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Grinding

I have been forging since I was 13, and am pretty proficient at it. Iran my shop on a shoestring and expensive equipment was not really available. For a good many years I forged blades as close as possible to finished shape and most finishing was done with files and sand paper. I upgraded to my first belt grinder a bit over ten years ago but never have been terribly comfortable with it. Now, the majority of my work has not been knives so a few thousand non cutlery type projects have passed through the shop in that time. I am currently set up with two 2x72 grinders and likely adding two more shortly. I have a lot more space than I know what to do with in the new shop and some fancy stuff like a central dust collection system and three phase. Last week I started working on arranging my grinders and plotting the plumbing to get the dust system connected to them. Then I guess I just need to grind a whole lot of blades to get comfortable with the machines. Neither current grinder is a particularly good one, but both seem more than adequate to learn on.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin D on July 21, 2024 at 6:13

Good Morning Jason,

While I do not have near the experience you have, I do think I know what you are feeling.

My foray into forging is a recent one, but I have been making knives using a stock removal process for several years. I had virtually no fancy tools, so I was forced to use what most people would consider un-orthodox methods. I profiled blades using my drill press and a mundane hand hack saw. Using my drill press, I put the pin holes in the metal. All other work was done using files and sandpaper around the file. I used the pin holes to secure the metal piece to my workbench. Talk about time consuming!

I do have one good quality (albeit older) 2" x 72" sander now, and am working to become very proficient with it. I have found it is a LOT faster and easier than that which I have used in the past. The one thing that I have noticed is that while it is very much easier, it is also much more unforgiving. Any, even small, variances in grinding angles or whatever is very apparent and can showcase even tiny errors very quickly. Using files and sandpaper is much slower, but you can correct these small errors without much if any real impact. With this sander/grinder, that is NOT the case.

Permalink Reply by Kevin D on October 8, 2024 at 19:24

I am still working on getting things organized 'perfectly' in my little work area, and would love to see other shop setups/layouts for ideas that I may not have considered yet. Anyone care to share?

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