Setting up shop with a $1000(updated with dust collector I built and another light)

duffy99

duffy99

Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
425
Hello , first of I'd like to say thanks to all the contributors to this site. The amount of info here is amazing to a very beginner knife maker like myself. I currently live in an apartment and am making knives completely by hand in my laundry room. I'll be moving soon and will soon have a basement. I want to start using some power tools before I completely loose use in my hands from carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm a former paratrooper and veteran of Afghanistan and Bosnia and my body is already pretty beat up and worn out.

I have around $1000 to work with and obviously the belt grinder is my priority. I also figure I need a bandsaw and possibly a drill press, I own a hand held drill but my drills are only are straight as my arms allow. I live in Alberta, Canada which limits my choices . I have UTFSE ( used the f**king search engine) extensively and have seen some options like the Bee grinder , supposedly there is a place in BC that sells Kalamazoo's but I'm not sure of the cost here. I heard there are knifemakers in Alberta who make grinders but all of these are very expensive from what I read . I don't feel confident enough to try to build my own grinder right now. I've read the debates of various grinders but the whole getting it to Canada thing makes me want to try to get something from here. So any thoughts for a Canuck starting out?

My first knife will be back from HT next week so once it's together I'll post some pics to make other novice knife makers feel a lot better about there own work :).
 
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A grand will definitely get you a very nice shop setup. The majority of my work, as a beginner, is done with files and sandpaper, so a grand will buy a lot of those! As for a grinder, making your own really isn't that hard. I made mine, and only really needed a good drill press to drill straight holes. There are plans available on the internet.

I'd opt to get a drill press first because it allows you to work towards making a lot of things, including a grinder to make knifes. A bandsaw is nice, but I use a hand-held bandsaw and haven't felt any loss for it.
 
I'd agree with the drill press. Even a cheap one would suffice to start.

If you need a workbench, I'd suggest building with solid core doors over 2x4s - takes a day or so but can be really nice.

You might look at the Grinder in a Box for a grinder setup - probably worth the expense over a Kalamazoo, etc.

I bought a portaband and a stand and use them on every knife - but that's a good chunk of the budget, so it might need to wait a bit.

I'd hold off on a kiln at this time - you may want to send blades for heat treating for now.

Also, you'll want something to sand flat against - the cutout for a sink at the local granite supply would probably suffice.
 
Hi, I already have an extensive array of files and sand paper in different shapes and types although I'd like to find some real big lunkers as my biggest are 12 inch nicholson's. I get HT done by Canadian Knifemaker Supply which is in the province and supplies the steel I've gotten so far. So Drill Press and Belt grinder's is what I should focus on. As for the Grinder in a Box has any Canadian's got one of these and how much technical know how is involved, I can follow directions but is it going to be a lot more frustrating then putting together junk from ikea?. I agree with getting a good work table and was thinking of putting a 3/4 " plywood on top. I'm doing all my work on a little black and decker work bench with a 4" vise installed onto it right now.
 
as a fellow edmontonian I feel your pain. I was lucky to be introduced to a guy who used to be a knife maker but got out of it in the early 80's all his tools and steel and handle materials went into storage in boxes in his garage. when he heard I was interested in making knives he pulled out all the boxes and drpped them off at my doorstep and said have fun. that was 3 years ago now. I would love to have a drill press and a band saw but for now I grind all my profiles and use my father-in-law's drill press. I send my blades out for HT to Rob at knifemaker.ca. they have treated me great. they are also a good canadian source for steel handle wood ect...
welcome to the obsession
J.leclair
 
I say - drill press first.

skip the bandsaw and use a good hacksaw

I have a bee and it is a good grinder, but $$$
Even a GIB will cost $1,500 to complete a setup as i would like it, but you can do it a bit at a time.

This maker is cdn & did a gib build, if you search, you may find that thread
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/826624-My-KBAC-27D-Came-In

hand tools could eat your budget fast
vise, files, hacksaw, abrasives, bench, lighting, drill press, drills,

Many makers start with the Sears Craftsman 2x42 belt grinder
 
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Hey Duffy - Former Edmontonian here, I just moved to BC about 8 months ago. Funny enough I was in the same situation as you (condo) and was making knives in my spare room which needless to say was a little hard on the carpets. Once I moved I had some real shop space and have been able to set up for quite cheap. You really do not need expensive equipment to make very nice knives.

Sears 2x42 Grinder ($100-140) + ($200 in belts)
Drill Press ($60-100)
Drum Sander kit ($20)
Shop Vac ($60 - 100)
Ventilator ($30)

The grinder is a pain because they only sell them in the US and will not ship to Canada but if you have a friend in the US, or one near the border this is easy to overcome. They simply can not be beat for the price. With a few easy mods they work VERY well. Ceramic platen liner etc. search here will turn up a bunch. Disc is helpful for truing up scales and shaping etc. Even if you get another grinder later this thing pays for itself. The real thing here is you need to buy belts - and you will easily spend $200+ on a nice range of belts to get you started. If you were to try and buy a $600+ grinder, you would be spending even more on belts because the 2x72 cost even more. I order them from supergrit, trugrit also has a good selection for the 2x42 and lee valley stocks 1x42 belts that work on the sears grinder.

I picked up a craftsmen drill press for $90 on sale here in BC, and had been using an even cheaper $50 one from Canadian tire before that. Both did everything I needed and more. The Drum sander kit for $20 from princess auto works well in place of small wheel attachments on a bigger grinder for doing radius's and finger grooves.

The shop vac for you working in the basement os VERY important to set up some kind of dust collection system. Easiest is just a long hose to connect next to whatever you tool you are making dust with at the time. This is for use in conjuntion with the entalator / mask which you can get very cheap at princess auto.


Optional:
Bandsaw - wood (100$)?
Bandsaw - metal (100?)

I put these in here as you can get away with not having these, BUT for me not having them made some things a complete PITA and Cost more. The wood bandsaw you can pick up very cheap used or a small "ryobi" one from home depot. Makes it much easier to cut scales / blocks etc. Saves you some filing or belts as you are closer to the mark. The metal bandsaw should be a portaband (any brand) - Princess auto sells a very cheap one (less then $100) which will serve you very well. This will save you a lot of time and cos in terms of belts for profiling etc. Maybe you can get away with just this one and use it on wood also? I have never tried. Either way...for me these for huge frustration killers and money / time savers.


This will put you in around the $600- $700 mark at this poitn give or take and you can spend the rest on the million other things you will need:

Epoxy - KMS tool sells the same epoxy as usaknifemaker.com just branded for thier store: http://www.kmstools.com/bsi-slow-cure-epoxy-9oz-7456

Steel / Pin stock and tube etc - Rob at knifemaker.ca -http://www.knifemaker.ca/

Clamps, sand paper, vice etc - Princess Auto....cheap but effective.

Handle Material

Lee Valley has boards and blocks of hardwoods for cheap (cocobolo / bocote etc) the 2x2x12 blocks of cocobolo are about $11 and will give you at least 4 nice sets of scales. You also have the best source right in Edmonton which I miss now greatly.....

W G Chanin Hardwoods Ltd - 14615 116 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB - The owner operator is CRAZY as a loon, but has a huge warehouse FULL of exotic hardwoods and even has boxes of knife scales. He is a distributor but will sell you smaller pieces. Show up early in the morning and walk in to talk to him - otherwise he will be too busy as he is the only person who works and runs the huge warehouse.... You will be amazed at the amount of wood this guy has..

Leather - Tandy leather in the west end can't be beat....and even better is its only a few blocks from Lee Valley AND Princess Auto AND KMS tool....

Anyways - these are my findings after going through the same process as you over the last year or so. If $1000 was just your grinder budget and I missed the boat entirely this should still be helpful...

Let me know if you need a hand getting a sears grinder out of the states or I can send you some steel etc to mess around on.

Cheers,
Kris
 
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Looking at the Grinder in a Box it looks like a fair amount of effort and maybe more than I can do at this point . I don't have all the tools and would have to find the wheels , attachments and motor , that might be a push to a pre-fabricated , mostly assembled option for a grinder. I guess a break down of the budget would be half for the grinder and the other half for drill press , some type of saw if not a stationary bandsaw a decent equivalent and work table and odds n sods.
 
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Thanks for the reply , I have some of these things mentioned , using knifemaker.ca for a lot of supplies and handle materials along with jantz in the states. I've got a lot of the smaller stuff 3m respirator knife making materials and have been to tandy too. I guess getting the grinder looks like it'll be the hardest part . Thanks for the tip with Princess auto , will definitely pay them a visit once I start purchasing this stuff. Lee valley is good but pretty pricey .
 
Save some money for belts if you get a grinder, good fresh belts really help a lot. I just dropped another $300 on belts this week but I'll be set up for a while.

Spend some time looking in to a steel you'd like to use and how you would like to heat treat it.

For my first few knives I used clamps, files, sandpaper, a vice, and a $40 belt sander. I actually had some clean grinds with that cheap sander so the grinder isn't a huge limitation as far as getting started goes.

I still use a skil-saw with a metal cutting blade for cutting my stock and a jigsaw for smaller stuff. I really need a good metal cutting bandsaw! My jewelers saw and hacksaw do the job when called for, you can cut steel suprisingly fast by hand.

I made a couple of knives that needed to be heat treated and then finished a mild steel bottle opener with hardware store oak scales and brass hardware as my first finished project. It wasn't intimidating that way and I just got caught up in the work and have been ever since.
.
Good luck!
 
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Thanks for the reply Kris and others , I have some of these things mentioned , using knifemaker.ca for a lot of supplies and handle materials along with jantz in the states. I've got a lot of the smaller stuff 3m respirator knife making materials and have been to tandy too. I guess getting the grinder looks like it'll be the hardest part . Thanks for the tip with Princess auto , will definitely pay them a visit once I start purchasing this stuff. Lee valley is good but pretty pricey . I guess I gotta get a sears 2x42 up here or I just saw this http://www.kmstools.com/general-bench-top-sander-and-grinder-2182 . I don't know if the latter would work very well and canadian tire has a belt grinder too but it doesn't look that great. Anyone wanna mod a 2x42 and ship it here? I dunno I just figure there ought to be something already available in canada similar to the sears 2 x 42 .
 
+1 for knifemaker.ca

I ordered all of my first supplies from them and they are very pleasant and quick to complete your orders. They have excellent selection too!

Honestly I've been grinding on an old 4x36 belt/disc combo and while it doesn't work wonders it works quite well for profiling, not really the best option for grinding bevels though at this point (i draw file mine).

Duffy, I have been looking at that EXACT grinder. It is looking like the perfect middle ground between my old 4x36 and a costly 2x72 (not really feasible to most beginning knife makers like you and I). I'm heading to kms this coming weekend to go take a look at it... maybe even earlier in the week depending on rain. I will tell you what I think, for 189.99 it doesn't seem like too big of a chunk of change and the added benefit of being able to have a buffing station all in one seems to be the ticket.
 
regarding cutting wood with a portaband:

Yes, it works fine. It just cuts slowly since the blade is slowed way down for metal, but it works. For wood, it's probably not (much) faster than cutting by hand, but I have better control with the bandsaw than hand-cutting.
 
Ya I've being having trouble keeping deep cuts straight with a coping saw on wood and now use a hacksaw which is a little better, I've made 4 knives from pre-shaped blanks already. This is why I'd like a bandsaw and drilling + hacksawing out profiles is a pain in the ass, let alone draw filing some thicker steels. I'm currently making 3 knives from stock removal of 154cm and D2 from knifemaker.ca , I guess I could have all the tools in the world and still make crappy knives just a lot faster . I know I need a lot of practice and will eventually get better. But I'm really excited about getting some power tools to help .
 
I was in your shoes not to long ago! Just from my small amount of time in the shop the following get used the most.
Belt grinder
Vice and files
propane forge
1x30 sander
file guide is a must for me!
A ton of abrasive material, belts, discs, etc. You can spend a couple hundred on abrasives alone.
 
duffy99 said:
Hello , first of I'd like to say thanks to all the contributors to this site. The amount of info here is amazing to a very beginner knife maker like myself. I currently live in an apartment and am making knives completely by hand in my laundry room. I'll be moving soon and will soon have a basement. I want to start using some power tools before I completely loose use in my hands from carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm a former paratrooper and veteran of Afghanistan and Bosnia and my body is already pretty beat up and worn out.

I have around $1000 to work with and obviously the belt grinder is my priority. I also figure I need a bandsaw and possibly a drill press, I own a hand held drill but my drills are only are straight as my arms allow. I live in Alberta, Canada which limits my choices . I have UTFSE ( used the f**king search engine) extensively and have seen some options like the Bee grinder , supposedly there is a place in BC that sells Kalamazoo's but I'm not sure of the cost here. I heard there are knifemakers in Alberta who make grinders but all of these are very expensive from what I read . I don't feel confident enough to try to build my own grinder right now. I've read the debates of various grinders but the whole getting it to Canada thing makes me want to try to get something from here. So any thoughts for a Canuck starting out?

My first knife will be back from HT next week so once it's together I'll post some pics to make other novice knife makers feel a lot better about there own work :).
Click to expand...

Well being that I have limited use of my arms, thanks to chronic tennis elbow in both arms, I will give my advise.
I went for a year using files and a hacksaw to shape my blades, it is doable but very hard on the arms and takes for ever to get things done. Just take breaks and ice regularly. I did end up switching over to a 72"X2" grinder and went the Grinder in a Box way, but the way I built mine up it cost just shy of $1200. I do feel it was worth every penny and don't regret a single cent I spent on it. My grinder has 1.5hp TEFC 3 phase motor and I power it with a KBAC-27D drive. If you go variable speed like I did, don't cheap out on the drive. I then scoured the yard sales and kijiji for a bench top drill press which I got for $35 and I picked up the Princess Auto porta band saw while on sale through a friend that worked there for $65 and used some scraps to give it a table and make it free standing. So the total cost of my power tools was $1300. Then you have to budget in the accessories to make the power tools work, belts for the grinder, blades for the saw (you will break them and it sucks not having a replacement while in the middle of a cut), and some quality bits for the drill press. So my total power tool start up cost was in the $1500 range. I did spread that out over some time so that made it easier to swallow. Bump up your budget a bit and you will have a very good hobbyist knife making shop. You will still need hand tools like quality files and more sandpaper that you thought possible, and the steel to work with. The good thing is if you get quality files, when they wear out you can make knives out of them instead of with them:D
 
I don't understand why sears doesn't carry the 2 x 42 in Canada. Thanks for the replies .
 
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Yeah for starters id really try to find a crafstman 2x42, a drill press, wood band saw and portaband saw setup -my harbor freight setup with the pedal switch was 100$

DSC_1015.jpg
 
I think I'll check out that General bench sander/ grinder , it looks pretty similar to the sears one ,it's 2 x 32 I think so I don't know what kind of belts there are for it and it is available here . I wish there was an option around $500 with motor that I could get.
 
I found this grinder , it's only $400 plus shipping from B.C., any thoughts?

Kalamazoo 2FSM 2" Sander Multi-position vertical or horizontal

Specifications:

2" x 48" belt, Vertical or Horizontal Position
1/2 HP motor, 3450 RPM, direct drive, 5" contact wheel
Tilt work table, removeable platen
Full hinged OSHA guard for quick belt change
Pre-set belt tension, one knob belt tracking
4500 SFPM belt speed, WT. 48 lbs
32 lbs
Model: 2FSM

They also have 2 x 72 but with motor it looks to be closer to $1000. So now I have a toss up between this and the General Industrial grinder which is $200.
 
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