Remy
Well-Known Member
I did things a bit differently than my usual this weekend and thought I'd discuss it here since some aspects of it surprised me.
I was grinding a fairly long blade from 1/8" 1084 and wanted to avoid having it bend on me during grinding and heat treating. The obvious solution was to profile it, drill everything needed then heat treat it before grinding. I'd never done things this way and expected a real hassle doing the actual grinding, probably wearing out a belt or two putting in bevels...
The profiling, drilling and heat treating went off without anything worth noting. I had 36 grit and 60 grit 984f cubitron II belts that I'd used to grind a 3/16" thick blade of similar size already, and that I'd used to profile this one. I sort of figured it would make a good test of how well the 984's hold up but didn't actually expect the results i got.
While I had to be careful of heat, the grinding didn't really seem that bad. The wear on the belts seemed fairly normal, if anything, and while it took significantly longer it wasn't a painful process. Ok, so it was painful, but that's because the spine corners were sharp and I slipped and managed to slice my index finger while grinding, youch. I'd say it took about twice as long to grind, but the wear on the belts seemed about the same as if I'd ground before HT. The extra grinding time is countered by not having the two step grinding process, I didn't have to start again cleaning up decarb and such after HT, worry about messing up my lines established before HT.... I'd say on balance it took a bit more time but was less work, if that makes sense. I can definitely see the appeal of this method for many knies and it makes more sense now.
Is this kind of belt activity normal or just something the 984's are particularly good at? I know a lot of folks that grind post ht use Blaze too.
Are some steels significantly harder or easier to do this with? I mean in comparison to their pre-ht properties. For example, if for argument's sake we say it is 75% longer to grind 1084 post HT and causes 10% more belt wear, are those numbers fairly consistent or would some other steel show 100% longer or 50% longer and different wear rate changes?
I was grinding a fairly long blade from 1/8" 1084 and wanted to avoid having it bend on me during grinding and heat treating. The obvious solution was to profile it, drill everything needed then heat treat it before grinding. I'd never done things this way and expected a real hassle doing the actual grinding, probably wearing out a belt or two putting in bevels...
The profiling, drilling and heat treating went off without anything worth noting. I had 36 grit and 60 grit 984f cubitron II belts that I'd used to grind a 3/16" thick blade of similar size already, and that I'd used to profile this one. I sort of figured it would make a good test of how well the 984's hold up but didn't actually expect the results i got.
While I had to be careful of heat, the grinding didn't really seem that bad. The wear on the belts seemed fairly normal, if anything, and while it took significantly longer it wasn't a painful process. Ok, so it was painful, but that's because the spine corners were sharp and I slipped and managed to slice my index finger while grinding, youch. I'd say it took about twice as long to grind, but the wear on the belts seemed about the same as if I'd ground before HT. The extra grinding time is countered by not having the two step grinding process, I didn't have to start again cleaning up decarb and such after HT, worry about messing up my lines established before HT.... I'd say on balance it took a bit more time but was less work, if that makes sense. I can definitely see the appeal of this method for many knies and it makes more sense now.
Is this kind of belt activity normal or just something the 984's are particularly good at? I know a lot of folks that grind post ht use Blaze too.
Are some steels significantly harder or easier to do this with? I mean in comparison to their pre-ht properties. For example, if for argument's sake we say it is 75% longer to grind 1084 post HT and causes 10% more belt wear, are those numbers fairly consistent or would some other steel show 100% longer or 50% longer and different wear rate changes?