starting knife making grinder build and space

Y

yakantosh

Joined
Jun 21, 2014
Messages
158
I am going to take the plunge and start grinding knives for a hobby. I need some input on these topics.

Grinder:
-As of now I plan on building the nwg from USAknifemaker. I know that it is not the best option, but for my price range it is that or the grizzly 2x72.
-Would it be better to use tracking and drive wheels that are completely aluminum, or coated wheels from sunray?

Grinding space:
-Only space that I can use is the attic.
-Dust will be a large concern in that I cannot have it escaping into the rest of the house.
-I am planning on walling off a section of the attic with fire retardant tarps to create the grinding space.
-Dust collection would be done with a filtration system utilizing a bouncy house fan. Metal shaving collection will be done via the water bucket method.

Will walling off a section of my attic and running an air filtration system contain the metal dust to that walled off area?
 
Knifemaking is like the path to the dark side, one action leads to another... I would not recommend grinding in the house even with tarps, its just not worth it for your family's health. When I said one action leads to another I mean you won't be just grinding metal, you will almost definitely grind other stuff especially for handles.

Do you have a garage? If so you can seal off a place in there.
 
If you can seal off an area & keep a negative pressure via strong exhaust fan, minimal dust will accumulate.
Problem is, if you are trying to keep an area heated, all the warm air goes out with exhaust. Also, if this is part of a house, negative pressure will suck warm air out of the rest of house thru every crack & joint joint of construction.
Make-up air also needs supply, usually something as simple as allowing air to enter across from exhaust, a crossflow pattern of sorts.

Tarps could work as well as anything, you just need all gaps sealed.
Be cautious where the exhaust goes, without good filtration, you dont want it directed anywhere you want to keep nice.
At my place, exhaust is not filtered, just blows out back of building into a ocean of blackberry vines.
But thats mellava hess if anything needed to be back there.
 
I don't want to be too critical, but I don't think grinding in the attic is a good idea. Too much of a fire hazard as well as the dust consideration. You would be much better off outside, maybe a small work shed.
 
I would actually look at either a sling grinder or the Wilmont little buddy. With the little buddy you can eventually get the base plate that will allow it to go into horizontal mode I believe.

Keep a lot of extinguishers on hand in the attic man... don't know if that's the best idea either :/ also have good fire alarms.
 
I recently took my grinder off a movable bench and mounted it on a bench fixed to the wall in my garage.

Grinding steel isn't such a problem but finishing 2 handles left a coat of dust in my shop that will take days to clean up. It also smells like micarta a week later. I don't think I'd want that in my attic.

Mine is going back on a bench with casters in short order so can wheel it outside, or at least to the door in rainy weather.

Use solid ALU wheels for drive and idler pulleys.
 
When I going over places to set up I just happened to be drawn to the attic space because nothing else is up there and it is not heated or cooled with the rest of the house. I knew fire hazard would be a huge issue. The combination of that and an inability to vent to the outside has killed that option for me. So, I am now considering the possibility of building an enclosure in the garage vs building a small shed to do work in. I have a small wood shop set up in the basement that I will be using for finishing work that is set up with dust collection, but I do not want metal dust in that area. As per the grinder itself, I am leaning toward the sling grinder after reading about it.
 
The sling is a good start, but you might want to consider the GIB also. The sling is going to limit you to one set-up, either a flat platen or big wheel. With the GIB you can change out tool arms for different set-ups such as flat platen, big wheel, small wheels or any size wheel in between. This comes in really handy. Just food for thought if you can afford to spend more.
 
I am taking that into consideration. From my experience I dislike hollow ground knives, so I was not planing on setting up my grinder with a large wheel for that purpose. I have access to other tools for doing handle profiles such as an oscillating sander. If I move beyond the capabilities of the sling grinder and other equipment I have access to I will more than likely be looking at a kmg or a used burr king. But as of now with building a shed or enclosure in my garage the gib is a bit out of my price range.
 
Check here for ideas on dust collection... If I were you I would keep it cheap in the garage, hang a piece of plastic up to segregate off your 'shop', tape all the seams with the gorilla duct tape, get a good dust collection system and you will be set.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top