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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 08-29-2018, 05:38 PM
AllanBeasley AllanBeasley is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Roswell, Georgia
Posts: 133
One of my best pieces to date. For a good cause


]

This blade has a bit of a story to it, a fellow smith I respect a lot got hit by financial issues when his father had a lung cancer scare and his insurance decided not to pay out anything for it. Eventually it was discovered that it's scar tissue from a previous surgery that started growing aggressively. Tim at Big Dog Forge made a monster damascus billet for him to make a hammer out of to auction off to raise funds. He made a beautiful dog's head hammer and found an enormous crack from a delam. he was unable to get comfortable selling that hammer because integrity so I offered to make a knife that he could put scales on and sell to replace some of the lost funding on that hammer. He has a much higher profile than I do and will make more money listing it for sale than I will hence that arrangement. This is my second attempt at this knife. The first one suffered due to all the graphite being worn off my platen and making an even grind impossible. I lost way too much material to be comfortable letting it out of the shop. That one's under a pile of god only knows what on one of my horizontal crap magnets.

I used leaf spring for the knife and did a differential heat treatment by putting a thick layer of Satanite on the sides and spine before the final heat and quench. It was tempered at 400 in 2 1 hour cycles and I took it up to 400 grit and it did not want to take the polish on the buffing wheels so I spent a full day going back and forth between the belt grinder going up the grits, hand sanding and the buffer to get a halfway decent shine out of it. I know the mirror polish doesn't provide very much functionally, but pretty knives sell faster and for more money so I put the time in. I'm very pleased with how well this one turned out, hopefully now that I fixed my platen issues I can make more that are that quality.
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Last edited by AllanBeasley; 08-29-2018 at 05:41 PM. Reason: missing pics
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  #2  
Old 08-30-2018, 09:31 AM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: ny
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AWESOM and one of the greatest cause you could do with that knife!!!
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  #3  
Old 08-30-2018, 06:27 PM
AllanBeasley AllanBeasley is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Roswell, Georgia
Posts: 133
Quote:
Originally Posted by dtec1 View Post
AWESOM and one of the greatest cause you could do with that knife!!!
Thanks! I replaced the graphite on the platen and invested in belts all the way up to 800 so hopefully I can make blades that clean with a deeper, more symmetrical plunge line. I'm really hoping once he puts his scales on it he can auction it for $200 or more. I also have a cable damascus kiridashi we're going to raffle off at Quad State to help put another dent in those medical bills. I figure County Line Forge has provided me with enough education on YouTube to make this a respectable gesture of gratitude.
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Old 08-30-2018, 10:31 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Now live in Las Cruces NM.
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A tip for a clean mirror polish.

Like you were talking about using finer grits on your belt grinder, but finer grit belts don't last for very long before they're clogged up and/or worn out. Get silicone carbide belts, they go as high as 3000 grit, you can wet them and when wet they last much longer. Get a small spray bottle and set it for a fine mist and put just enough on to keep it wet, but not dripping so you make less of a mess.
Trugrit carries 3000 grit and down 2x72 belts that are called "Norax Engineered Ceramic" and they have some lower grit Trizact silicone carbide belts as well.

I have found that wet grinding with high grit in combination with hand finishing with diamond compound I can accomplish a mirror polish twice as fast as the traditional way and I keep my lines sharp so they don't look buffed. Also by a happy accident I found that hand polishing with diamond compound I can get a near mirror polish with D2 tool steel, something impossible to accomplish with a buffer.
Just FYI
https://trugrit.com/index.php?main_p...74bfb94c7f3a22
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  #5  
Old 08-31-2018, 04:56 PM
AllanBeasley AllanBeasley is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Roswell, Georgia
Posts: 133
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmontg View Post
Like you were talking about using finer grits on your belt grinder, but finer grit belts don't last for very long before they're clogged up and/or worn out. Get silicone carbide belts, they go as high as 3000 grit, you can wet them and when wet they last much longer. Get a small spray bottle and set it for a fine mist and put just enough on to keep it wet, but not dripping so you make less of a mess.
Trugrit carries 3000 grit and down 2x72 belts that are called "Norax Engineered Ceramic" and they have some lower grit Trizact silicone carbide belts as well.

I have found that wet grinding with high grit in combination with hand finishing with diamond compound I can accomplish a mirror polish twice as fast as the traditional way and I keep my lines sharp so they don't look buffed. Also by a happy accident I found that hand polishing with diamond compound I can get a near mirror polish with D2 tool steel, something impossible to accomplish with a buffer.
Just FYI
https://trugrit.com/index.php?main_p...74bfb94c7f3a22
Upgrading my belts is in my future just not right now. My side hustle helping people quit smoking has been a little bit more successful than I anticipated so my customer base has gone having successfully quit smoking. As more funds come in from elsewhere I will work on upgrading the belt stash. I also need to get a 2x72 with variable speed on it as the Grizzly goes WAAAAY too fast on the high grits and burns the bejeebers out of my blades if I'm not ridiculously overcautious. Cooling the blade in ice water helps some but not enough to work comfortably.

All that being said you are absolutely correct. And if I'd gone to 800 grit on this blade the buffing compounds would have had me at a mirror finish in like 20 minutes. I just didn't have grits that high yet. My next knife however DID go up to 800 grit, same leaf spring, same differential heat treatment and it only took a few minutes to get the mirror out of it.
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