Which new piece of shop equiptment helped you to improve your knives the most?

Belt grinder + PID controlled electrical heat treat oven. Knowing how to work with these two and you will have most of the street paved...

It took me two years+ to do what I exactly want on the grinder, freehand of course. If I ever teach how to grind on a belt grinder my 1st ten lessons would be how to apply pressure with you fingers and your body to properly grind exactly where you want.


Pablo
 
Good lighting, my new drill press and I know my 2x72 grinder I am building is going to improve my speed and quality of my bevels!
 
Karl B. Andersen said:
What I meant by that was "time spent in the shop".
All the gadgets in the world won't help you without the experience in knowing how to use it.

All that said, the biggest leap forward was getting my first bench top mill.
The ability to mill opposite sides parallel, mill a guard slot to the exact dimension needed, drill and ream holes straight and true, etc. made everything else go together correctly.
After this time, it has cost me less than a dollar a week to own it.
A cup of coffee a week to make huge steps in knife making is a good trade-off.
Click to expand...


Karl,

I'm going to +1 you on this. My bench top mill was purchased before I began making knives, but you couldn't pay me to give it up. They are somewhat limited machines, but are particularly well suited to knifemaking.

Questions of "how did you get that so..." are often followed by, "on the mill".
 
For me it was the disc grinder with the 1 degree taper i built a couple months ago.... i only do flat grinds and its helped me get things as close to 100% flat as i can possibly get it... i found it relly handy for putting the final edge bevels on my smaller skinner too....
 
The one that helped me improve the most was my drill press which was probably the 2nd major power tool I added to my small little knife shop in the corner of the garage. Without the drill press I have a nearly impossible time of getting a good fit on my handles and I've found quite a few other uses for it too other than just drilling pin holes in handles. I'm not a pro and don't have a 2x72 yet so I dream of having a variable speed fully rigged 2x72 one of these days. That will make life much easier. I can make knives just as good(probably better) still by hand filing as I can with my current grinder(it's way too fast), it just takes a heck of a lot longer doing it by hand.
 
I got a set of those Bad Dog Tools multipurpose drill bits and LOVE them. It took a little getting used to drilling at 2500-3300RPM but no more squealing on tempered tangs. These things will make Swiss-cheese out of a Nicholson file.
 
Custom knives are usually judged as "Grind",- "Fit",- and "Finish". Sooo how about a good
Variable speed Belt Grinder. All the other toys are just candy.
Ken.
 
Karl B. Andersen said:
What I meant by that was "time spent in the shop".
All the gadgets in the world won't help you without the experience in knowing how to use it.

All that said, the biggest leap forward was getting my first bench top mill.
The ability to mill opposite sides parallel, mill a guard slot to the exact dimension needed, drill and ream holes straight and true, etc. made everything else go together correctly.
After this time, it has cost me less than a dollar a week to own it.
A cup of coffee a week to make huge steps in knife making is a good trade-off.
Click to expand...

If I can ask, which small mill did you get?
 
Thanks Karl! I have friends with large mills that I have access to, but now that my teenage son and I are getting serious about knife making as a hobby it might be cool to have a mill of our own. Currently between the Sieg X3 and the Little Machine Shop 3990. Kicking atound the idea of something quite a bit larger too, though one of the smaller ones has some appeal, even for use as a fairly precise drill press.

Have you done any operations like taking CPM154 past the grey coating and pits? I know a surface grinder is better at that, but am curious how a smaller mill would handle it? Doesn't CPM154 only need about .005 removed from each side on average?

I asked Chris at LMS and he suggested a 1.5" end mill for that operation in their mill. Its a much larger than the mill is rated for, but he said taking that small of bite would work fine and leave a better surface than a fly cutter
 
One thing I wouldn't want to miss either is my Dremel with flexible shaft.
It gets a lot of use for small things
 
I'm going to go kind of meta and say the computer. Before researching the subject I was making "knives" out of mild steel on a handheld belt sander. I thought I was good too. :barf:

If that's too cheesy my digital kiln has really helped me up heat treating quality.
 
drysideshooter said:
Have you done any operations like taking CPM154 past the grey coating and pits? I know a surface grinder is better at that, but am curious how a smaller mill would handle it? Doesn't CPM154 only need about .005 removed from each side on average?

I asked Chris at LMS and he suggested a 1.5" end mill for that operation in their mill. Its a much larger than the mill is rated for, but he said taking that small of bite would work fine and leave a better surface than a fly cutter
Click to expand...

I'd use an inserted facemill with one or two inserts before using an endmill for that. You want inserts without wiper flats for this.
 
This is not a new piece of equipment ,but a modification to an existing one .I removed the soft backer from a 1/3 sheet finish sander and replaced it with a piece of 1/4 inch micarta for a hard backer.Now I just clamp the sander in my vise and I am able to eliminate much hand sanding .
 
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