what?

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DaQo'tah Forge

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Hi this is DaQo'tah...

as you may know,,,all my knife-making information comes from you guys here on this forum,,,and You have all helped me tons to make some cool knives,,,(not good enough to sell yet,,,but better and better each time.).

Now to my problem..

I just dont know when to sand the knife and how far to take it...

I mean, my steel is 52100 from Rex Walter,,,I get it from Rex in a one footby one inch by 1/4 inch size, I do fire up my coal forge and put a tip on the steel, and work the blade a bit, then normalize , then Anneal the steel overnight.

Then I work the profile of the blade as talked about in Ed Fowler's new book - KNIFE TALK II..

but then Ed talks about establishing flats (page 107), and Im not sure I understand,,,,do I work the flats all the way to 600 grit?

then next I try to do the plunge grind and do some slack-belt grinding...

I work the cutting edge down to about 1/8 inch thick ,,but do I use all my belts up to the 600 grit yet?,,,(I still have to grind after heat treating )

next I heat treat, then temper in the oven,,,the blade is all covered with burned steel crap by now,,,

Do I have to start all over and sand the sides all the way to 600 again, before I again start the slack belt grinding on the blade?

what grit do I start with?
 
personally I take my blades to 180 or 220 before heat treat, then start with 180 or 120 again(depending on amount of scale) after heat treat. I always like a fresh blade after HT, makes it a lot easier).

Course, everyone on here will have a different answer for this question. :)
 
600 would be double work, at least. I take mine to 400 grit before HT and then grind the decarb off with 400. I end up with the 800 grit belt. After that it is hand sanding and buffing. I am thinking of stopping at 220 grit before HT.

If you really leave your edge that thick (1/8th ???) I'd stop at 80 or 60 grit before HT. WoW, however there are some that only profile the blade before HT!!

RL
 
I used to do the full "finish" before HT and find myself doing the finsih again after HT, so I now just leave it. If it is a carbon tool steel like 1084 or O1, I only rough grind up to 80 grit before HT, maintaining a little extra thickness at the edge and not taking the "full height flat grind" all tnhe way to the spine. I leave all that for after HT. Leaving a bit extra steel also improves your chances of surviving any warpage. Thin steel warps more, heats less consistently, and is more difficult to quench properly too.

After HT, I start grinding again with 80grit to the final bevel profile and then refine everything with 150 and 320grit belts. I use a 3M Scothbrite belt which takes the finish to something like 400-600grit. By this stage, the edge is down to 1/32inch thickness. If I were to then do a satin hand rub, I can start to really get that edg quite nice and thin.

I start the hand rub with 240grit, then 400, 800grit. And thats it. I personally find the best finishes to be 1200grit, then going back and putting in the final 800grit or 1000grit finish. The higher grit ensures that all the previous grits are sanded out. On blades with hamons etc. I also then use 1200, 1500 and 2000grit.

Just a couple of many different methods.
 
Depends on the blade for me. On small blades, I usually do all the ginding after HT. On larger blades, I take them down to 220 before HT.
 
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