[Ed Tipton]

The final fit and finishing and hand sanding is one of the most tedious and un-pleasant things we do as knifemakers. Always being on the lookout for easier and faster ways of doing something has led me to this little trick for the final stages of making a knife. This works particularly well when sanding up close to a particular area of a knife such as touching up a finish after the scales have been affixed to the blade.
In my shop, I use a sawzall to do this, but any reciprocating tool would work equally well. Once a blade has reached the point where it no longer cuts satisfactory, I grind off the "point of the blade to get it nice and square, and I also grind off the set of the teeth for the last inch of the blade.. I then take a small strip of sandpaper of suitable grit and wrap it so that it wraps around the end of the sawzall blade and then I simply use a rubber band or duct tape to aattach it firmly to the blade. Doing this allows me to get up close and personal to those difficult and time consuming areas with much better control, less time and do a better job....and my fingers don't get sore in the process.
It's a simple trick, but it makes things go much faster and easier and that is a good thing.
It also allows me to get further use out of both the spent sawzall blades and my used up belts.
My sawzall is a variable speed model, but most of the work is done at full speed anyway, but for even better control, you can slow it down to a speed where you're comfortable using it. You can also apply much more pressure to the work than by doing it by hand sanding.