Valkman
Member
Or "The Birth of a Super Camp"
I've got a bunch of orders for the knife that was in Blade but haven't been doing well as my feet hurt from arthritis, my right shoulder has something wrong with it and my left elbow is about useless for grinding since a bad bursitis attack last year.
When you draw out a knife on a bar of steel there's a lot of steel that has to be removed to make the outline of the knife - that's called "profiling". Well I can't stand at the grinder and the bandsaw is a POS so I went to the Grizzly mill I bought last year. This is probably the slowest way to profile a knife but at least I can sit while doing it.
Mill with DRO and power feed:
Milling the "Bowie Slant"
Milling the curve of the blade - I don't have a rotary table so I just go as close as I can. I actually drew a kind of "tangent line" that I could follow to allow me to get pretty close. Mill was running when I took this!
It took me a bit over 2 hours to get 2 knives milled but only about 5 minutes to complete the profiling on the grinder:
I grind all 1/4" "sides" to 220 grit so I can apply blueing and mark lines for the blade center. This steel is .250 wide and I want my lines .030 apart in the center so .250 - .030 = .220. .220 divided by 2 gives me .110 which is the setting I put on my calipers and make my lines:
I also measure the blade lentgh or where I want the plunge cut to be and make a mark with a silver Sharpie. This is a 7" blade.
Now I can grind my bevels down to the lines I etched on the blade and false edge. Then full grinding of the blade, some finishing and handle hole drilling and they're ready to go to Paul Bos for heat treat:
Sorry about all the pics - hope you enjoy the process!
I've got a bunch of orders for the knife that was in Blade but haven't been doing well as my feet hurt from arthritis, my right shoulder has something wrong with it and my left elbow is about useless for grinding since a bad bursitis attack last year.
When you draw out a knife on a bar of steel there's a lot of steel that has to be removed to make the outline of the knife - that's called "profiling". Well I can't stand at the grinder and the bandsaw is a POS so I went to the Grizzly mill I bought last year. This is probably the slowest way to profile a knife but at least I can sit while doing it.
Mill with DRO and power feed:
Milling the "Bowie Slant"
Milling the curve of the blade - I don't have a rotary table so I just go as close as I can. I actually drew a kind of "tangent line" that I could follow to allow me to get pretty close. Mill was running when I took this!
It took me a bit over 2 hours to get 2 knives milled but only about 5 minutes to complete the profiling on the grinder:
I grind all 1/4" "sides" to 220 grit so I can apply blueing and mark lines for the blade center. This steel is .250 wide and I want my lines .030 apart in the center so .250 - .030 = .220. .220 divided by 2 gives me .110 which is the setting I put on my calipers and make my lines:
I also measure the blade lentgh or where I want the plunge cut to be and make a mark with a silver Sharpie. This is a 7" blade.
Now I can grind my bevels down to the lines I etched on the blade and false edge. Then full grinding of the blade, some finishing and handle hole drilling and they're ready to go to Paul Bos for heat treat:
Sorry about all the pics - hope you enjoy the process!