hand sanding

N

Nebulae

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Aug 24, 2009
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so I tried hand sanding a blade for the first time. it was/is the most hateful difficult experience ever. I cant remember when I've been so Mad. My grind lines are not the greatest, and it seems there is like a concave groove running the length of the blade, not deep but wide, so I end up not sanding the middle of my blade so I try to give it a brief re-grind and end up screwing it up even more! Am I missing something
 
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Not Really.Hand sanding will quickly show you how bad your grinds are,as your grinds improve hand sanding gets easier.Took me awhile to not hate hand sanding.
If you use some dychem on your blades as you grind you can see where you are grinding and where you are not. It's just a partof the learning curve.
Stan
 
see the problem is I made the knife from a file, without annealing it so its really hard to get flat grinds when you can only do one or two passes before dunking it in water; you loose your place, and your grind angle.
 
At first hand sanding was taking days to finish. Now it takes only an hour or two at max. To find the spot each time you contact the steel to the belt takes years of exp. but with each knife the time spent decreases...

Emre
 
I assume you don't mean that you are using the tips of your fingers to sand with...if you are using a flat, hard backing for your sandpaper you should be able to get things pretty flat, the main trick I had to learn was to buy good-quality sandpaper and use it like it is free-it gets dull pretty quickly when you are sanding hardened steel and it is a waste of time to keep using it once it has gone dull. I was surprised how fast I was able to hand-finish stuff once I started changing my paper out more frequently.
 
wait you want me to try to flatten and level my blade with 220 grit sandpaper? as opposed to trying to sand the uneven surface with a soft backing.
 
Nebulae said:
wait you want me to try to flatten and level my blade with 220 grit sandpaper? as opposed to trying to sand the uneven surface with a soft backing.
Click to expand...

Yes thats the way to do it,a hard flat backing,good paper,change often.
Stan
 
You are never going to keep things flat or make things truly flat with a soft backing. I use a scrap piece of ground flat stock with the sharp edges knocked off to wrap the paper around. By far the best advice so far is use the paper like it's free. I get a couple passes with 400, but when I get above 1000 I get one pass. One. then change it out. You have not mentioned fish hooks yet so I will hit on that before you get there. When I get to 400 I then move in only one direction, DO NOT scrub back and forth.
 
Get really familiar with a paint stick and sand paper, its the only way to get it flat. Sometimes its hours other times only minutes but they all get hand sanded. There are no real short cuts to quality.

Peter
 
I see so I have to flatten it out by hand, I sort of thought it should be possible to sand something that's not exactly flat.
I really have no problem spending lots of time and effort as long as I know I am going in the right direction, and not just making things worse.

thanks guys
 
I start as low as 150 grit by hand. This can reduce the time removing deep grooves and heavy scratches. I have found that trying to skip too far to a finer grit will also give you fits. My backer bar is either a piece of copper or lignum vita.
 
whoa you guys were so right 1 grit down!
its been a while since I have gotten such good advice, especially contrary to what I had thought.

thanks so much
 
I use 100-150 grit for flattening and getting rid of the marks from the grinder, but if you are using low-quality paper/abrasive that grit size will blunt almost immediately on hardened steel.

Hand-finishing is painfully slow unless you use the right backing and agressive abrasive. I sand with the paper glued to or wrapped around a flat piece of granite which I clamp to my bench, and I move the blade over the paper. This way it is easier for me to feel the flats and keep the right angle.

The right amount of pressure is also important to get the most effectiveness out of your abrasive, there is a tendency to think that more is better but too much pressure literally rips the grit off the paper and causes it to wear out very fast.
 
Definitely good advice. I pretty much butchered a decent knife blank on my Delta 1 x 42. These guys advised me to use sandpiper, and slowly but surely it's coming back. I just need more time to spend on it- I've been working almost a year on it 5 minutes at a time.:grumpy:
 
I finish at the grinder with 240 grit, then go to 400 grit by hand. The key is to get ALL the coarser scratches out with the 240, and make sure there's no ripples or gouges in the surface. hand sanding usually takes me from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the size of the knife.

It just takes experience, and a good grinder, and good belts. :)
 
Folks are suggesting sandpaper, but be aware it's sort of special sandpaper.

Silicon carbide paper, wet or dry, usually black in color. I keep my stuff
lubricated with WD-40.

There are certainly others but don't use flint, garnet, or woodworkers
aluminum oxide. They're just not tough enough.

Buy good, (expensive) stuff and use it like it's free. It actually pays off
in the long run.

Back your paper with a hard surface and you can flatten a blade fairly
quickly. Put on some good music, get into a good sanding "groove",
and you'll be surprised how fast the job goes.

Bill
 
wow thanks for the responses guys

Update: I went up to 600 and its a low mirror shine got some scratches from sharpening (note to self be careful to get the right angle against the stone, and dont scratch the blade) it cuts better, especially shaving against the skin, water seems to just fall off as if I waxed it, and its so smooth its having trouble staying in its rubber sheath! :thumbup::D

I m now a fan of hand sanding. thanks so much you guys are great, or maybe I'm just bipolar or schizophrenic :D
 
"it was/is the most hateful viticulture experience ever." Perhaps you should'nt drink the fruit of the vine when you are hand sanding then?
 
A flat diamond file, lubricated liberally with WD 40 will eat metal faster than any sandpaper. I use DiaSharp and the cheaper EZ Lap diamond files for blade refinishing often. Then, cheap Japanese waterstones at 1000 grit to remove the diamond marks, then 600, 800, 1000, 2000, 3500 grit SiC paper.
 
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