Gyuri

I'm still experimenting with this, but my method is to stock 10 or so blades from the same material, ready for HT. Then send them to the pr HT company. They charge for it by the kilogram, BTW

I think everyone knows the phenomenon. I wrote a short rant about it: https://makesg.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/the-painful-truth-about-blade-warping/ Now I'm curious: is it a daily issue for everyone? How much warpage is too much?

I know someone who started making medieval armor in his apartment. Now he's one of the most well known whitesmith in my country. Anyway, whether your plan comes together financially is a pen-and paper question: write down your financial goals, your expenses, the income from one of your product, etc. - I think you get it. You'll find out whether you'll be meeting your plan or have to change something. Finally, good luck and keep us updated about your progress.

I wrote an article about blade coatings: https://makesg.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/knife-blade-coatings-give-em-a-jacket/ Do you use some type on your blades? Why? Why not?

Collin, I absolutely agree. But I found that cleaning up your workspace does clean up your mind, that's why many points are indeed about keeping order. There are times when I stop the work on one project and work on something else, or call it a day entirely. These are the situations when I just don't feel like I can produce the quality that expect from myself.

I collected the ten habits that I find the worst in the shop: https://makesg.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/workshop-safety-10-dangerous-habits/ What is your opinion?

Dan, The comparison you made is more common than you would think. Talking about composites, it is always a question whether CF or GF should be used for a specific part. GF can be equally strong, it only needs a few more layers than CF, and it will flex more if similarly designed (Its weight, however, will be significantly heavier due to GF-s higher specific weight, which leads to the cause why we see CF in high-end applications). The point is that GF composites need not be much heavier (just thicker), although they have the fraction of UTS than their CF equivalents.

I know that there are a lot who still use carbon steel alongside high alloy material. I wrote a topic to start a conversation on the subject: https://makesg.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/why-i-like-carbon-steel/ What do you think?

When browsing the net for handle materials, I found a lot of information about production knife handle materials, but nothing about the ones that custom knifemakers usually use. I thought that a list of those would be helpful, so I wrote an article that collects the more exotic knife handle materials that a custom knifemaker can use: https://makesg.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/exotic-knife-handle-materials/ Please let me know what you think. Also, I'm aware that the list is far from complete, so any ideas are welcome.

Brandon, Thanks for the input, I appreciate that. Ironically, I didn't have the chance to get near that unfinished handle in the past week or two, but this gives me some hope. On a side note, a fellow knifemaker gave me a good tip: if it sinks in water, it is properly impregnated. Thanks once again.

Having neatly gathered all the necessary equipment, I finally decided to give handle stabilization a try. I drew the inspiriation from Ariel Salaverria's great article on the subject, and did pretty much everything the same. I chose a nice walnut stock, completely dry and carved a handle out of it for one of my nessmuk blades. Joined the vacuum, mixed the polyesther resin and voila - everything went as expected, and when the resin started to show up in the vacuum pipe, I shut off the pump, cleaned the excess off the handle and left it to cure. When I started to sand it next day, I was surprised. I expected something completely plastic-like, but the feel and touch of the handle was barely different than before. It seemed to be smoother and a bit harder though. I have to admit that I never touched any stabilized wood before. Is it okay to have a wood-like feeling when sanded, or should it be more like some kind of plastic? Did something go wrong during stabilization? I'm clueless. Thanks for the input.

Looks like it's time to salvage a reasonably sized blower - thank you all for the input. This one is a long term project for me, but I'll post any progress.

Though I never used one, these respirators do look great. Only problem is, I don't have $500+ for a respirator, so I started thinking: If I attach my shop air to the mask through an adjustable valve and a huge filter, would it work? The air cable would be somewhat a nuisance, but it may work for less than a hundred bucks. If someone tried this, I'd be glad to hear whether it is a viable solution, if not, I may give it a shot myself.

My recently built mini grinder works OK, but it has several disadvantages due to my initial lack of experience. Several years and a lot of lessons later, now I decided to build high-end piece that suits my needs for many years to come. As a design engineer, I start all my projects with CAD, this one being no exception. The attached document is the result of many-many hours of thinking and modelling, and now I can say that the model is complete to the last screw. The machine accepts 2x72" belts both in horizontal and vertical position. Most of its plates can be cut by hand or at your local steel yard (all but one plates are 10mm thick) and welded together with some experience, while the turned components can be made with a bench lathe. It accepts most motor sizes around 1.5Hp and an optional VFD. The tooling arm and the attached components can be easily changed. I tried really hard to think about everything. But now I need your help. Many members have a lot more experience with belt grinders than me, and I could really use some input should something be changed. I greatly appreciate any opinion regarding the design. If I complete the machine, I'm gonna document the process and make all the blueprints available for free. Now let the process begin. kmg_clone_01.pdf

Thanks for the comments. The hidden pin is actually no big deal. The tang had a number of holes, which were copied to the handle scales. These blind holes were then filled with epoxy along with the holes in the blade, followed by gluing on the scales. When cured, I got a number of epoxy pins which are supposed to keep everything in place. I could have used solid pins, but my experience is that cured epoxy alone is strong enough to withstand the abuse. However, this is my first experiment with this method, so only time will tell. Also, if anyone has a good method for this, I would love to know it.