Posts: 180 Location: Washington, DC
Sun 22 Jan, 2012 7:37 pm
Peter, clearly I have a very long way to go before I being to approach your skill set. Thanks for your comments. Its so interesting to hear the masters talk about their process! I experienced exactly what you described trying to grind the very base of the blade, and I found that up and over rotation quite tricky to keep consistent. I admire your skill at fractionally adjusting all those hollows pass by pass.....basically i'm using a jig to help me establish a consistent edge thickness, then pushing towards the spine at the wider part of the blade. I suspect on a steel leaf blade this wouldn't work very well, because there's very little
distal taper developed. For aluminum though, I think keeping the spine almost .25" most of the way down the blade is good for strength and rigidity.
Also, I appreciate the advice on the finishing. It is definitely a bitch working up to higher grits, especially right at the spine. And you can't grind off-angle to reveal your coarser scratch marks either. I ended up doing a similar thing using scotchbrite deburring wheels on my buffer, which work like magic (thanks to Lewis Shaw for turning me on to those). I'll look into getting some belts though, as working horizontal to the deburring wheel on a buffer is really awkward.
Out of curiosity, when you are making aluminum blades, do you make blades that exactly match the steel blades in terms of cross section and relative edge thickness? What kind of construction methods do you use? I've become very fond of the recessed pommel nut because it leaves the tang/pommel junction thick and unthreaded, but no everyone like that look.