FOR NEW FOLDER MAKERS- i may have a good cheap way to surface grind!?

Vance C.

Vance C.

Well-Known Member
Hello guys, so first off, this is my first folding knife experiment, i normally forge or do stock removal of fixed blade knives, so this may or may not work for you (or anyone). Unfortunately i dont have many pictures of this, but heres what i did:

First- I cut out my blade blank, and profiled it just how i wanted it (sorry no pics)

Next- to flatten out the sides, and get the weird kind of scaley factory finish off, i took it to my disk sander with 150 grit sandpaper on it, and kept it as flat as possible!!

Last- to get the whole thing a uniform size, i duct taped a piece of 150 grit sandpaper to a piece of granite, and hand sanded the blade, using uniform pressure from both hands. going only one direction helps find scratches and pits that will have to be sanded out. after 150 grit, i moved up to 220 grit, to make sure its flat. im not going any higher right now, as im sure im going to scratch it in the process of fitting the handle and what not, and hardening and all that. I got it to be within a .001" tolerance, which i think will work!

i got the piece of granite for free from a local granite countertop place. it was a leftover piece from them installing a grill on a patio. it seems a lot of people are impressed by knife makers, so they want to help us out (which i am grateful for) plus it was a scrap that they were going to get rid of anyway.

heres some pictures of my granite slab, and my high tech surface sander :p

2011-08-27185205.jpg


2011-08-27185225.jpg
 
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absolutely works..
try a piece of tape on top of the blade making a loop for a little handle to give you a little more to grab onto.

Bench or surface plates can be purchased under $50 often. They can also be purchased over $500 all the time too. The more expensive ones have tighter tolerances and are usually bigger.

I keep hearing about stopping by the local gravestone maker to pick up free pieces they are discarding...
 
i did the tape trick, i forgot to mention it. when i first learned of that trick, it really worked well when i was sanding long ways on the blade
 
I bought a small granite surface plate years ago for which I have been using for alot of flat sanding especially to deburr the liners after doing some profile work.
A friend of mine has access to a surface grinder to do my critical grinding like the back spacer.
The rolled up masking tape saves alot of wear and tear on the finger tips. Dan
 
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