Knife Sharpening machine GOT...

[Smokey Joe]

Guys, I appreciate all the helpful advice heaped on me so far. This is a progress report.

Last Friday I went to my local Harbor Freight, and they had the Central Machinery 1x30 belt sander on sale for $34.99, so I bought it, figuring that if it's a total disaster that's not too much $$ to lose. Never even went to look @ the $140 Chefs Choice machine--Cabela's is a considerable drive further.

Took it home, set it up on the weekend. Of course there was a cheap plastic part that broke--the tightening thing for the nut that holds the "table" to the machine. But since that table is beside the point anyhow, I persevered. (Eventually, either Central Machinery will send me a new part, or I'll just use a wing-nut to tighten the table.)

The machine runs pretty smoothly. VERY smoothly when compared to my carpenters' floor-standing sanding machine. Belt tracking adjusting seems a little coarse, but workable.

So I tried it out, of course, on an Old Hickory knife that has always been too thick in the blade.

Voila! Managed to slim the blade down quite a bit, and put a nice wire edge on it which I cleaned up with a DMT medium, then fine, pocket hone, then a ceramic crock stick. That knife, which has always been kind of clunky, has become more flexible, and scary sharp!!

Then I discovered that I'd been using a 60 grit belt. Well, I'd bought 120 grit belts, too, so one of those got installed and next I tried a real El Cheapo knife from Goodwill. It had a stamped sheet stainless blade, dumb-looking "teeth" sorta. Worked the blade down until most of the teeth disappeared, and basically made it into a small fillet knife--nice & flexy. It too got the DMT/crock stick treatment, and came out scary sharp.

Now I want to polish out the marks from the sanding belts. Even the 120 grit is 'way too coarse. I have finer belts on order from Jantz, also a felt belt and some polishing rouge, but they're not here yet. Discovered that my grinding wheel machine has its wheel protecting covers made right on to its body, so can't install a polishing disc on that--Must get new grinding wheel, preferably variable-speed.

Found out that holding a knife to the belt isn't as difficult as I expected--and you have to watch the angle, but no more so than when using a hand-operated stone. Also learned that you can heat up a blade, especially a thin one, VERY fast--never stop moving the blade sideways, keep a thumb on it to gauge heat. (If it's too hot for the thumb, it's still OK for the steel but you are getting a clear warning.)

When I've got a blade, and my hands, near whirling parts, I watch everything like a hawk--try to stay mindful always that Murphy would like nothing better than to cut off the tip of a finger or some such. Just as I would never touch a radial saw, I will never grind a knife when I'm tired, or distracted, or under chemical influence.

Anyhow, I'm off and running. And a sincere !Muchas Gracias! to all who have been so generous with suggestions and advice.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[hso]

Watch the heat buildup and watch those moving parts and stay safe.

 

[DT Guy]

Keep your thumb directly behind the part being ground, and, unless you're Superman or a mutant, you will know when to quench.

Larry

 

[Mike U.]

Smokey Joe,

Who-boy! Now you've gone and done it!
Might as well start shopping for that 2x72 grinder now and save yourself some time.
By this time next year you'll be selling knives of your own making.
Trust me, this is how the addiction starts.
First, ya just get a little 1x30 to sharpen the knives. Then, ya try re-profiling some knives. THIS IS FUN!!
Then the neighbors start wantin' knives sharpened. Your getting damn good at this!
And soon, you find yourself trolling the local scrapyards looking for ferrous metal in bar form, old saw blades and files.
Not surprisingly, you'll be given some knife maker's supply house addys, and you've taken the bait hook, line and sinker. Now, you have access to tons of raw materials just waiting to be made into knives.
You resist the tug, but, you have to give in.
It's an itch that MUST be scratched.
You are now a knife maker!

Oh, yeah, now you've gone and done it.

Welcome to the addiction!

 

[Smokey Joe]

Mike may be right...

Mike U.--That's what they said about reloading ammunition! And no, I'm not an addict of that--I've been 2 whole days now without doing any loading or shooting, what with Christmas preps underway. And I have 260 .45 ACP cases on my worktable, sized, belled, and primed, silently screaming at me to get 'em loaded.

The Jantz Knifemaking Supply catalogue is almost pornographic in its suggestiveness, and all those beautiful handle materials, and blades, etc, etc.

BTW, Jantz is terrific on delivery--I ordered fine-grit belts on Mon, and now Wed. afternoon the BBT visited with a box already.

And this afternoon on my way home I really scored a knife--An antique dealer in town simply gave me a poor mistreated hunting knife, duller than a butter knife, covered with rust, and a piece of leather missing from its stacked handle. Appears to have a nice solid blade beneath the mess. The poor thing. I'll get going on its rehab tomorrow. Will take some "before" pix, and hopefully have some "after" pix later.

 

[bikerdoc]

"Rehabbing the old knife"

One of my favorite passtimes.

 

[Mike U.]

I've done that a time or two myself. If I can locate'em, I'll post a pic.

 

[Aka Zero]

I would like to see pictures of the "rehab patients"

I just worked over a couple old hickory and no name carbon steel kitchen knives I got a bunch of for a few bucks at a garage sale. On a similar grizzly cheap belt sander.

Remade a pretty rusty boning knife into a paring knife, reshaping the handle and blade. For a christmas present. (everyone gets knives from me this year.)

Bottom knife looked like top knife before.

Wasn't full tang, and a bit long for a paring knife, so shortened and shaped.


The Old hickory slicer got a slightly thinner grind and a reshaped and refinished handle. Just some minwax that was on the bench at that time.

 

[conw]

I'm expecting one for Christmas. Here is the best thread I've ever found on it, especially the posts by Jerry Hossom:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=496644

I bought his recommendations as follows for belts:

Now go to Lee Valley Tools grinding section for sharpening belts. http://www.leevalley.com suggest the following to get started. (Started as in these will probably last you forever.) Understand that you don't use all of these on all knives or steels. It usually depends on how bad the edge is and if it's tool steel or high alloy stuff.

Aluminum Oxide Belts: 180, 320, 500, 1200.

15 Micron SiC belts (get two, you'll probably use these exclusively after you get your knives sharp to start with.)

Leather Honing Belt. This is what makes owning a belt sander worth it. It's basically a power strop and can put a fine polished edge on a blade in no time. You might want to get two. Use one with compound for polishing and keep the second one clean for just stropping.

Then go to

http://www.popsknifesupplies.com/

Buy the 525 white compound. It should last you for the rest of your life. You might also want to get some of the HF1 compound which is finer, and for very fine edges on small knives could be a good choice.

There is a lot more there about how to use it, etc, but this part was particularly useful I thought and might get lost to the eye of a casual reader in all the other info on that thread.

 

[Smokey Joe]

Nice Rehabs!

Aka Zero--Those rehabs are nice!

The cheapie "filet knife" I made got snapped up--a friend was over to do some reloading on my equipment yesterday, liked it, and took it home with him. He looked almost shocked at how sharp it was. Will post pix if I get some time.

Conwict--Thx much for the Lee Valley and Pop's recommendations! Jantz Supply doesn't handle the leather honing belts any more, so I was despairing of where to get one.

Followed yr advice and ordered 2--Will use one with polishing compound and one "naked" just for stropping.

 

[Mike U.]

Here's a few I've done.


The first one is a Case butcher knife I found in a thrift store for the princely sum of $1.00. It had a coat of rust and was D-U-L-L. Big time dull. I took some 400 grit sandpaper and removed the rust, sharpened her up and was very pleased with what just a little care revealed in this nice blade.

The middle knife was one that was found on the ground by one of my family members way back when. Don't ask for more info because I am totally blank as to the particulars. It was rusted horribly. I had to take it Mr. Belt Grinder just to find the good metal again. Fortunately it has plenty of good metal left and cleaned up okay. It has what looks like Delrin scales and I just recently found out it was called the "Sportsman" model made by a number of companies in the 40's and 50's.

The third knife was found by my little brother (now deceased ) in the sand on the banks of the Suwanee River. It was very rusted and covered with pits from that rust. It took a lot of work to clean up and I found under all that rust the company logo, which reads "Queen City". At least that's what I can make out of what's left. There is also an incredibly hard and thick patina which is why the blade has that darkened coloration.
The stacked leather handle was in rough shape too from repeated soaking and drying and it came to me dried and shrunken. I restored it by soaking it in boiled linseed oil. It absorbed a good deal of oil and filled out again. I let it sit in a warm area and the oil dried and hardened.
Anyway, I suspect my bro found it up high on a sandbank where it went through repeated wet and dry periods as the river flooded and receded and, of course, the rain we get throughout much of the year here.

And, finally, I believe all these knives have 1095 straight Carbon steel blades since that was the main go-to steel of the manufacturers back in the day. It's a given they are all high Carbon steel of one sort or another, I just suspect it might be 1095.

 

[JVoutilainen]

Joe,

When you use a belt sander and you want you avoid heating the blade try putting as little pressure on it as possible. If I absolutely must use a belt sander on a knife I use the weight of the blade or a fraction of that weight, no more. Almost no sparks should be visible. This way you can work the whole knife without interruptions (quenching).

 

[JTW Jr.]

Now you are rocking & rolling , nice work. I use 220 to get it to a slight burr , then go to a worn 400 , then to the cardboard wheels to kiss off the burr.

 

[hso]

Keep your bare little piggies on the steel and when it gets too hot for them dunk it in a bucket of water to keep from overheating.

 

[Smokey Joe]

More interim report...

Mike U.--Nice rehabs you done there! I've been collecting "materials" from Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul stores--got about 1/2 a dozen now to learn on. Haven't paid more than $0.50 for any one blade, some 25 cent blades.

Have been working on the mistreated hunting knife mentioned above--decided that the stacked leather was past saving with Lexol or BLO, so after inserting a new piece of leather in the space where actually a plastic spacer, not a leather slice, was missing, coated the whole handle with epoxy, and worked it into all the gaps between leathers, and between leather and blade. That was a couple days ago; since, have been grinding on the epoxy to get it back down to the leather handle, except where there are nicks or gouges.

Using mostly the belt sander, with progressively finer grits; just finished with the 400 grit. Handle is starting to look pretty good. As J. Voutelinen pointed out, a LIGHT touch is needed with the sander.

The hilt is brass, but the pommel (correct term for the butt end of the handle?) is aluminum. The blade goes all the way back; the pommel is pinned to it.

Discovered that a Dremel tool doesn't do well polishing epoxy off, at least with the bits I have. Actually, the best excess-epoxy remover for me so far is a box cutter knife. Pick, scrape, cut, scrape, cut, pick, slow and patiently.

Found out the maker of the knife, too--stamped on the blade side of the hilt is "Western/USA/L36." So, does anybody know about a Western L36 knife?

Couldn't resist putting the blade to the sanding belt while I was at it--the rust disappeared like magic, and the blade seems very easy to polish up. The steel just "likes" the sandpaper. That'll be the easy part, I guess. Except that there will always be pits in the blade, no matter how much I polish.

Will leave the actual sharpening until last--why make a sharp edge to have to be cautious of, when I'm still doing all this other grinding?

And Conwict--That discussion on Bladeforums sure is technical! You're right, it is helpful, Jerry Hossom is awesome. About 3 pages into the discussion, I realized I was getting a headache--enough is too much all at once, I guess!

Once again, Thanks to all who have been so helpful and supportive! And, given the date (12/23) a very merry politically incorrect Christmas to you all.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Western L36

Some background information found here.

MAKER: Western U.S.A.
PATTERN: L36
OAL: 9-3/4 inches
BLADE LENGTH: 5-1/5 inches from tip to guard
GUARD: Brass
POMMEL: Aluminum birds head
HANDLE: Leather ring on bifurcated tang
TANG STAMPS: Stamping is on guard- WESTERN/U.S.A./L36
SHEATH: Original leather sheath, stitched and riveted.
[-snip-]
AGE: 1966 to 1977 per stamping on guard
MADE IN: Boulder Colorado, USA
[-snip-]
ADDITIONAL INFO: Great old carbon steel knife! Western made some of the best carbon steel of any of the old American knife makers, in my opinion.
[-snip-]

That the knife you have?

 

[Smokey Joe]

Thx, Arfin!

Yeah, that's her, dead on. Nice catch, Mr. Arfin Greebly! Selling for $70, hah! I'm not surprised at all about the quality blade steel--This blade seems eager to be polished; takes the abrasives like nothing.

Pix of my efforts so far follow:
The Old Hickory was the very first. Grit too large, but it was what I had then. I seem to have lost the pix of the little filet knife, but it was so shiny it didn't photograph well anyhow. And now it's gone to a new home. My 3rd effort is the Western; these pix are the "before," except that the leather "patch" is already epoxied into the handle.

Merry Christmas Eve, everybody!