My little adventure into free hand grinding has proven interesting if not somewhat carried away. The hidden tang is going to get the grind line cleaned up in the holder but the rest should be good to go with some fine tuning and hand sanding. There are a few firsts in this batch; free hand straight grind first recurve first double edge and first hidden tang knife. oh and first cleaver that is camera shy The dangers of being off work is lots of free time on my hands and the 1084 and 80Crv2 inventory took a significant hit. That and gave me a chance to try out the 154CM I have on hand for a couple other small hunting knives.
Your doing good. How do you like it free hand ? I find you can grind faster freehand But I do use a small work rest for the back of my knife to rest on while grinding.
It is a little faster or at least it feels it is but the blade holder I use and larger table are pretty fast when changing sides.
That's good I just find I have more control when doing it by hand. Once I get back home I'll get a few pictures of how I do thing and post it. It might give someone a new idea. I'm alway trying to learn new things too.
New ideas are always good. Most time I just jump in with both feet and see what happens and go from there, only ever watched two videos and not for the technique but to see a master smith make something.
Not sure what happened to the pictures in the original post but I will post them here again. will see if this picture hangs around, the in progress shot of my first freehand grinding endeavor I was asked if I do antler handles and told them I would try on the Kukuri shaped knife as the person really liked that style. Still debating putting a mirror polish on the bevels on both the bolster and pommel since it would really stand out from the brushed finish. So from a full tang that was going to have a G10 handle to Antler slabs with hidden pins and reddish brown vulcanized paper liners and spacers. Still have some sanding and buffing on the antler then off to sheath making. Handle came out much wider than I anticipated and will need a big hand to feel real comfortable but after the fiasco yesterday I am not taking this one apart.
Hey John I'd like to take you up on your free hand grinding .... Where do I send my (very) rough forged blanks? Haha .... Nice kukri by the way. I just seen it on one of them facebook groups.
It was a big hit on the knife making a hobby group with over 100 likes actually very surprised. and it may be sold already, guy a couple towns over is coming to look at it. Not sure my freehand is up to doing others knives just yet since this took way longer than it should have as I fussed with every last pass. Best part is I now have to order more steel and try and make myself one too have on hand
I have only been using a "jig" for flattening after forging, myself.Just a block wood or piece of angle iron. I figured my first 50 knives are gonna be ugly anyways so I would learn the hard way haha. It takes me a while and i generally take a file to them beforehand but I am improving and am sorta pleased with my results. Heavily contoured blades (my favorite kind of course) ...like kukri, trackers etc. still piss me off trying to get the tip bevel the same width as the rest. Some folks that use jigs say they just pull the handle out towards themselves as they get to the tip......I find myself rotating the blade along the same axis as the belt to try and keep the blade edge perpendicular to the belt. I have actually been sketching up a really weird design which would combine the angle fine tuning of a conventional jig but with more freedom of movement. Hypothetically speaking it is a novel concept and could be glorious.....Practically speaking it may be just a delusional pipe dream.
manufacturers use a jig/holder that pivots at the correct point so the bevel height is constant. I think the patent was from the early 1920's and is online, no links as it was something that went by during a search for something else. with a jig the whole pulling out at a angle kind of works and if you have a reference line on the work surface it really helps. I am more inclined to rotate the blade and the way my work surface is set up I do this in a downward motion or free hand it at the end.
Well...i dont know why I was being secretive about it because its a fairly simple idea. I was thinking of using a wide roller chain...something with very little side-to-side play in the links. Either that or an articulated arm similar to a drafting helper thingy. I'll probably try both. Well so much for patents and being rich
no chains but like the one I mentioned https://www.google.com/patents/US2147079 the germans even hold a patent for a back to back angle iron blade holder. I might owe someone some money
Well this one is wrapped up and now a couple kitchen knives and a little Bowie that have been patiently waiting
A little contribution to the templates out there, original was from 1/4" stock but that proved to thick and not a nice cutter more of a brute force smasher 1/8" or 3/16" would be much better.
