After HT, 220 grit, then 3M Trizac belts A30,A16, and sometimes I will use an A6. It will only take a few minutes on the buffer to get every scratch out and have a mirror polish.
I have tried the cork belt with compound but don't see where it helps. Just use the Trizac belts and make sure all...
Sandy is a great guy. He always stops in a visits with me at Blade but since Blade show was a week late this year I was at the NCOWS nationals shoot instead. One of the big things I missed at Blade was being able to visit with folks like him.
I have nearly everything running on 220, more stuff can be running on the same circuit without worrying about tripping a breaker. It may start up a little better if your pushing the amps. No energy savings since your still going to use the same amount of wattage. It is true your pulling half the...
I use JB weld on brass or stainless guards one hidden tang knives where the guard is a press fit and can't go anywhere. You are basically just sealing the joint in this case.
I prefer to solder on full tang knives where I need strength.
I do it both ways, many times I know what the sheath will be like before making the knife, sometimes I just come up with it later.
I have made knives to fit a sheath when I wind up with an extra for whatever reason. I've had people buy a knife and want a left hand or something different on the...
Same here Ernie, sometimes I can't wait to get a knife done to the point I can make the sheath. Maybe why I'm doing more custom leather work these days than knives.
I had that problem forever until one day I decided to add the thin strip of leather, make it long enough where you can tuck it between your leg a bit so there is no way the thread will tangle on it.
That is a super nice pony Chief! The only thing I see about it is you might have a problem hooking your thread on the long handle and screw sticking out. Although not as classy looking as yours I use a carriage bolt with a wing nut on the end and I have a thin strip of leather that hangs down...
When you make a blade from mystery steel that doesn't turn out right you not only waste your time and didn't learn anything (other than grinding experience). You also wasted the belts and other consumables making a piece of trash.
You going to have a learning curve even with known steel so use...
Drill the holes before you taper the tang. After HT and when installing the slabs I drill on top of a piece of wood in the vice. You can angle the wood in the vice just slightly to keep the blade level.
Brian is right on the amount of material you can remove with the belt but I hadn't thought of taking that large of a cut. I do the plung thing when I remove a lot of material with a belt but I take only around .003-.004 cuts but cover the whole blade with the 2 inch belt but still within around...