How long does hand sanding take you?

[P J 234]

Hi all,

How long does it typically take you all to hand rub a blade to say 1000 or 1500x?

I'm a newer maker with maybe 9 completed knives under my belt now. I really struggled with hand sanding my first few (taking 10-20 hours per knife and getting less than perfect results when I was done.) Then as time went on (I thought) I got better at grinding and sanding, and 2 of my most recent knives only took a couple of hours each to get a very nice finish that I was quite pleased with. At this stage I thought I had gotten a handle on my sanding technique until...

Now, I am currently trying to finish my latest knife and I'm feeling like I am regressing back to my starting days trying to get a nice finish on it. I must have 15-20 hours into sanding it already and it still isn't satisfactory. This seems like an absurd amount of time to spend on just hand sanding (I'm thinking I ought to be able to build an entire knife in this amount of time.) This knife was my most recently ground blade, so the grinding was decent (and therefore theoretically fairly flat), but it's taking forever and I'm feeling kinda discouraged at this point as I don't feel like I'm getting any better and I don't know what to do differently to get better results.

Sanding methods I've tried are a palm sander, plain micarta sanding block, micarta block with leather glued on, flat mild steel bar, old files, wood dowels, etc. For lubricants I've tried WD-40, Windex, Mobil-1, etc. I alternate direction with each grit, and use 3 different light sources to (hopefully) determine when all previous grit scratches are gone, and I (try to) change paper frequently so that I'm hopefully not using it past when it stops cutting. These techniques seem to work for most other people, but I seem to be struggling with them.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

 

[Bill T]

Hi , I guess to answer this properly , we need to know what steel , what grit you are stopping with on the grinder and what amount of grinding , handwork is being done after heat treat . I remember the first time I hand finished D2 after years of only using 440C and ATS-34 . Easily tripled my time hand finishing .Thanks , Bill

 

[SBuzek]

The main thing with hand sanding is to make sure all your scratches are out with each grit.I grind up to 400 then start with 220 hand sanding.I use 3 times as much 220 paper than any other grit.Do the first stage right,meaning all scratches gone at 220 then the rest is easy.
Stan

 

[P J 234]

Bill, I've only worked so far with O-1 and 5160. I think 3 of them have been 5160 (including this one I'm currently struggling with) with the rest being O-1. I went to 600x on the grinder, but I'm not sure why I bother as I always seem to have to back up to 220x by hand to get all of the grinder scratches out anyway.

Stan, 220x took forever on this particular knife (8'ish hours) and I'm pretty sure I got all the grinder scratches out. I use 3 light sources to check (fluorescent, incandescent, and always bright and intense Arizona sunlight.) I alternate directions with each grit, and the scratches that take so long to get out at each step are ones in the same direction as my last grit, so I'm pretty sure they are not grinder scratches that were hiding. I've heard some people say once they get to 400x or so it goes fast for them. That is generally not the case for me!

In case it's relevant, my sandpaper grit progression is usually starting with 220x, then 320x, 400x, 600x, 1500x. So roughly how many hours on average would you say it takes you gentleman for a 'typical' knife? I'm just wondering what is reasonable to expect...

Thanks for the input!

 

[silver_pilate]

Like Stan, I start at either 220 or 320 after grinding to 600 grit. I use some cratex cones to help speed up the cleanup in the plunge, and I use a micarta backing block when I start. On almost every knife, I'll start the hand sanding, using a couple of small squares of my initial grit, then I go back to the grinder and work out the deest scratches at 600 grit before going back to the paper. After I have everything out at the initial grit, I progress. After 400 grit, I tend to only use a leather backed sanding stick. I find it works better for me.

--nathan

 

[Calvin Robinson]

It takes me any where from 45 min. to 2 hrs. depending on the size of the blade. But I use mostly D-2 so I don't go past 400 grit because it would be a waste of time and besides I'm a lazy old coot.

 

[mike miller]

Are you using any liquid with the sandpaper? I persoally prefer to start at 220 and use Cool Tool II as liquid to keep it cutting properly. Some just use Windex. What ever will work for you. I am amazed how fast I could go from 200 to 400finish. Seems to help the grit keep cutting instead of balling up.

 

[SBuzek]

A 3-1/2" flat ground blade should not take more than 3-4 hours to hand sand depending on how good the grind was.Without being able to see the blade your asking about it is hard to tell what the problem is. It may be the steel or the heattreat,but should not be takeing that long.
Stan

 

[balibalistic]

I spend 20 minutes hand sanding! i grind to a-30 ( 600 grit) then move to an 800 grit worn cork belt loaded with green rouge. this will almost take the blade to a mirror finish while leaving your bevels crisp between them and the flats. i generally start sanding at 320 grit and have all my grind marks out in two minutes. the rest of the time i'm trying to get a consistant finish

 

[P J 234]

Thanks for everyone's input!

mike, I have used WD-40, Windex, cutting fluid, and Mobil-1 in the past. On this knife, I used Mobil-1 until I got up to around 400x (or 600x?) and at that point it seemed like it wasn't cutting as well and was leaving a 'dirtier' finish, so I started trying Windex and WD-40 again at that point, kind of alternating between the two as the mood struck me.

Stan, I think this particular blade is about 4.5" long and maybe 1.25" wide. Full height flat grind, 1/4" 5160, stock removal. I could shoot a pic of it if that would help, although I've made a variety of sizes and shapes and haven't noticed a real strong correlation with that except that the larger ones seem to take even longer than the small ones. The last 2 I mentioned in my first post as having only taken about 2 hours each were small O-1 blades, ~3" long x .5" wide but I previously had small ones like that take many hours too.

 

[P J 234]

I spend 20 minutes hand sanding! i grind to a-30 ( 600 grit) then move to an 800 grit worn cork belt loaded with green rouge. this will almost take the blade to a mirror finish while leaving your bevels crisp between them and the flats. i generally start sanding at 320 grit and have all my grind marks out in two minutes. the rest of the time i'm trying to get a consistant finish

Wow, I'm so jealous! I have been grinding up to 600x equivalent on a Trizact Gator, but like I said above I almost always have to back all the way up to 220x by hand to get the deep hidden scratches out from the grinder (probably 60x ones that seem to be gone.) I wonder what I'm doing wrong that I have that problem but you don't seem to? Maybe I need to try some even finer belts and/or cork belts!

 

[Cubane]

Sounds like you aren't getting all the scratches out before you go to HT. These could also act as stress risers when you HT and weaken your blade. I do my first hand sand at 240 before HT to make sure I get all the deep scratches out, just make sure you have a backing behind the blade and if you press too hard you can bend the blade. Also you can draw over the blade with a black marker or something when you are grinding it will get into the deep scratches and make them easier to see.

As for time, once you have that base sand done at 240 it only takes about 20 mins maximum for me to do each grit after that

Alistair

 

[NickWheeler]

Paul-

If you figure out anything magical, let me know

It can vary GREATLY from knife to knife for me. Mostly based on desired finish.

I'm a bit surprised at the comment about double the amount of abrasive used in the lower grits, as it's the opposite for me.

The integral I'm working on now has several hours in hand sanding done so far, and it still has some more to go. :bud:

Edit to say it's a 10" blade that's about 1-3/4" wide at it's widest, and it's been taken to 1500X.

I can do a CLEAN 320X pretty darn fast, or a CLEAN 600X without a great deal more time... it's going up to the real fine grits that really take time for me.

 

[P J 234]

Alistair, I used to do quite a bit of hand sanding before HT and it ended up being wasted effort in my mind because once I got all of the HT scale and junk off the blade I was back to deeper grinder scratches again. This particular blade was ground 90% or so before HT at a 120x belt finish, then I finished the grinding after HT and started my hand sanding then.

Nick, I don't think I could be any less magical when it comes to this stuff; it seems the simplest things confound me! Something tells me that your integral will still not take you 20+ hours to hand sand, and I also have a hunch it's going to be about, oh I dunno, perhaps 10,000,000 times nicer than my finished product will be!!!

Thanks for trying to help guys!

 

[NickWheeler]

Paul, I didn't really offer anything to help... just some empathy

Some things that really helped me:

-Make sure there is a sturdy backing behind your blade. I know a lot of guys hand sand with the blade sticking out off the edge of the bench with nothing under it, but I don't like fighting the flex in the blade.

-You can't have too much light.

-I have high output fluoresccents above my work, and have floodlights as task lights above where I hand sand.

-I prefer a hard backed sanding stick/block for all but the very few last passes. A soft faced block like one with leather or rubber makes sanding faster/easier, but washes out crisp grind lines. (IMHO)

-I have been messing with Mobile 1 per Frank's suggestions, but haven't gotten used to it yet. I'm much more accustomed to thin lubricants like WD or Windex. I'm still playing with it though.

-A 9" reversible disk sander makes for a much more user friendly sanding foundation that just a belt grinder.

-Quality paper. I like Mirka and Norton Black Ice.... I hear 3M has some great paper, I just haven't tried it (yet ).

-Music.

-I don't drink alcohol, but I sure can drink a lot of diet pepsi while sanding a blade

 

[Cubane]

Alistair, I used to do quite a bit of hand sanding before HT and it ended up being wasted effort in my mind because once I got all of the HT scale and junk off the blade I was back to deeper grinder scratches again. This particular blade was ground 90% or so before HT at a 120x belt finish, then I finished the grinding after HT and started my hand sanding then.

Weird. I just go straight back to hand sanding at 240 to get the scale off. It comes off really quickly.. less than a minute and I am back to the clean steel. I do this before tempering as well so I can see the temper colour. So there are no deeper scrtaches to get out just the 240 ones. I'll go up even higher on my stainless blades as I send them off for HT in an inert gas atmosphere there is no scale at all just the temper colour to take off.

Alistair

 

[SVanderkolff]

One question. Are you doing this hand before or after heat treat. I don;t see in this thread where you tell us that. I may have missed it but it would account for how long it is taking and the if this blade came out much harder it would be harder to sand. It generally will take me no more than 2 hours to hand sand a blade, that is up to 1200 grit. I do all my hand sanding before heat treat. I have to go back and sand off the scale but that generally is quite quick since the blade is already very clean.
Hope that helps.
Steve

 

[silver_pilate]

Here's a little something I threw together that I use when hand sanding:

It supports the blade while sanding but gets it off the table as well. And you can run the bolts up to support the blade along its taper to avoid the springing that happens otehrwise. This little thing sped my sanding up a good bit.

And Nick makes a good point about grind lines. Keep in mind that I do full flat grinds almost exclusively, so the leather backing works ok for me but will not work well for every blade.

--nathan

 

[DLBrothers]

Franks mobile 1 trick is the stuff! If you are looking for an outstanding semi-mirror satin finish. It will take me about 30 mins on a flat ground. As has been said, much of the trick is getting a clean pre-HT blade. I do all that on the grinder, I never hand sand prior HT.

 

[P J 234]

Paul, I didn't really offer anything to help... just some empathy

Some things that really helped me:

-Make sure there is a sturdy backing behind your blade. I know a lot of guys hand sand with the blade sticking out off the edge of the bench with nothing under it, but I don't like fighting the flex in the blade.

-You can't have too much light.

-I have high output fluoresccents above my work, and have floodlights as task lights above where I hand sand.

-I prefer a hard backed sanding stick/block for all but the very few last passes. A soft faced block like one with leather or rubber makes sanding faster/easier, but washes out crisp grind lines. (IMHO)

-I have been messing with Mobile 1 per Frank's suggestions, but haven't gotten used to it yet. I'm much more accustomed to thin lubricants like WD or Windex. I'm still playing with it though.

-A 9" reversible disk sander makes for a much more user friendly sanding foundation that just a belt grinder.

-Quality paper. I like Mirka and Norton Black Ice.... I hear 3M has some great paper, I just haven't tried it (yet ).

-Music.

-I don't drink alcohol, but I sure can drink a lot of diet pepsi while sanding a blade

Thanks for the suggestions, Nick. I don't drink much either, but this might push me into it! I should probably order some Black Ice, I use Gator grit silicon carbide wet/dry paper from ACE hardware which I've been led to believe is good but maybe not, or maybe not as good as it could be. A disk grinder would be great, but it's not in the cards for me at the moment financially. I could definitely use more light right at my workstation (instead of having to move to 3 different places around my home to find it), so I will try to remedy that soon.

Weird. I just go straight back to hand sanding at 240 to get the scale off. It comes off really quickly.. less than a minute and I am back to the clean steel. I do this before tempering as well so I can see the temper colour. So there are no deeper scrtaches to get out just the 240 ones. I'll go up even higher on my stainless blades as I send them off for HT in an inert gas atmosphere there is no scale at all just the temper colour to take off.

Alistair

I've recently gotten a 'muffle' to use in my forge while heat treating, so perhaps this will be less of an issue going forward for me. Maybe I should start doing some stainless blades to save time.

One question. Are you doing this hand before or after heat treat. I don;t see in this thread where you tell us that. I may have missed it but it would account for how long it is taking and the if this blade came out much harder it would be harder to sand. It generally will take me no more than 2 hours to hand sand a blade, that is up to 1200 grit. I do all my hand sanding before heat treat. I have to go back and sand off the scale but that generally is quite quick since the blade is already very clean.
Hope that helps.
Steve

Thanks Steve, mostly this is a larger problem after HT when the blade is hard. I don't know if my steel choices (5160 and O-1) are making it worse, but I suspect that's not the main problem. See above comments about sanding before vs. after HT and removing HT scale, etc.

Here's a little something I threw together that I use when hand sanding:

It supports the blade while sanding but gets it off the table as well. And you can run the bolts up to support the blade along its taper to avoid the springing that happens otehrwise. This little thing sped my sanding up a good bit.

And Nick makes a good point about grind lines. Keep in mind that I do full flat grinds almost exclusively, so the leather backing works ok for me but will not work well for every blade.

--nathan

Nathan, using something to support the blade has caused me other problems in the past. Although I haven't built something exactly like you have there, I had problems with the opposite side of the blade getting scratched up. If I left it unprotected, it was scratched by the support. If I taped it up to protect it, oil and grit would eventually end up getting under the tape in places and either scratch that side then or when I tried cleaning that stuff off after removing the tape.

Franks mobile 1 trick is the stuff! If you are looking for an outstanding semi-mirror satin finish. It will take me about 30 mins on a flat ground. As has been said, much of the trick is getting a clean pre-HT blade. I do all that on the grinder, I never hand sand prior HT.

This is only my second time trying the Mobil 1, but it seemed to me that Mobil 1 worked better/faster from 220x up to 400 (or 600x?), then it stopped cutting as well and creating more 'junk' in the finish at that stage, so I switched back to Windex/WD-40 at that stage.

One more thing, I like using Windex as it seems to work well and doesn't bother my skin like petroleum products do, but I find it to dissipate/evaporate after only a few strokes so I have to constantly refresh it. I don't know if this is my dry Arizona climate, or just the nature of using Windex. WD-40 seems about halfway between Windex and Mobil-1 in this regard. I know some like Simple Green for this; haven't tried it yet, but I think I have some and maybe I will give it a try too.

Thanks again for everyone's input!