There was pea soup fog this morning, which burned off by 10am.
If you’ve ever flown from Baltimore or Washinton to Chicago on the early flights, you’ve been over my farm. Those mountains with the big pools of fog? One of the smaller pools is my yard. They used to build farms in the lower parts of the hilltops, so that the air would be cooler in the pre- air conditioning world. This time of year, when I wake up, it’s usually pea soup. If I go a half a mile up the road, it’s clear and sunny.
I’ve been experiencing a burst of creative energy, and have been spending most of my time over at the shop putting mirror polishes on knife blades. I’ve sped up some parts of my grinding/shaping/treating to the point where in a typical day I forge out 2 or 3 blade blanks and maybe even a billet/bar, or I profile, rough-shape and temper 2 or 3 blades. Since doing the blades is a lot of fun compared to doing the handles, I have a big stack of blades piling up on the bench waiting for mountings. By “big stack” I mean about 6. Blades and knives in general are not ever cleanly in a state of “done” or “not done” they’re always “more or less needs a lot of work” and “more or less done as much as I want to on it” and endless states in between.
I don’t know what you are talking about. Handles are the fun part, finishing blades is just tedious
I probably need a better grinder and a wider selection of belts to speed up the process
I agree with them never being done, just at a point where its not worth fixing the flaws
dangerousbeans@#1:
I don’t know what you are talking about. Handles are the fun part, finishing blades is just tedious
I probably need a better grinder and a wider selection of belts to speed up the process
I think the part I hate the worst is the fiddly part broaching the front of a bolster. Arrgh! I have done that so many times and it’s always annoying and difficult.
The last couple months I have been improving my angle grinder-fu to the point where I can profile, clean, and rough grind a blade without touching the belt sander. So I go from forging the metal to shape, annealing it, angle grinding it to shape, then quenching it. After that it’s tempering it and cleaning it up and shaping it on the belts. A blade used to take days, now I am doing 2 at a time and I finish one a day, more or less, unless I get sidetracked into something like bolting down machinery or making twist billets.
My belt consumption has dropped to 1/2 what it used to be, too.
Oooh yes, broaching bolsters is a pain in the arse. I think it’s part of why so many people only do western style slab handles.
Impressive angle grinder skills