First timer

[Guerreiro]

Hello to everyone,

This is my first time in the britishblades forums and I choose this particulary one (Tips 'n Tricks), because I'm a novice knifemaker and being so inexperient I must start were the knowledge is.
My first question to the forum is related with griding. I'd like to know how the heck can one grind straight and nice like I see sometimes, is there any special kind of jig or is it just practice.
I'm doing a dagger and I'm having some dificulty in getting the midle line straight, should I go back to the forge and try to get it better there or is there any way, with files or wathever, to do it better.

Thank's for your support and pardon my english but I'm Portuguese.

Guerreiro

[Tacol]

Oi Guerreiro

Como vai ?

Welcome on the forum, you will find an incredible amout of tips/tricks if you search in the past threads.
To answer your question, I think you can get a straight line if you use files. Then you can use grinders to do the job but practice and experience is the only way to perfection ;D
Show the result when you finished


Stéphane

[Underhay]

Welcome to the forum :biggthump
A dagger is difficult, because any lack of symetry is so obvious.
When I did one I found that using a file as a draw file with the blade firmly in the vise, and gradually working on each face in turn was the only way to keep it straight(ish).
Good luck, and don't forget to post a picture.

[Iron_Heinie]

My advice is to take a bilit of mild steel and round off one of the corners (like the belly of a knife) then have a go at grinding it :D You can fool around like you never would on the real thing.
I've heard of jigs, but never tried one. After a bit you get a feel for it and discover which grips best suit you. Grip has alot to do with it because you can start to 'feel' the way metal is being removed.

Daggers are tricky though, and I havn't ground but a few of them so I can't offer any real good advice.

Best of luck, and would love to see the end result!

[narsil]

Hi and welcome to BB :biggthump

By starting with a dagger you have jumped in at the deep end a bit but don't let that put you off, its often the best way to learn. Getting grind lines right is probably the most frustrating part of making knives by hand. It gets better with practice but its one of those things where there is always room to get closer to 'perfect'.

My advice is to mark out the grind lines on th e blade blank berore you do anything else that way you hava a reference point. Rough grinding can be done with an angle grinder which saves a lot of work, then move on to files to tidy things up. As you get more confident you will be able to get closer and closer to the final shape with the grinder and thus save work. Draw filing is the best way to get really flat and crisp lines by hand, but is is quite slow going so you need to get fairly close to the shape you want first.

If you're forging then its probably easier in the long run to forge as closely to the finished shape as possible and use files as a final finishing process.

I look forward to seeing how you get on :)

[Guerreiro]

Thank's to everyone for your tips and suport, your great!!
I'll follow your informations and hope to achieve a nice final work.
Just explaine me how to insert a photo and as soon as it is complete I will post it.

Guerreiro

[Tiffers]

Good luck with your dagger and welcome to BB Guerreiro!

Tiffers