Ran into some problems

The large the drill bit, the slower the speed.
I would drop the drill press rpm and use some oil.

I agree bench grinders with hard wheels are bouncy and slow.
A good belt grinder and contact wheel are like magic in comparison.

If you are using annealed steel, I wouldn't worry about getting it hot enough to heat blue it.
You still have to HT the steel, it doesn't matter a fig.
 
Unfortunately all I have is a 2x42 so no nice contact wheels to use.
 
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OK STOP.

Set your drillpress to its SLOWEST speed

Buy yourself new drill bits, you have ruined the ones you were using. Trust me.

Get yourself a good centerpunch, the "automatic" ones that strike themselves are great, I think they run around $15 and are completely worth it, but you can get the ones you hit with a hammer those will work too.

Centerpunch where you plan to drill before you start to drill, line up the drill before you start, and clamp the knife to the drillpress table so it does not become a spinning helicopter of mutilation

Keep oil on the drillbit at the point of contact, that will keep the cutting edge cool (trust me on that one, if you try drilling CPM 154 dry you will ruin more bits)

You can do your rough profiling on the 2x42, and clean things up with files. Do not put an angle grinder in a vise and try to grind, you will sooner or later either have a wheel explode, or have your blade thrown at you. Listen to Stacy on this one, he has lived a long time using tools and still has all of his fingers, toes, and both eyes.

-Page
 
blandies said:
Unfortunately all I have is a 2x42 so no nice contact wheels to use.
My neighbor has a small garage full of tools and said if I ever needed I could come by any time and use them,he gave me the garage code. I remember him having a big bench grinder so I went on over there and seen how his worked on the steel and took a quick video showing the problems I'm having.

Sorry for the camera shaking, not easy to grind and hold a camera ..which I shouldn't have been doing in the first place. But you can see after 1 second of grinding it burns and also that it doesnt take much steel off. It can take small amounts off O.K. but when you need to remove quite a bit of steel to get the knife shaped it doesn't seem to take much off. I feel like I'm doing something wrong but maybe these grinders do take a while. The steel in the video is just a scrap piece.

[video]http://tinypic.com/r/14kit6u/5[/video]
Click to expand...

Don't sell the 2X42 short, there has been many great knives made using them to grind the profile and bevels. I only recently switched from files and a hacksaw to a portable band saw and a 2X72 grinder so the pains of profiling a blade with hand tools is still fresh with me. Follow Page's drilling instructions, and drill holes around the edge of your pattern as suggested earlier, then connect the holes with a hacksaw. Yes it will look ugly and rough at this point, but now you can take it over to your 2X42 with the proper belt on it and grind all the roughness off and bring it to you finished profile.

Living in the boonies can't be used as an excuse for not being able to get supplies, that is what we have the internet for. 95% of what I get for knife making comes from the internet and gets delivered to me by mail, Even my grinder (GIB) and wheels came through the mail. The mailman didn't like me too much those days but he got over it:P Good belts for your 2X42 will most likely have to be mail ordered too, I have a small selection within 30 miles of me, but the price is 2-3 times what I can get online and I get a bigger selection. For the record I live in a little town of 1400 people, and don't drive, about the only difference between living here and in a city is I could get sandpaper in bulk in person while I lived in the city.
 
Yep they nailed it I think the spindle speed is the issue here... I think the fastest I run my bits is ~1200 rpm and that is when I'm drilling 5/32 holes. I run about 700-800 for 5/16 holes and with practice I've been using the same bits for the last 15 knives.

Forgot you had the 2x42. I'd agree that you should be using this for profiling with the right belts. As long as you gently grind in shallow curves you should not get much bumpiness at all in the grind, and other small dips you can rough in as far as you can on the platen and just finish with about 15 minutes of filing (half-round or 1/2" round does it for me usually).

I tried using my benchtop grinder at the beginning to rough out steel. My take? It gets too hot, it spins too fast for little control, and it removes a pitiful amount of steel for the frustration it puts you through. The heat alone made me want to wear gloves, but I will NEVER wear a glove around something spinning that fast... moved on to a bandsaw + belt grinder thank you very much :D

+1 to what George said too. Even just living in CANADA is frustrating enough with finding local/national suppliers without having to succumb to crossborder shipping fees and customs haha
 
Your 2x42 does have a contatct wheel. It has two of them, but you have to cut away a guard or two to get to them. That grinder will do almost anything you ask of it with the right belts. Learn how to use it and you will make some wonderful knives!
 
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