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Ed Caffrey's Workshop Talk to Ed Caffrey ... The Montana Bladesmith! Tips, tricks and more from an ABS Mastersmith.

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  #1  
Old 03-11-2008, 04:22 PM
Dana Hackney's Avatar
Dana Hackney Dana Hackney is offline
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Just one more - promise:)

Hi Ed,

See, I told you I've got too many distractions

I've been doing a fair amount of practising forging, using and old coil spring that my neighbor
gave me (think it's off an old 57 Edsel!). I took a piece and flattened it, took it to critical temp,
oil quenched and tapped it with a hammer and it broke off cleanly. So, I'm hoping it's good enough
to use for knives. I'll do some destructive testing to make sure.

Anyhow, in one of my forgings I was just going with the flow and ended up making a
pretty nice looking boot knife/dagger. My question is what process does one use for grinding the
bevels on a dagger. I tried doing one some time back with a piece of some left over O-1
stock and it turned out pretty poopy looking . I'd like to do a better job of keeping the bevels
centered and symetrical this time.

Thanks Ed and gang!
Dana
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Old 03-11-2008, 04:32 PM
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Ed Caffrey Ed Caffrey is offline
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With daggers you increase your difficulty factor X2....with a regular blade, you have two planes that your attempting to make mirror images of each other. With a dagger you have 4 planes....not only are you attempting to mirror both sides of the entire blade, but also attempting to mirror the two planes that occur on EACH SIDE of the blade. OK, that being said....on the first few daggers its always a good idea to give yourself visual references for grinding. I would recommend layout bluing, or even spray paint works. Using a scribe, draw your center line on each side of the blade, and if possible, the center line for the edges. Rough grind to about 3/4 completed, and then do the remaining 1/4 with files and sandpaper. Its gona be time consuming, and labor intensive, but it gives you the best chance of a good finished product (at this point in your experience). There are still times that I will finish out dagger blades with files and sandpaper......its a lot faster doing it on the grinder, but theres a much greater chance of messing things up. It all depends on how intent you are on having a good/sellable finished blade, versus the risk of wrecking it.

I know your probably tired of hearing this, but dagger blades take PRACTICE. I don't know of anyone who has ever gotten it right within their first few tries on the grinder.


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Old 03-12-2008, 01:47 AM
CWKnifeman CWKnifeman is offline
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What I have done in the past is to just use Industrial Sharpie. Once the blade has been profiled Just use the sharpie on the edges and scribe the center of both edges, then mark the center lines of both sides of the blade. These sharpies will not wear off as easy as the regular one or for that mater blue dykem. Once the marks are made grind to the center of both edgedleaving 20 to 30 thousnaths on the edge; then sliwly work the taper and towards the center. I've done it this way as well as doing the taper then going to the center. It does't really matter if you are doing hollow grind or flat grindwhen you get to this point. Just take it a little bit at a time. Just remember to work the center of the edges on both edges, then work down to the center of the blade, You can do both of the right hand plunges then do both of the left hand plunges or the other way around. If you try doing one side of the blade then the reverse face of the blade you will normally run into problems.
It is easier to match one side to another than to try to match 4 different edge plattens all togather. I feel that if you do one side (both bevels(plattens)), then turn the blade over to do the other it is actually easier to do because you actually only need to match one side to the other, (even if you are actually matching 4 distinct bevels into one ). Also if you end up needing to take a little more off just go to a finer grit and do it that way.
You will be less likely to over cut your grinds by first doing one side completely or almost completely, then over to the other face. My first quad grind dagger was on an old nickerson half-round file that I had tapered, and then did a quad hollow grind on (13yearsago).


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Old 03-12-2008, 08:10 AM
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Dana Hackney Dana Hackney is offline
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Thanks Ed and Curtis

I was wondering if anyone possessed the skill to grind a dagger completely on a
grinder. I suppose there are some folks that can and I can see that this has to be
the most difficult of all blades to do right. It's a good thing that I have plenty of pieces of
that old 57 Edsel spring left !

Is a dagger also a requirement to pass the JS test?

Thanks, again, guys for the helpful suggestions. I'll put them to good use.

Kind regards,
Dana
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Old 03-12-2008, 10:18 AM
tomh tomh is offline
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I do not believe the dagger is a requirement for JS, only MS test.

Let us see how you do on your dagger!
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