FatFrumos

Thank you all for your replies. I will give it a try when I get a chance and report back.

It depends. If a person just says something on youtube it's one thing, but if several people on different channels are actually using beveled grinding stones to good effect on video, it's a good signifier that it can be done. I suppose I will do that. But I thought that since this is a knifemaker's forum, someone here might have dealt with it before.

I bought myself a set of Gesswein polishing stones to try them as a replacement of sandpaper for polishing the blades. When they arrived, they were of a standard rectangular shape. However, in all youtube videos demonstrating their use one end of the stone was beveled on one or both sides. As a result, you would get a contact patch of a specific size and would have to hold the stone at an angle to the blade to apply it to. I hope that makes sense. My question is - how does one go about creating this bevel? Is there a preferred way or should I just take it to the grinder or a file? Thank you! Luka

That sounds extremely interesting, but I have never done molding, neither do I have tooling for holding liquid aluminum. One day, but probably not now. Good thing I asked. I guess it got hidden by all the scratches and small dents. Thank you!

I don't think there is a cross pin, unless it had been blended very well. I'll look again. As to heating up, I was doing it to break up the structure of old glue. But you are right, I can probably try and expand the pommel. Are there any gotchas on heating aluminum with a torch?

Hello. I bought a nice little knife on a flea market with the intent of restoring it. It's a Wes-Cut K5 hunter, in case anyone dealt with them before. I'm stuck trying to remove the pommel - it is made of aluminum, so I have to be careful with it to avoid dents and other deformations. Looks like a narrow slot was cut in it and the tang was glued in. So far, the only two things I tried were heating up the tang with a torch to soften the glue and putting some liquid wrench in there, but it seems pretty stuck. If worst comes to worst, I will try to drill along the slot with a small diameter drill to give me a place to wiggle it off, but I was wondering if you can think of other options. Is there a chemical solution that penetrates and dissolves the old glue? Thank you! Luka

This is unexpected. Just to clarify my process - I do not use water, I use WD40 and wipe the side with acetone prior to taping it up. But I guess I won't be taping them up any more, or at least wrap them in paper before taping. But anyways, you leave, you learn. Thank you very much for your responses!

Hello. I'm finishing up my second kitchen knife. It's made out of AEB-L and I wanted to apply a satin to it, so I sanded one part down to 1000 grit, then covered it with a masking tape, flipped it over and did the other side. When I took the tape off, I discovered white spots on the blade that you can see in the picture. I tried to sand them off (but I didn't go lower than 400 grit) and wash them off with acetone, but to no avail. What can they be, any ideas? The only thing I can think of is they are gouges left by some large steel crumbs, but why are they pits and not scratches and how did they make it so deep under the masking tape? If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be very grateful. Thank you! Luka

Actually, I discovered an excellent alternative on another forum - a sawing machine LED light. They have a flexible neck, magnetic base and cost $10. What's not to like?

Hello. I finally got a proper 2x72 grinder. It's a lovely machine, but I realized that my work area needs to be properly and flexibly lit in order for me to see what I'm doing. What kind of lighting setup do you have on your grinder - is it a single adjustable light, multiple lights or a band of LED lights? Do you mount them on the table or on the ceiling? Do you have any tips on properly positioning the lights for the best performance? Thank you! Luka

I updated my profile, thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure my neck of woods is where a lot of people make knives, though

Thank you!

Hi. I've been saving for a while and it looks like I'll be buying a proper 2x72 belt grinder soon. So my question is - what kind of belts would you recommend? I'll definitely get several grits of Norton Blaze ones, because I used them on my old 1x30 and they rock. But what else should I get? My understanding is that Trizact belts are good for finishing, so I'll probably try them, but they also come in different grits, so which grits do you commonly use? Also, the name Klingspor came up a lot in my research. Is it just an alternative to Norton Blaze, just not ceramic, or do they have some other features? Thank you!

Absolutely gorgeous. How did you age the copper so well?

I'd recommend 1080/1084. 5160 would probably work fine too, but when doing my own research I often read that 5160 works better for larger blades because this steel is very tough but the trade-off is that it doesn't hold the edge as well, as 1084, for instance. However, since we are talking about a small bushcraft knife and not a chef's knife, the difference is probably academic. off site links removed