Things I Used To Believe (before I learned better)

tryppyr

tryppyr

Joined
Feb 5, 2010
Messages
3,911
Each week we see a new wave of newbies coming to the forum with misinformation and misperceptions... often the same ones we shared when we were newbies. I thin it would be fun and informative to share the things we believed, before someone taught us we were wrong.

Here are a few of mine:

* You should use as much of the billet as possible when making a knife. I have since refined that to say "use only what you need for any given knife, and save the scraps for making minis".

* It is possible to HT a blade with a propane torch. I have since learned it is possible to empty a full tank of propane without ever seeing anything approaching red on even a smaller blade.

* You MUST shed blood on a blade when making it in order to baptise it. Actually, the blade doesn't care if you bleed on it or not.

* 4 x 36 belt sanders have a real place in knifemaking. In fact, 4 x 36 belt sanders can be used in knifemaking, but they are much better suited to material preparation tasks, such as sanding gunk off freshly stabilized wood and cleaning the edges of scrap ivory.

* Paper dust masks will suffice if you don't have a real respirator. In truth, paper dust masks are all but useless when working on knives.

What changes have you made to your thinking and wisdom?
 
Last edited:
Here's one: there are economic reasons to use scrap steel. When I started, I was proud of the fact that I could buy pawn shop files two for a dollar and make a knife, or that I could get a hand me down set of leaf springs from a '58 Ford. I didn't understand at the time how much that kind of process leaves to pure chance. Sure I made a few decent knives that way, but they weren't great, and I got lucky. It's one thing to get lucky and make a good knife, it's another to know that the knife you made was good from the beginning. 1084 is cheap :)

Here's another: there is no reason to ever make a scrap steel knife, because known steel is so much better. I don't think this is true. Good luck making a knife from your great-grandpa's 1080 bar stock. Good luck creating a farrier rasp tooth pattern on your W2. Good luck saying your bar stock knife started its life as a Studebaker. Just don't get confused and say that you make scrap steel knives because of economy, and don't try to claim that your knives will have superior performance because they came from back in the day when steel was "better."
 
Last edited:
tryppyr said:
* Never wear gloves when using power tool. Now I always wear gloves when using the drill press, but never when using belt sanders/grinders.

What changes have you made to your thinking and wisdom?
Click to expand...

Before I give one or two thing that I've learned since I started knife make, I though I would comment on the part of your list that stood out the most to me.
I've been around power tools, and people that know how to use them my whole life... I've even made my living with them during certain phases of my life and career. Now that being said, it seems that this is the one area I continually see a great deal of confusion about: "When to where gloves".

I was taught (and continue to see this taught) that you never where gloves (or jewelry, ties, rings, loose clothing, draw strings, etc...) around anything that rotates/spins, has gears, chains, belts, or anything that while the tool or machine is running could grab the aforementioned item and cause injury, loss of digits, limbs, or life.

I can't help but cringe every time I see somebody using gloves around a lathe, milling machine, table saw, router/shaper, etc.... and yes, even a drill press. What really blows my mind is watching "veterans" reach up and clear the swarf off of a still spinning drill bit, just because they have gloves on.

Personally, I'd rather risk a few cuts, slivers, and burns from drilling without gloves, rather than the alternative: broken or torn off fingers, or depending on the size of the machine, maybe worse.

Now, as for something I've learned since I started:

Veg./Canola/Peanut Oil is cheaper than Parks #50 or other commercially available quenchants.
In fact, if you factor in price per gallon, shelf life, consistency/quality, number of blades quenched, etc... Parks 50 will end up being cheaper in the long run, and it will pay for itself time and time again.

Thicker edges make a tougher (and hence better) knife. I used to make my edges fairly thick (not obscenely thick, but not "thin") in the interest of making a tougher, stronger knife. Sure, I could still get them shaving sharp, but over the last year or so, I've learned that a properly heat treated "thin" edged knife will outperform a "stout" knife any day of the week. Not that strong and thin are mutually exclusive.
 
I used to think the materials I used would account for most of the cost of making a knife. They can but I usually spend more on abrasives. I use a lot of high end steels too. If you factor in time that costs the most for certain!

Knifemaking is also twice as addictive as I thought it could be!



Gloves are great for some things like filing but I like grinding tape if I am going to do a ton of grinding. I usually don't use anything though, hardly anything works over a 10 hour day in the shop. I would be scared to use them on the drill press. I am constantly dipping my knives in water so I don't wear gloves. Whatever works best for you is best!
 
Last edited:
Gloves are gloves. I've learned that there are different gloves for different machines. I wouldn't use my welding gloves when working on the drill press, nor would I use my gripper gloves when welding. Weld burns right through the grippers, and the welding gloves have no grip!

It can't be done! This is my biggest pet peeve. Someone comes in and tells you, "That won't work, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I can assure you that it won't work." I've since realized that this isn't really a statement about whether or not you can do it, it's a challenge to see how hard you will work to prove somebody wrong. Nothing makes me work harder than proving somebody wrong.
 
I dont know if you guys know, you probably do, but, I personally believe that this thread would be a great place of information for the newbies like myself. Getting to read what the vets have learned over their time making knives is very informative for me. Please keep posting!!

Skyler
 
Neat idea for a new thread....here are a couple of mine: 1) A good handmade knife should always have a mirror finish....I confess I held this naive belief for a long time until I saw some other works of art on this forum 2) stainless steel makes the best knife....I have come to appreciate that the many types of steel all have different qualities depending on the application.
 
The mirror finish hits home with me big time, I believe it was about 4 years before I satin finished one.
Ken.
 
Letting a knife or chisel touch a moving sanding belt will ruin it. For years I subscribed to FineWoodWorking magazine and I remember a story they did years ago that caused a huge uproar with readers ( They talked about this story for years), they showed somebody sharpening a chisel with a belt sander and the majority of woodworkers got offended and wrote letters telling about if you let a knife or chisel touch a sanding belt that was moving it would never hold an edge again.
 
"1084 is a beginners steel"

I wish I did not read that over and over again because it is such nonsense and makers really need to stop spreading that sentiment.
 
Great thread!
I'm strongly in the No Gloves Around Power Tools camp. Might as well wear a necktie in the shop as far as I'm concerned. But hey, they're your fingers, do what you want.
Here are some other fallacies:

Carbon Steel makes the "best" knives. Carbon steel makes great knives! But so do tool steels and "super steels". It's far more important to suit the material to the purpose than to get hung up on one alloy.
Quality tools and materials are too expensive. This actually goes hand-in-hand with, Better tools will make me a better maker. One can indeed make great knives without a multi-thousand-dollar shop, by focusing instead on a simple design, good hand tools and fresh new steel that's appropriate for your design. Conversely, you cannot make a great knife with a $3000 grinder, junk metal and no practice.
Bigger is better. There is definitely a place for big honking choppers, but they're a lot more specialized (which is a nice way of saying, "most of the time, nearly useless") and one heckuva lot more difficult to make right than most of us realized when we started. In most cases, thin is in and light is right.

"1084 is a beginner's steel" - I agree with the above. It happens to be inexpensive and easy to work with, but it is no slouch. It makes really excellent world-class knives when handled right!

I have standard answers for beginners... start with small knives - no more than a 4" blade, single-edged. Use new steel - Aldo's 1084 in 1/8" is really hard to beat, for lots of reasons... if you like stainless, CPM-154 won't let you down. Let your first power-tool be a basic $150 table-top drill press. Practice, practice, practice. After working at this full-time for a couple years and significant investments in machinery and inventory, I could still honestly fill 75% of my orders within those parameters. :thumbup:
 
Oh yea on the Glove while working with power tools....

I do not do it, never will. I learned 35 years ago from taking shop in Jr. High School and High School to never wear gloves, long sleeves, ties, rings, neck chains and long hair while working with power tools.

It is not a matter of "If" wearing these things will cause a shop accident but "When"

I still have all my fingers and have never had a serious shop accident following the safety rules from so long ago.
 
Never wear gloves, especially around the drill press.

The time I had to turn a machine off, unwrap a glove, and fish a guys finger out of it so they could try and sew it back on was because of this.

Ring finger got ripped right off of his hand. Metacarpal bone and all.

It was NOT pretty, and they couldn't fix it.
Not only can he only count to 9 now, there were a bunch of others, like me who had to deal with this guys stupidity.

I would rather NOT be able to share this story with you.

Your wife will say the same thing if you are unfortunate like he was.

I'm a never wear gloves at all kind of guy, unless I am snowboarding, but especially around rotating equipment.
 
It's nice to see so many people contributing to this thread. I think we'll all gain some insights by sharing our own insights.

- Greg
 
Like AVigil, I was taught about safety from a young age. But one day my hands were cold and I took a chance... My personal epiphany regarding gloves and power-tools came when feeding brush into a wood-chipper. Long story short, if my glove hadn't been loose and easily shredded off my hand, you'd all be calling me "Stumpy" today. Never again. Which brings me to another point...

You don't need to clamp parts down when drilling or countersinking small holes. Nonsense. They will grab and "hell-a-copter" when you least expect it... yeah, I learned the hard way and escaped with barked knuckles... but it could have been worse. A quick-release Vise-Grips with jaws that looks like a C-clamp is one of many quick, easy, cheap ways to prevent this.

Metal that looks "normal" isn't very hot. Ummm... nope. Ouch!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top