mcraigl

I've never seen white grease on a PH before.... good thing you got a picture of that. It'll never be white again. Frosty, I'm sure you've seen 'em, but something I noticed while watching the Clifton Ralph videos. He always managed to time the "stop" so that the ram stopped at the top of the stroke. I think it's a whole lot easier to get the thing cycline if it's coming down when you first step on the treadle than if it's lifting the hammer to get started moving. Also, it appeared to me that his hammers really stopped quite quickly when he let off the threadle. Anyway, things to think of. I know Mike-hr's hammer doesn't have a brake on it, and some times you gotta stomp his treadle pretty good to get it going. Makes it a little bit difficult to deliver a softer first blow as by the time it comes all the way around it's swinging pretty hard. Have fun getting to know that thing. One thing for sure with all hammers and I think especially these old mechanical hammers is that they've each got their own personality. Once you get to be friends with them you can make 'em really sing.

You need a couple more options/choices in your poll. I have to say "it depends". When I started making tooling out of H13, I noticed it dented my hammer so I started using the somewhat unweildy 3lb. straight pein. Then... I got to liking that hammer more than my "regular" hammer, so it's now my regular forging hammer. What I did do was "temper" the crap out of the struck ends of both my H13 and now S7 tooling. I am able to get the struck ends just a tad softer'n my hammer face by taking them to a very dull red and tossing them in vermiculite several times. Still I say it depends though as I still have a ton of tooling made from sucker rod, 4140, 4340 and ms and I don't worry about any of them.
ML

Will, that knife's kind of ugly, maybe you should send it to me to purty it up... All kidding aside, that's really, really nice mosaic work man. Also love the leather spacers with antler. Really classy looking blade man.

My shot would be to mark the piece at 14 3/4" with a prick punch, and shoot for that being the center of my bend guessing that I'd pick up the other 1/4" from the thickness of the stock. Test piece is key in this situation I'd say.

Grant, I was just looking in to see if there were pictures....... You didn't say "don't look at these pictures".

Rich,
How does that 8" look on 1.25" wide blades? Is that the point where you start wishing you had a larger wheel. JPH, no vanity here bud. Thanks again you guys. Still torn between the 8 and 10... JPH had to bring up serrations... How many are running serations vs. smooth on their contact wheels? Do the serations keep you belts cooler? Contact wheel cooler? Other benefits? Make the grinder more aggresive I assume? Can still polish with finer belts?

Thanks all, exactly the kind of info I was looking for. So Rich, do you "wish" you had a 10" instead of the 8" if that's what you'll buy for your next grinder or are you saying you "wish" you had both sizes? I can't see myself grinding blades much wider than 1 1/2" as that seems to put me in the "sword" realm, and it takes me long enough to finish a knife sized blade as it is. Don't see myself doing swords for a long long time if ever. Will the 10" wheel still put a nice hollow grind on the 1 -1 1/2" size range? I recall JPH saying he was really enjoying the 14" (if I recall) wheel on his new grinder. Is that more because he does some larger blades? JPH, you out there??? What do you think?
Thomas, you grinding many knife sized blades on that 10" wheel? I really like the sounds of Sunray as a supplier Mark. Thanks for that link, I've already sent away for their brochure and durometer kit.

Give me your thoughts on what size of contact wheel to buy for knifemaking. I'm running 2" and 4" on either side of my platen currently, but want to be able to make nice hollow grinds. And by the way... Holy cow those things are spendy! Also, what's your sources for them. I've just looked at them at Tru-Grit a minute ago. I've also seen them on one of the other knife supply websites. Any input would be appreciated, especially if you give me your reasons for one size over another.

Dang John, that came out real purty.

This came up at a hammer-in last weekend. Some things that I hadn't thought of from that discussion. Don't forget to add the cost of you consumeables (fuel, welding/cutting consumeables, gas, grinding discs, etc. etc.). Also one of the guys had a shop rate of $65, and a design rate of $110. At first I was kind of blown away by that, but the more we talked and the more I thought about it, that was an outstanding idea. That way if they take the design to a competitor's shop you've at least been paid for the work you did on it. It also adds credibility to your value as a designer and artist, and would make me anyway feel better about the time I put into design that hasn't normally been part of the revenue stream.

I love mine. Use it all the time. Make a block with a hole that fits your pin and you can use it in your leg vise too. Just make the block at least as thick as the largest hole.

You knew Grant was going to try to sell you something didn't you? He even said learning and making money are his two favorite things. He didn't appear to be learning much from this thread, so he might as well be making some money!!! No offense Grant, I've met you too and agree with Mike that you're like a human alka seltzer.

Your local glass company will also probably be able to cut you a piece of the pyrex fireplace door ceramic that the knife supply places are selling for way too much money. At least when I was in the glass bus. we had the stuff. I'm going to check my local glass shops and see if they still carry it.

Do they know it's 4340? I do a fair amount of business at Klamath Metals which is owned bky White City Metals, and they've shipped stuff over for me before (sheet lead). I might have to stop by today and inquire...

where did you get it? Where in So. Oregon are you located at? I'd like to score a little bit of that stuff for making large tongs. I'm in Kfalls.

Cool. For some reason I had it in the back of my head that Stainless didn't like solder. Not the case I suppose. when you say "soft solder" you're talking about the low melting temp silver bearing solder right? I'm going to have to give the threaded tang technique a try. do you loctite the but cap so it don't come loose?

Rich, that's a real beauty! On a build like this with stainless guard and blade is the guard silver soldered to the tang? How is the butcap attached? Also, do you glue up the handle assembly first, then drill and fit to the tang, or do you "re-fit" the parts to the tang, then glue up "on" the tang, or off the tang, then final fit? I know, lotsa questions. Really, like it.

Avadon. One more option to explore. Are there any waterjet shops in your area? That's be a fairly simple operation for them. I'm guessing that it would be a lot cheaper/quicker/easier than any other machining operation. It wouldn't be "perfect", the kerf will be a bit wider at the top than the bottom, but the cut would be straight resulting in a flat surface that is "tilted" to one side about 30 thousandths from one side to the other.

Mark,
Here's some yardsales with toaster ovens:

New & Used Yard Sale June 27


! MOVING SALE ~ INSIDE ~ EVERYTHING MUST GO !

and a countertop convection oven:
Emerson Countertop Convection Oven

an undercounter toaster oven:
Toaster Oven, Under Cabinet Mount

I know some of them are already past. The first link is this weekend though, so you ought to be able to get there early and score one. I picked one up two weeks ago for 5 bucks, and it didn't look like it had ever been used. Pretty sweet to set the temp on the toaster oven and the kiln at the same time. Blade comes out of kiln, into quench, wiped oil off, into toaster oven for temper. About that fast...

Mark,
How far from the oven is the quenchant? I was having a similar issue because I was too lazy to move my quench tank closer to the forge. Finally just had to do it. I'm not suggesting you're lazy by the way. Just a question. I practice the move a couple of times as the piece is coming up to temp just to make the process go smoother. Kind of zenlike too.

Nice Mark. Get all practiced up on that, so I can come over and watch how it's done. I still need to get a bigger contact wheel for my grinder. Did you get your 10" wheel from KMG, or another source? Is 10" the optimum size to get?

Mild steel will work just fine.

Junior,
How 'bout a BP on making saw blades some day. I can see from the vid, that yours work real well, and that's gotta be an art soon to be lost. I would love to see it anyway, and am sure many others on here would like to see it also. thanks for all the knowledge you've passed on here. I know I've learned a ton from your posts and BP's.

Mike Limb

Charcoal is a basic ingredient in many traditional tattoo inks. My guess is that others have suggested the acetone carried some of it deep into your skin. Don't stress it man, I've been thinking of getting a tattoo for a long time. You just beat me to it. My guess is that it will wear off eventually.

Frosty,
I've eaten at Mike-hr's many times. You don't notice the "black" in the food at all. Never had anything over there that ain't good. Just use plenty of black pepper and you won't notice the "black" either. I think he was onto something there though. A few batches of Meatloaf and dishes will make anyone's hands clean and smooth.

Ok, guys. I got some cable from Mike-hr. It's about 1.5" dia. I'm wondering if it's a little too big. I cut an 8" piece, welded the ends up and then did the first welding pass. I'm a little worried that the center is either going to have a lot of inclusions, or isn't welded very good. It took a lot of heats to get the whole thing welded and I'm afraid a bunch of junk may have fallen in there in the process. I'm hopefull that if I use a welding/near welding heat for drawing it down to billet shape will help close up anything not welded and maybe evacuate any junk stuck in there now. Tonight I'll take another welding pass and assuming all goes well will forge down into a billet shape. Then hopefully tommorow night I'll be able to do the sandwich with the L6 and maybe start the pattern development. I'll post pix at that point I guess. Thanks for the help so far.
ML