Hi there. I literally just started making knives. I have a friend who makes them professionally and it always fascinated me. I have been a woodworker for many years and have lots of woodworking projects to my name but metal always intimidated me. When I started reading about all the diy grinders people have made, my mind was made up. I had to build one. I only bought the motor and the wheels. I made the rest from scrap after teaching myself to weld. Amazingly, it runs and tracks and all the adjustments do what they're supposed to. I also have a forge built (minus the insulation) and the materials for a diy burner. I think the building of the tools was as exciting as their purpose. Anyway, I've made two blanks from mild steel just for practice and I figure I'm ready to finish the tools and start making some real blades. I hope I can do half as good as some of the ones I've seen here. Looking forward to picking all your brains and maybe helping out where I can. First question, I built a simple bevel jig after calculating the angle. When I test it on one of my mild steel practice blanks, it didn't seem to make a really straight line. It was kind of wavy. Is this indicating a problem with my platen or technique? I figured a jig would take the guesswork out of the process . Thanks for any thoughts in advance.
Welcome to the forum!! Lot's of experienced and knowledgeable folks on here. Looking forward to seeing what you make. Shawn
wavy is from uneven pressure as you move across the blade, that can be fixed up by hitting the high spots. Thought you typed pickle our brains and was thinking HA to late, oh boy do I need sleep welcome to the group
Welcome to CKM @ToddR As others have said, the waves you see are from uneven pressure. You might try starting out with very little pressure, just focus on moving the blade evenly across the belt. As you develop a feel for it, you can start pushing a little harder, always checking the results to see how and where you apply pressure affects the grind line. Establishing consistent, equal grinds on both sides takes a lot of patience and practice, even with a jig (Gods know I'm still working on it).
Thanks everyone. I was wondering about the pressure to apply. When you look at the youtube videos, they make a jig, run it through and voila, it works perfectly. I should've guessed it couldn't be so easy. Also, I attached a pic of my grinder. Please forgive the bright colours. I was determined to use all the materials i could that i had on hand. I decided to spend the money on a welder and some other tools instead of buying a grinder. That way I would end up with a grinder and a welder for the same cost. THe platen is also part of the old lintel and I think it may be causing some drag (it bogs down when i push too hard). But it runs, tracks and i'm pretty proud that it came together and works at all. Not bad for a guy who just taught himself to weld I suppose.
it looks great. It aught to help you make a lot of knives. As for bogging down, they all do that when you apply a lot of pressure. I prefer to use less pressure and more passes but everyone develops their own style at the grinder.
Had a thougth Is you platen polished on natural finish angle iron? if natural finish it will have lots of drag but if you polish it up and hit with a light coat of paste wax it should have less drag
I use good ole 2" angle. Wire wheel the mill scale off and let the belt run on that. Eventually it needs to be replaced as it get worn uneven. Cheap as chips to replace.
The platen is just a piece of lintel. It was all crudded up so I took a ceramic flap disc to it and shined it up. I will try paste wax. I actually have beeswax I use on wood sometimes. Is that, more or less, the same thing? Thanks for the tips guys.
