What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

The Teco FM50 that I was using to power my belt grinder took a dump on me last weekend so I sold one of my small anvils and bought a nice KB driver for it. Hopefully with the NEMA 4 enclosure it will last me a few years this time.

With the Teco I never could get the reverse to work correctly but it works like a champ with the new driver so I made a 9" disc for it and mounted it to the double shaft motor on the grinder. I have a nice State 15" disc sander that I would use for cleaning up the knife grinds before hand sanding but the sanding pads are expensive and it's a single phase direct drive motor so it spun a little faster than I liked. I am looking forward to being able to use cheaper sand paper sheets on it and having reverse for it will be great.

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Here's a Santoku that I finished up today. The blade steel is S35vn, handle is stabilized curly maple, with mosaic pins.










 
So this is knife number 6 and I can so tell I have a long way to go in all aspects. This Aldo's 1084 and handles I made from digital camo. All in all I guess I should be happy it is my best one yet maybe I'm expecting too much of myself at this point. But I do see where I need improvement. Was going to do a forced patina, but that didn't work out at all. Need to get slower glue for the scales, get better at shaping and sanding the handle and pretty much everything else. Def not as easy as it looks.

 
pleasanthill said:
So this is knife number 6 and I can so tell I have a long way to go in all aspects. This Aldo's 1084 and handles I made from digital camo. All in all I guess I should be happy it is my best one yet maybe I'm expecting too much of myself at this point. But I do see where I need improvement. Was going to do a forced patina, but that didn't work out at all. Need to get slower glue for the scales, get better at shaping and sanding the handle and pretty much everything else. Def not as easy as it looks.

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Is that dykem still on the blade?
 
No that's the reflection of the roof of my "shop". A blue tarp. I must say I think I have the toughest shop ever made with 2x4's and tarps. It made it through Mathew and the 150 year old oak tree 30foot away is on the ground.

Here's the nickel tour. Not much but it gets me by for now.

 
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pleasanthill said:
No that's the reflection of the roof of my "shop". A blue tarp. I must say I think I have the toughest shop ever made with 2x4's and tarps. It made it through Mathew and the 150 year old oak tree 30foot away is on the ground.

Here's the nickel tour. Not much but it gets me by for now.

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AHHH ok I got ya man. It's pretty spacious though so that's nice. Your knife doesn't really look bad maybe a higher grit finnish on the handle.

CCA: those are nice I like that satin blade finish. What grit is that?
 
valknut said:
AHHH ok I got ya man. It's pretty spacious though so that's nice. Your knife doesn't really look bad maybe a higher grit finnish on the handle.
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Thanks Valknut. Well I botched the glue job on the handle. Need a slower glue. Had a hard time getting the pins in once the glue was on. Forgot to tape the blade and have some scratches right at the front of the handle on the blade. Got too ambitious with some file work on the spine I don't even want to post an image of but its a gift for a friend sooo.... I need to get better a shaping handles. As far as the grit m, the handle is up to 400 cork and didn't want to go too fine as I know it will be used in the field probably quite frequently in Oregon so didn't want it like glass. It feels good in your hand when wet.
 
pleasanthill said:
Thanks Valknut. Well I botched the glue job on the handle. Need a slower glue. Had a hard time getting the pins in once the glue was on. Forgot to tape the blade and have some scratches right at the front of the handle on the blade. Got too ambitious with some file work on the spine I don't even want to post an image of but its a gift for a friend sooo.... I need to get better a shaping handles. As far as the grit m, the handle is up to 400 cork and didn't want to go too fine as I know it will be used in the field probably quite frequently in Oregon so didn't want it like glass. It feels good in your hand when wet.
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Usaknifemaker has some 30 min slow set epoxy for like 8 bucks I just grabbed some of that yesterday. Well unlike some other people at least you know where you messed up I think Thats important step in learning
 
Yeah, I've been using the cheap 5 min gorilla epoxy from Home Depot. Time to order some. After today I don't want to run into this again. I used up all of the handle material I made on this knife. I had already messed up one set of scaled shaping them and this was the second set. Live and learn right!!!
 
I need to get a platen like this. I found I am limited on the one I made and have to do most of the shaping on the right side as the left is blocked by the steel. I may just weld extensions on and realign everything. It's quite a pain in the butt not being able to use the left side very much. If my tool rest is off just a fraction you can see it in the grind.

gjnza said:
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gjnza said:
This is very similar to the two that I have just built. Amazing how similar trains of thought can be.

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Nice looking grinders. I spent a couple hours yesterday modifying the design. I'm going to have the motor do the tracking like the TW90. After doing all this solidworks one can really appreciate the thought and engineering behind the design of that grinder.
 
pleasanthill said:
So this is knife number 6 and I can so tell I have a long way to go in all aspects. This Aldo's 1084 and handles I made from digital camo. All in all I guess I should be happy it is my best one yet maybe I'm expecting too much of myself at this point. But I do see where I need improvement. Was going to do a forced patina, but that didn't work out at all. Need to get slower glue for the scales, get better at shaping and sanding the handle and pretty much everything else. Def not as easy as it looks.

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I see improvement over your other knives. As long as you are moving forward, that's progress. Not getting ahead of yourself is sometimes difficult to resist. Make sure the blade is COMPLETELY finished before moving on to handles. Wrap it with some manila folder or cardstock and then wrap with tape and move on to handles. I don't know if you have hobby shops near you, but I get Bob Smith slo cure (30 minute) from my local hobby shop and I have been very pleased with it. Just my 2 cents. Keep at it.
 
LARRYZ10 said:
I am just curious. What did you use to cut the parts for your grinder. It looks great. Larry
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A Bystronic 6kw fiber laser.

Any 3500w+ laser should be able to cut this. As well as waterjet. If someone wanted to do it on a high definition plasma table I'd open up the clearances a bit.
 
kdogmcg said:
I see improvement over your other knives. As long as you are moving forward, that's progress. Not getting ahead of yourself is sometimes difficult to resist. Make sure the blade is COMPLETELY finished before moving on to handles. Wrap it with some manila folder or cardstock and then wrap with tape and move on to handles. I don't know if you have hobby shops near you, but I get Bob Smith slo cure (30 minute) from my local hobby shop and I have been very pleased with it. Just my 2 cents. Keep at it.
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Thanks Kevin. As a matter of fact I have a Hobby Lobby near my work and they have that according to their website for $10.99, and that's a lot more epoxy for the money..
 
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