Skookum Rob / Tools and supplies

Nice to have a local supplier Rob, thanks for the excellent service on my recent order of belts......and the couple extra goodies you threw in the box for me
Looking forward to dealing again in the near future.........

RW

 

I am happy I ordered from rob too.

 

Thanks so much for the appreciation guys! I count it a privilege that you have allowed me to join in on your group and learn about your trade. You are a great bunch... and I particularly enjoy how you encourage one another from "newbie" to "master"!.

 

I agree that the attitude towards helping others here is great. We have something you dont see that often anymore, and that is highly skilled makers, who actually remember that at one point, they were beginners too and are willing to help. I am a member of several forums, and was told a while back that small time guys and hobby makers are killing the knife industry for the larger guys. We water down the market, and hurt everyone when we sell our knives below the actual value. The complaint was that when we make a knife that should be worth 250-300, and sell it for 150 or 200, we hurt the sales of high end guys selling the same value knife for full price. While i understand the basic theory, by stating that we are "killing" the custom knife industry, it seems like there are some very skilled makers that seem to have forgotten that they did not grind their first blade as a JS or Master Smith.

Back to the original topic, i will be getting ahold of you about those belts we spoke about a couple weeks back Rob. also hoping to pick up a fine surface conditioning belt as well. Just want to add also that I am still on the first of the belts you sent me after fully profiling 5 or so knives on it. A couple 8 inch hunters in 1/8 stock, two ten inch hunters in 3/16, and a 15 inch chopper in 5/16. These were all ground from pretty much rectangular stock with no hacksaw or bandsaw removal first. I would not normaly do this, but wanted to work the heck out of this first belt to see what it had in it. So far they are performing great.

 

Wow Grayzer, what kind of belt was it? I'm use to using 1 or 2 belts per knife lol. Mind you that's on my little 1x42 with aluminum oxide belts...

 

The belt I was talking about is the 2x72 36 grit ceramic Klingspors I am demoing for Rob. I would think a big factor to the life of your belts is just surface area. A longer belt runs cooler and just plain has more surface area. I run 144 square inches of belt compared to 42 on your grinder, so apples to apples I should be almost 3 times the life per belt. If you have not tried ceramic belts I urge you to give some a try. I was skeptical and hesitant and started with AO and zircs but love ceramics now for the performance and life span. I will admit however I still like my zircs for doing full flat grinds where the pressure is sometimes too light to fracture the ceramic grit and makes the belts want to just dull or glaze instead. This isn't an issue when a ceramic is new but can be a problem after a couple blades. I find where ceramics really shine is on profiling and hogging, as well as the structured ceramics in high grits.

 

Grazer brings out a really good point here when selecting your abrasives... In order to get the best performance out of any abrasive product it needs to "fracture" under the work load. In the abrasive industry we call this "friability". So the more "friable" an abrasive grain is... the less pressure is needed to break off the dull edge to expose a new sharp edge. so in order of most "friable" to least here are the common grains:

Silicon Carbide (think of this grain like tempered glass)
Aluminum Oxide (a blocky grain that has many different versions by way of heat treating so there is a wide range of "friability")
Zirconia Alumina (think of this grain as similar to "fake diamonds: - cubic zirconia)
Ceramic (a specially treated Aluminum Oxide grain)

So, in general terms, the finer you are grinding (and the less pressure you are using) requires a more "friable" grain structure. Otherwise... if you select a product that is too "tough" the edge dulls and then not much happens after that other than creating a bunch of unnecessary heat. To obtain the best possible performance you want a product that breaks down under your normal use, that is why not everyone will want exactly the same product. So if you find your abrasives are "glazing over" try more speed and more pressure... don't be afraid to "work" the belt. Like Grazer is experiencing with this new 36 grit Ceramic from Klingspor... it works best when you "lean in" and demand a lot of work from it!

 

I ordered some belts for an old woodworker in town last week. Service was great and I can absolutely say in all honesty I have never in my life had an order for anything process and ship that fast. Totally blew me away. Thanks a bunch