Grinding Bevels...Breaking Tips

[Caleb Hale]

So I'm getting better at grinding in my bevels. I still need to work on getting them parallel to the spine, probably just need to be a little smoother and consistent...

...but I keep breaking the tip off once the metal at the front starts to get thin. Three times in a row now  

Is that just a matter of dunking it more often to keep it cool or what? I'm using a jig to grind so I let it get pretty hot before I dunk.

Thanks for lookin'!

[ThomasPowers]

Are they tempered?  Tips tend to overheat when grinding, one reason that holding the steel in your hands help. If it's too hot for your hands it's still probably under draw temp from tempering.

[lanternnate]

If you have the ability to change your grinder speed, slow down the belt. I do not have that capability, so once thin it is dunk in water often, back off on the pressure, and don't hang out long at the tip. That last one is a big one for me. Because you don't want to just drag your tip off the edge and instead want to stop with the tip midway, it's easy to hang out too long at the end of the sweep when stoping. That's usually how I overheat the tip. It's also easy to get the tip thinner than the rest, and as you try to get everything else thinner the tip gets worse and worse. One thing to try if that is happening is start near the front (belly area) and grind back to the plunge line to bring that area down to thickness. Then go back and do the normal sweep to blend again. These are just some things I've found to help avoid the problem on my less than optimal equipment. Others might have different (better) methods.

[Caleb Hale]

No they haven't been tempered at all. The last two were straight stock removal. They got hot enough in a couple of spots to turn blue/purple before I'd dunk it, but nothing near forging temp.

Unfortunately I just have a cheapish belt sander, so no speed control. But dragging the tip across and off the edge of the platen with some pressure...I was consciously trying to do that to get the bevel to follow the curve of the blade. Started realizing toward the end of this last one that it wasn't really needed. I'll try it as you've described next time with stopping the tip in the middle.

Thanks for the tips! (<- haha pun!)

[Frosty]

Purple and blue are temper colors that indicate you've pretty much drawn the hardness from the blade.

A pun eh? Wow, you're just too edgy for me.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Depends on if the blade has been hardened before grinding. If this was grinding before heat treat not a problem to get to purple or blue.