Take Down Fighter Work In Progress

Sorry for the delay. Things are busy and it's hard to find time to post sometimes.

So once the blade has been forged to shape and thermal cycled it is now time to surface grind it to the thickness that I want. If I am planning on a .187 blade, which I am, then I will surface grind it to .205. By the time that I hand sand the blade and etch it, the blade will be right where I want it. Later on I will explain this a bit more and it will come together.

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My surface grinder was built in the 1930's. It is an Abrasive 3B. The magnet that holds the work in place is 8"x24". This machine is an oldie but goodie!

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Blade clamped and grinding begins.

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Here is the blade off the surface grinder. The black on the blade is where I had forged the blade thinner that my finished blade thickness. Some blades get forged to a closer finished edge, some don't. I use the forging process to save on steel and give me flexibility in profile design. Some Damascus patterns call for exact forging to shape. Some don't. I could forge every single blade exactly to shape and thickness but I am a full time maker. I balance saving steel to saving time. At a certain point excess forging begins to cost me time.

Some makers will not like this theory but I'm being brutally honest. I have to make knives in the most efficient manner possible, of course without cutting corners that will adversely affect the knife.

The handle starts at the ricasso. If that area is perfectly ground true and square, fitting the guard and handle gets much easier. If that means less forging for quicker, easier, and more accurate fitting then so be it.

Forgers have a big advantage over non forgers though because our designs are not limited to specific stock sizes. I can forge any pattern I want, then take it to a desired stock size.

I definitely have deep respect for people who are wizards with a hammer. I can hold my own though and do what I need to.

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Now I am painting Dykem layout blue on the blade. This allows me to lay my pattern on the blade, scribe it and grind it without losing my pattern.

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Here I am grinding the profile of the knife.

[img]http://www.fototime.com/9DF00988DAA5CFE/standard.jpg

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The blade is now profiled.
 
Now it is time to grind the blade. A couple years ago I completely changed the way I grind a blade. I could grind quite well but after watching Tim Hancock I decided his method would give me quicker more repeatable results. After all just look at his knives, it wasn't that hard of a decision but it did take some patience.

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First I check the thickness of the blade. What ever it is then I divide that in half. Next I dykem the edge and scribe a center line down the edge and the spine. Some people do two lines but I just do a center line.

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Now I set my grinder table up at a severe angle.

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Now I am going to do what is called "Setting the Edge." I am going to grind a bevel down close to the center line leaving a little material on either side. This will establish a perfect thickness along the edge and a perfectly even bevel that will start the grind.

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You are actually getting the full Tim Hancock blade grinding lesson here! Thank Tim.

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Perfectly even bevel to start my flat grinding.
 
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Now the back of the blade lays on a SOLID, SQUARE, work rest. Squaring you table to platen is critical. That way you will get a perfectly square grind to the spine. If you want an angle than you can adjust your table to give you a perfectly even angle.

I use a push stick, as does Tim. The ONLY thing the push stick hand does is push. The hand the blade is in pulls straight across the platen.

I now work on moving that bevel line that you saw before up the blade toward the spine. There is a lot more little tiny details that I won't bore you with. If you want more come to my hammer in when Tim teaches it!

As Tim does I now go to a disc grinder free hand and do the finish grind before heat treat. I take the blade down to an edge around .040 before heat treat. This is a guess, I've never actually checked it.

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The disc is a perfect way to make a perfectly flat blade. As stable as you can be on a belt, you can never get it as flat. A few years ago I would not have believed it. I thought I was quite the grinder and then I put one of my blades on a disc.

I start my disc grinding around 120 grind and then go to a 220 grit Klingspor sand paper that has been attached to the disc with spray adhesive.

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Here it is ready for heat treat, ground at least. Don't worry about the scale from forging. It'll get taken off in the finish grind after heat treat.

Now I'm on to the final stages before heat treat...
 
Wow, i also find that kind of grinding interesting. Everything your showing looks great!
 
It depends on the blade and what you want. But generally you are correct there is not taper until further down the blade. In a small hunter the blade would taper down to a point starting at about 1 1/2 from the point. On this bowie the taper starts about 3 1/2" from the point. When the false edge starts so does the taper of the spine.

I like a blade that feels light in the hand and I was worried this grind would not give that, but in fact it does.

Even though this grind looks time consuming it becomes very quick once you've perfected it. The great thing is that there is very little room for error. If done right the blade will be perfect every time.
 
Excellent thread Josh!

I use a disk for my final step before hand rubbing. Makes the blade flat enough to get an undistorted reflection once it is polished.

I am SERIOUSLY jelous of your press/rolling mill setup.
 
Josh Thanks for the great explanation and pics of your grinding method! And thanks to Tim for teaching you!!
 
very interesting thread, especially how you make the ladder pattern

how much time is involved in making such a blade?
 
The grinding technique is awesome. haveing been to josh's hammerin twice when Tim gave his grinding technique demo i can say that it has cut years off of my learning curve. grinding is one of the things that i had always struggled with. I read somewhere someone referred to this technique as "precision grinding" it is that for sure. as far as the distal taper thing Tim covered that the first year he did his demo i cannot remember how he explained his thinking behind his method of doing the taper but it was good and made sense. Thank you Josh for this thread you just need to do more posting.
 
bandaidman said:
very interesting thread, especially how you make the ladder pattern

how much time is involved in making such a blade?
Click to expand...

I have heard some question why damascus knives generally cost more than like carbon steel knives with their reasoning being that it takes more time to final sand/finish carbon steel blades. Well that may or may not be the case. However threads like this demonstrate that when the time to create the damascus billet is factored in, total knife production time is much more with damascus knives.
 
bandaidman said:
very interesting thread, especially how you make the ladder pattern

how much time is involved in making such a blade?
Click to expand...

Typically to make a Damascus pattern like this one and grind the blade so it is ready for heat treat would take two or three days. This same blade used to take be a week and a half to get to the same point but over the years I've gotten much more efficient and confident in what I am doing.
 
Bailey Bradshaw said:
Excellent thread Josh!

I use a disk for my final step before hand rubbing. Makes the blade flat enough to get an undistorted reflection once it is polished.

I am SERIOUSLY jelous of your press/rolling mill setup.
Click to expand...

It really is a pretty cool set up. Maybe someday you can come teach at my hammer in and use them!
 
Josh will you have a chance to demo your press/ rolling mill set up at the hammer in? I really like how you did that!
 
Now I have to do any work to the blade that involves filing, milling, or drilling before I heat treat the blade. Once it's hard there's no more.

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Here I have planned out the small stainless name tags that will later be attached to the blade.

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Now I am drilling the holes that will later be for pinning on the name tags.

This blade is going to have a groove in the top of the blade.

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First I roughed in the groove with my milling machine with a ball end mill but some how didn't get pictures. I am no machinist so I have to do a lot of clean up work with files, stones, and sand paper.

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I grind my EDM stones to the shape that I need them to fit in the carving that I am doing. I then use klingspor paper to polish the groove. I will polish the groove to 600 grit before heat treat because it's much easier in soft steel.

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Here I'm drilling a hole in the tang to hang the blade by in heat treat. I'm now ready to heat treat.
 
tomh said:
Josh will you have a chance to demo your press/ rolling mill set up at the hammer in? I really like how you did that!
Click to expand...

Sure I can do that. Just remind me.

Owen Wood will be teaching presicion damascus on them too, which is even better!
 
Josh - what portion of those tools are readily available vs. made to order vs custom made vs home made?

Thanks,

JD
 
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