Blade Grinding (My way) lot’s of Pic’s

[Aly]

Hi All, posted an article on the way that I grind my blades and a few people PM’d me to say the pictures had vanished (I deleted them from photobucket by mistake ) and could I repeat it so here goes, you are going to need a certain amount of equipment to grind blades like this, however the beauty of this method is its simple and repeatable for consistently good results, first up you need a good belt grinder with an adjustable table,
( I personally use a 1 inch 1 HP vertical grinder for small blades and a 2 inch 2 HP KMG clone for the larger blades) you need to make a table extension mine is 14’’ long x 3.5’’ wide this needs fixing to the small work rest, like this
(You need to be able to adjust the table to belt angle, (tilt) A )



Next you need a small rigid clamp that can hold the blade blanks at 90 deg to the vertical



Having cut out your blank, in this case a Bushcraft knife (which is going to have a 20 deg bevel)



Fit the blank to the clamp and mark the centre line A and mark a bevel line, B at about 8mm (this is only for a guide as you are grinding) also mark the blade so you can put in back in the clamp in the same place



Now set the table of the grinder to the desired angle for the bevel, in this case it’s 10 Degrees for an inclusive angle of 20 degrees



Right now the grinder is set and the blade is in the clamp so you are ready to go,



With the grinder switched OFF. Put the blade/clamp assy onto the table at the start point of the grind and hold it firmly against the belt, this will give you a ‘feel’ for the best position to hold the blade/clamp you may also want to move it backwards (direction A) and see how best to move it so the blade stays in contact with the centre of the belt along its lenght, at B, when you have got it right switch the machine on and start grinding you don’t need much pressure on the blade let the grinder do the work and bring the blade backwards steadily keeping it in the centre of the belt (you will see if it is in the centre by the sparks) if you get it right it should look like this after a couple of strokes



Now all you have to do is carry on, use the black line as a guide, if you keep the bevel even and the blade is parallel it will automatically line up on the centre line,
When you are very close to the centre line simply turn the blade round in the clamp and grind the other side bevel, (cool the blade down every so often in water it gets HOT) take care as you work towards the centre line, and measure the width of the bevels to get them even, when the bevels are just about to meet, remove from the clamp, finish off the blank drill etc and harden and temper, then you can finish of the bevels in the grinder with a fine grit belt(don’t move the table as it’s very difficult to get exactly the identical angle again) if all went well your blade should look something like this





OK the above isn’t perfect but it works for me, If any one has got any variation on the above would be interested to here it. I use a very similar method on the KMG grinder this time all I have to do is alter the angle of the platen head for the same result, for all you boys & girls doing your bevel grinding freehand you have my utmost admiration, tried it many times, can do it, but the grinder needs to be slow!, the results aren’t consistent and it takes along time.
By setting the table and using this method you can grind at any chosen angle, my personal favourites are 20 deg for single bevel,
8 deg for a ‘half’ bevel with micro secondary bevel (table at 4 deg)
And 5 deg for a full flat grind with micro secondary bevel (table at 2.5deg)



A selection of knives and blades all ground using the above method
A= 20 deg single bevel, B = 20 deg single bevel C = 5 deg flat with micro secondary bevel, D = 20 deg single bevel, E = 5 deg flat with convex bevel, F = 5 deg flat with micro secondary bevel G = 8 deg half bevel with micro secondary bevel, H = 8 deg half bevel with micro secondary bevel,

Hope the above is of use, like I said it ain’t perfect, but with a bit of practice you get some very good results,
Thanks for looking
Aly

[thomas]

Excellent mate.
Thank you

[mloc]

Thanks very much, this will be of some use to me as i have been getting some poor results with my power lansky setup

[snakeeyes]

Cheers Aly, thanks for pm and the tutorial, should help me no end on mt next blade with the grinder im planning on getting, just got to earn a few more browny points with SWMBO, great work by the way, keep up the good work!!

[cosco]

Nice pics. I admire your grinder. I must bear in mind to get adjustable support when I finally make one for myself. That is the trick I can see.

[Scoutmaster]

Really usefull tutorial

[cardoso5fr]

That is terrible .

[easilyled]

Excellent info, thanks!

[Bazza]

Good to see your set-up, nice work Aly!

Barry

[Otto]

Nice guide thanks

[mloc]

Next you need a small rigid clamp that can hold the blade blanks at 90 deg to the vertical


Aly

Hi Aly is your clamp jig just two pieces of angle that bolt together ?? could you show it's construction a little more ( possibly even a breakdown pic) please

[g4ghb]

can you just clarify the 'setting of the angles bit' - looking at your piccie for this stage it looks arround 90 degrees so I assume you mean 10 degrees off the perpendicular as it were so set it to 80?

also is there any reason why I couldn't create a nice table for my 4" belt? - whats the reason behind the smaller diameter belts?....

[Aly]

Hi All, thanks for the interest in this hope it has helped someone, just to clarify a couple of points
1st the clamp is very simply a bit of 2x2 angle aluminium with a bit of plate on one side and a small bit at the bottom so it clamps the blade parallel, I stuck a couple of bits of leather onto the clamping face’s so it holds the blades without marking them, hope that helps,





2nd as for the setting the angles, yep set the table to 80 deg or 10 deg from the perpendicular, for an inclusive bevel angle of 20 deg, (should of explained that a bit better!) as for adapting a 4’’ grinder (I guess this is the ‘Draper’ ‘Machine Mart’ type) don’t know never seen one up close, guess you would struggle a bit with the low power motor and somewhere to attach the table, I’m sure someone will know
Thanks Aly

[mloc]

Thanks for the other pics it's a bit clearer now (in one of them is looked like two pieces of angle i guess it's leather or some such to help the clamp glide over work table).
I guess you need several front plates with different spacers for any different thicknesses of blade steel (4mm spacer/4mm blade, 5mm spacer/5mm blade, etc so it remains parallel

[Fred D]

Hi Aly

Is it possible to have more pics of your grinder.
i'm very interested by your method.

thanks

Fred