Old American made grind stones.

[The Alchemist]

Hey guys,

In a local antique shop sets an old grind stone. It is the rotary style, about 2 ft diameter. I was wondering if anyone uses them for the initial grind. 

[ThomasPowers]

The old foot powered grindstones were used for touching up edges; the grinding of blades were done on grindstones more like 8' in diameter to get decent SFM; look into the old pictures of blade grinding in Sheffield for examples.

Now if you remove the scale chemically and do your initial grind by draw filing and then harden and then use the grindstone to touch up the edge you would be ok.

I found the old grindstones used to clean up the faces of new anvils when I lived in Columbus OH, they used to roll them down hill into the river when they wore down to around 4' in diameter and se were "useless".  I was checking out the river below one of the anvil manufacturers as I had mat a man that had worked there and he had remarked that when they shut the plant down there was a line of anvils along the top of the river bank...Didn't find any anvils but found a dozen or so grindstones in the water.

[Will W.]

4 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

do your initial grind by draw filing and then harden and then use the grindstone to touch up the edge you would be ok.

This is exactly how I have been making knives for a little while now and it works great, I think. I find the treadle grinders put a better edge on than whetstones or anything of that sort. Just hammer in your bevels close to finish, draw file them nice and neat, and put a final edge on with the grindstone. Using them for the rough grinding though? I don't know about that. It may take you a while, and may produce a lesser product than draw filing would.