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I Forge Iron

Struggling to improve


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Somewhere I  have Dad's Arkansas stones, Shannon sent them to me after he passed away. One is in the top box with his lathe tools and bits.  Excellent stones they were just too big to carry with me in my day bag. 

Right you are Slag, I only use the 1,200 grit ceramic to put a final polish on some blades. A normal stone sharpened blade doesn't work so well on plastics, frighteningly fine edges work better. I bought it when I was doing a lot of Exacto knife work and was appalled at how rough the edges were. A brand new blade shouldn't tear news paper and I was cutting tissue paper weights for silk screening.

Stropping on a buffing wheel makes for a very good edge, better than a leather strop. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Charles,

You posted a terrific reference. Thanks heaps!

Mr. Leonard Lee, the founder of Lee Valley tools, "had" the National Research Council of Canada, (N.R.C.), use a scanning electron microscope to take pictures of steel edges that were sharpened by various stone types and various grits.

For example oil stones, water stones etc. (no diamond, nor ceramic, paper grit  "stones" as it was done in the middle 1970's) 

There were comparison micrographs of blade edges after various grits, etc. Those photos were very revealing and beautiful.

The photographic collection was included in their tool catalogues for several decades. Alas, they disappeared about eight or so years ago.

The company may still have the "originals" or know where they may have published elsewhere. Also the N.R.C. might be able to help.

Again thanks.

SLAG.

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Hi everyone,


As promised, hereby an update after following up your feedback.

At first, I tried my filing jig to change the edge angle from 80* to 60* (special thanks to @Charles R. Stevens). As it turns out; hand filing an already hardened blade edge is hard work . 
As I've decided to use this blade as a practice piece, I resorted to my small belt grinder which I initially only used for wood, which turned out quite great (thanks for the suggestion, @Jclonts82) !

I was able to form an actual edge, including a burr. 

I nailed a piece of leather to a slab of wood (again, thanks @Charles R. Stevens and @Frosty) for stropping purposes, and was able to finally sharpen my first knife properly! Hurray!

I am so glad that this worked out well, I couldn't have done it without you guys.

@SLAG: thanks for your suggestions too, although I will skip the buffer from this point, as my blade is now sharp enough to shave an ant's armpits.

--

What I've learned from this:

- The secondary bevel is not created in the sharpening phase, it actually requires seperate attention before proceeding to the actual sharpening
- the cutting edge radius can actually be too wide: 80* is unbelievably hard to sharpen, whereas 60* was way easier.
- as you can see on the picture below, my knife cheeks are way too thick, making the secondary bevel way higher up than I'd like it to.
- stropping was much easier when the leather is nailed to wood
- I should have waited with fitting the handle once I've finished sharpening the steel ( in the pic, now preventing me from sharpening the bit between the sharp edge and the handle)
and last, but most importantly:
- you guys are awesome :)

thanks a lot for your help! I will share future projects on this forum as well.

read this

 

 

TLDR: Success!! thanks to you guys :) I will improve upon my sharpening in the next project, as this was great practice

IMG_20180422_112255.jpg

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Looking good, well done. 

It makes my day when we're actually helpful. Have you read the article Charles posted the link to? I'm seriously engrossed in it and learning a LOT. I'm not a bladesmith guy, never got into making blades other than a couple special purpose ones. I'm so much a non-bladesmith I have to do a websearch to remember the names of the parts of a knife. 

One bit that isn't just blade related. The edge doesn't have a "radius" that is a round curve and measured by the distance from it's center to the circumference, outside. For example we recommend folks "radius" or round off, the edges of their anvils to improve their function. If you've followed some of the threads regarding anvils you've seen  examples of radiused anvil edges.

The edge of a blade or any object with a flat surface is called a "Bevel." Technically the Cheeks are bevels too but on blades they have their own name to distinguish them from the final bevel that makes the cutting edge.

I can't wait to see your next blade! Keep at it, we're pulling for you.

Frosty The Lucky.

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On 4/22/2018 at 2:49 PM, Incaratus said:

read this

sorry, I missed that post! 

Frosty, I did have a look at Charle's article, I will study it into further detail.

As your comment regarding the term 'radius', I'm afraid that got lost in the minor language barrier, I meant the angle of the cutting edge. I haven't fully read up upon this treasure of knowledge within this forum, pardon me when I get my terminology wrong every now and then :)

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5 hours ago, Incaratus said:

As your comment regarding the term 'radius', I'm afraid that got lost in the minor language barrier, I meant the angle of the cutting edge. I haven't fully read up upon this treasure of knowledge within this forum, pardon me when I get my terminology wrong every now and then :)

ARGH! I forget to check and remind myself when I'm talking to folk in different countries. No apologies of any kind please, I wasn't being picky just trying to get a common terminology between us. It's no big deal in this case but sometimes the difference can be important.

Frosty The Lucky.

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