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

Lorien said:
my RD_knives RD_knives radial platen showed up today! It oozes quality- nicely made piece of equipment!
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put it to use today and I'm really looking forward to learning how to use it properly

for my first time using it, I figured it would be easiest to grind a tapered fuller into an 18" long blade. Super easy. Looks GREAT too 🥴:rolleyes:
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I could probably clean it up, but I'm not going to
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Looks great man and glad to hear you like the platen!
 
Was up in Chicago last weekend, so didn't get much done then. Slowly been drilling handle scales for tapered tangs and grinding blades after work each day. Here are 9 of 10 rough ground ready for pre-ht hand sanding (S90V). Most of these will have Ironwood burl handles. Still deciding what handle the City Knife will get.

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Lorien said:
my RD_knives RD_knives radial platen showed up today! It oozes quality- nicely made piece of equipment!
[...]
put it to use today and I'm really looking forward to learning how to use it properly
for my first time using it, I figured it would be easiest to grind a tapered fuller into an 18" long blade. Super easy. Looks GREAT too 🥴:rolleyes:

I could probably clean it up, but I'm not going to
Click to expand...
Pretty work. Quick dumb question - from the looks of your setup, you use the top rounded"edge" of the platen to grind the fuller? Did you rotate the platen horizontal while you dod this? Also, what's the effective radius of that round-over?

Thanks.
 
wrankin said:
Pretty work. Quick dumb question - from the looks of your setup, you use the top rounded"edge" of the platen to grind the fuller? Did you rotate the platen horizontal while you dod this? Also, what's the effective radius of that round-over?

Thanks.
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The narrow fuller was done with a carbide ball in a drill press.
I've only used the radiused platen once, but I think that the next time I'll rotate the machine and grind the hollow below the fuller perpendicular to the ground, at least to establish the grind.
The main challenge I had using if for the first time was getting a feel for the contact point, and then trying to eye things up from the side- which is hard on my neck. Especially with a blade the size of this one.
Also, I used a worn, cupped belt which was an obvious wrong decision, in retrospect.
I think the radius of the platen approximates a 28" wheel, but I'm not 100% on that.
 
Radius platens take some getting used to. I usually set up my work rest when using a radius platen to get the groove started consistently and then go to free hand once I have the groove going. I also put leather over my radius platen to give some cushion to help even things out. It takes a while to get a feel for the depth of the grind so you don't grind too deep on one side and where the grind starts and ends. I use it mostly for kitchen knives where I rough them out on a flat platen, then switch to felt to convex the flat grind and then add in the shallow hollow from the radius platen. I go back and forth between convex and radius to fine tune the grind, so it takes a while. When using a radius platen for the main blade grind, you need to figure out where you want the grind to end up so you don't blow through the spine or make it too thin. Drawing it out and looking at it from the side helps a bit until you get used to it.
 
This is a pretty simple design, nothing special or fancy. I made it because I wanted a light but strong hiking/woods knife. Light enough to carry effortlessly and strong enough to split wood. Full convex A8 Mod at 59/60 Hrc. Tapered tang. Little over 6" blade. 213 grams light. Between the blade and first corby rivet, there are two hidden/internal pins for extra strength.
https://imgur.com/a/mPGt7QT
 
navman said:
S90V hand satin, pre HT to 600 grit. Saves time, paper and sanity later.

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I think the trick with getting your steel to that level of finish is to get them heat treated in a vacuum furnace
 
Looks awesome! I've never understood how you guys fully finish knives out before grinding in any edge... If I do that there's always thicker and narrower spots lol. So I grind my edge in then finish grinding/hand sanding. Kudos to anyone who can do it the other way though! Wish I could!
Scaniaman said:
This is a pretty simple design, nothing special or fancy. I made it because I wanted a light but strong hiking/woods knife. Light enough to carry effortlessly and strong enough to split wood. Full convex A8 Mod at 59/60 Hrc. Tapered tang. Little over 6" blade. 213 grams light. Between the blade and first corby rivet, there are two hidden/internal pins for extra strength.
https://imgur.com/a/mPGt7QT
Click to expand...
 
REK Knives said:
Looks awesome! I've never understood how you guys fully finish knives out before grinding in any edge... If I do that there's always thicker and narrower spots lol. So I grind my edge in then finish grinding/hand sanding. Kudos to anyone who can do it the other way though! Wish I could!
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Thanks! Since your knives look awesome I am sure your way is better though 😅
 
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Lorien said:
I think the trick with getting your steel to that level of finish is to get them heat treated in a vacuum furnace
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I use Peters' and have good luck so far with post HT finish.
 
Navman, how thick do you grind S90V pre HT? I am redoing the 18" Shechita's and grinding pre HT this time around.
 
Taz said:
Navman, how thick do you grind S90V pre HT? I am redoing the 18" Shechita's and grinding pre HT this time around.
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I typically have an edge thickness of between .012 and .015. Have not had issues with warping or bacon edge yet! (knock wood).
 
Hard to capture with the cell phone, but here is one of the Karambits in S90V that I got back from Peters' recently, edge was ground just under .015 pre-HT. No bacon edge, oxidation is still on the blade, and it has not yet been touched post HT.

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I need to get a better pic of the edge...but you get the idea.
 
I ordered a pack of 25 blades for my portaband, and they showed up last week, so I'm getting some profiling started.
ZcWHVtQ.jpg


I wanted 14tpi blades but they were on backorder, so I got 18tpi which works fine. Except for the CPM D2- that shit dulled these blades almost immediately, so I used my angle grinder and Dremel cut off wheels to get the job done. I'm not totally sure why that D2 is such a bitch, but I'm not a fan at this point
 
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