Recommended tool for cutting our blanks from bar stock?

Col Defender

Col Defender

Joined
Nov 11, 2011
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1,398
I have experimented with several methods to cut a blank out of 1/8 or 3/16 pieces of 1084 and in the next couple of weeks will be trying my hand at some damascus billets. So far I've found that a hack saw is useful for cutting the billet to length but not much more than that. My right angle grinder with a grinding wheel works but creates a terrible mess and there is a lot of wastage. Also I have experimented with using a cut off wheel in the same grinder and it seems to do a cleaner job and is significantly more controllable. I like both the greater control and lesser mess.

Meanwhile I have been following some other threads where the discussion is about metal cutting band saws from HF, and also something called a DeWalt Porta Band. And from browsing on HF, it appears they carry a portable band saw similar to the DeWalt Portaband . All seem to have their devotees. I would be willing to spend some money on a more efficient tool but have absolutely zero experience with any kind of metal cutting saw (other than a hack saw) and since I doubt I will be producing more than three knives in an average month, wonder about the cost effectiveness of a bigger faster tool. If a band saw were safer that might affect my decision too.

What do you guys use? What would you recommend for a fledgling part time knife maker.

Thanks much!

Steve
 
Do you have a belt grinder? I have always used a chop saw (or even hacksaw) to chop my bar then just grind to profile... it only takes a few minutes for an average knife.

With only hand tools you can do well with a small vise or clamp, high tension hacksaw and good blades like Lenox.

I'm fine without a bandsaw but consider a porta-band and something like a swag offroad stand, the setup looks great on a budget.
 
HF portaband works great. I just clamp it horizontally to my bench, though some people make stands for it to use in an upright position. The "table" is pretty lame and if you're doing small blades you might end up making a better table. I'm sure someone out there has plans for that. The blades HF sells don't come fine enough though. They work but bounce around a lot.

You can get away with a belt grinder for stock removal on knives that don't have a lot of height. Taller knives like the below require a lot of material removal around the heel/handle. Maybe on a nice big grinder that works fine but my weedy little 1x30 doesn't need to meet its maker any sooner necessary.

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Methods I've used:

1. Good metal band saw. Easiest and best method I've used. Unfortunately, I need to do this at the high school I work at so I need to find a time the shop isn't being used by a class. Fast and you can get very close to the exact shape you want. Little grinding/filing required after.

2. Drill and hack saw. Hard work, does the job, requires a fair bit of grinding/filing after.

3. Cut off wheel in the angle grinder. Fairly quick, but you can't get right down to the lines with it. Moderate amount of grinding/filing afterwards. You need to be careful to not cut too far and it's hard to see if you've gone too far. This is how I cut out a blank at home.

I haven't used a belt grinder to shape out a blank as the limited time I have on the grinder at work is used on refining my beveling and tapering after roughing out on the angle grinder with a flap wheel (36 and 80 grit wheels).

In an ideal world, I'd have high quality band saw and belt grinder at home and they'd be my go to tools.
 
Daniel Fairly Knives said:
Do you have a belt grinder? I have always used a chop saw (or even hacksaw) to chop my bar then just grind to profile... it only takes a few minutes for an average knife.

Yes - Sears 2 x 42. After I have cut out the blank I do everything else on it. But It has not worked well for me to remove a bunch of metal as in cutting out a blank though. But maybe if I got some coarser belts (right now 120 grit is the coarsest belt I use) it could remove metal faster. I should try that.
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I'm not sure about your grinder but with some 50 or 60 grit ceramic belts($4 a piece from trugrit) you can get rid of some metal in a hurry. You could profile (I'm guessing) 10 per belt before it's worn out. A band saw is the best option but even with it I replace the blade($30) every 10 blanks or so and it's struggling by the 10th. A decent metal saw is not cheap. The portaband is a cheaper option and is comparable if you make a good table and stand.
 
Col Defender said:
Daniel Fairly Knives said:
Do you have a belt grinder? I have always used a chop saw (or even hacksaw) to chop my bar then just grind to profile... it only takes a few minutes for an average knife.

Yes - Sears 2 x 42. After I have cut out the blank I do everything else on it. But It has not worked well for me to remove a bunch of metal as in cutting out a blank though. But maybe if I got some coarser belts (right now 120 grit is the coarsest belt I use) it could remove metal faster. I should try that.
Click to expand...

Sounds good on the grinder, consider trying some 36 grit ceramic belts for some of your profiling. You might want to use the saw a bit though as to not be to hard on the grinder... I know my old 4x36 did not like as much pressure as I put on my KMG.

Check out some 80 grit belts for grinding too, sometimes a sharp 80 grit belt can lay in a bevel nicely.

Best of luck and thank you for your service!
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If I could find some 20" wheels for my ancient bandsaw (Cowan & Co. from maybe the 20s), I'd use that. After I slow the motor down of course. A more reasonable option I think is getting a portaband and making up a stand. Most of them don't offer a very deep cut though; maybe around 5 inches. I hate using a cutoff wheel and throwing sparks everywhere (my shop is tiny).
 
I used an angle grinder and cut off wheels for a very long time before I could afford a dewalt porta band. Ended up getting it on sale for a Father's Day gift to myself. I must say that I really should have put all that cut-off wheel money into a hf portaband. I still would have bought the dewalt but for the time savings and far less of a mess it's absolutely worth it. If you can swing the dewalt, you won't regret it. Grinding with 36 grit belts is fast, and I've done it, but not all that cheap or clean when comparing to a band saw. I go from my band saw to a 60 and it saves me from a lot of headache, however since it is smaller sometimes you have to take cuts from the opposite side in order to avoid bottoming out on the body of the saw. A trade off for the tiny amount of room it occupies. Would I still buy it? Yup. Again and again.

Figured I would share a picture of my setup, I made a stand out of some 1.25 square tube and threw a quick sheet metal box together to catch the scraps.



Justin
 
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I too have a 2x42(ordering a GIB this weekend woohoo!) and it works ok for profiling the blade but with no contact wheels or anything it's impossible to really do much handle profiling. So I bought the HF portable band saw and built a stand out of scraps I had in my garage and made a new work rest out of a laminate wood tile. It works 100x better than how I was doing before which is basically the same methods you've tried. If you've got $300+ to spend on one then you probably want the Dewalt or Milwaukee version. My saw and stand was under $70 so I'm not complaining. It's not the best tool in the world but I'm saving and selling stuff to build my 2x72 so couldn't afford one of the nicer ones.

I cut it as close to shape as possible with the band saw, do final profiling of the blade and back of handle with 2x42 and use a combination of 2" sanding drums in the drill press and hand files to finish up the hard to reach areas depending on what works best.

by the way, if anyone is planning on building a portable band saw stand don't do it like I did. Make sure you mount it so that the blade is perpendicular to the front edge of the stand and that the saw itself isn't what is mounted perpendicular like mine. That leaves you cutting at a 45 degree angle from the side. I just have to turn it sideways when I use it but it's kind of annoying. I don't want to rebuilt the thing though and I'm probably the only dummy who wouldn't think to mount it the right way anyway.
 
cutting wheel on an angle grinder makes short work of steel regardless of thickness. I wached Charles Ochs use his on a video years ago and never looked back. had great results so far.
 
I have a milwaukee bandsaw and dewalt bandsaw at work, they are both great. The only thing I can say is, the clearance isn't that great. The angle of the blade in phorizt picture, is angled enough it looks like that you could cut almost any length of blade, whereas mine maxes out at 4 inches on a straight cut. The Pictured one also seems to have spots for bolts for a mount which is nice too.

If you were thinking of a higher end porta band, you might check out the makita one, from the looks of the pics the angle of the band might allow for more clearance.
 
I also used an angle grinder for a long time. But I got a Dewalt Porta band for Christmas and added the swag table and a piece of angle iron with clamps for a fence. (When a fence is called for) the Porta band cuts profiling time in half and reduces waste noise and mess. Best shop upgrade since the 2x72.
 
I started with a cheap Harbor Freight angle grinder and when I bought the second one I was still unhappy so I gave it away and bought a Milwaukee portaband. I could have bought the most excellent Dewalt poratband instead but at that time the Milwaukee had a deeper throat and was the same price. Either are good. The real improvenment came from the SWAG Offroad portaband table. I still use a Dewalt angle grinder with a cutoff wheel from time to time with straight cuts because it is fast. , Some guys will not use an angle grinder because of the danger of a blade coming apart. Mine has a guard and I wear a leather apron and face shield. Buy a portaband of good quality and get the SWAG table. My opinion again. Larry PS Both Milwaukee and Dewalt now make "deep throat models" which give plenty of room for knife work. LL
 
A Porta Band with a table works great for precision cutting of slipjoint back springs and blade profiling for all but the longest blades however with cautious planning
you can profile larger blades. The single best addition is a Foot Pedal so you can control On/Off without monkeying with the trigger it also controls speed. The current blade
in my saw has profiled 40 miscellaneous slipjoints and all their liners plus an additional dozen or so hunting knives....one of the most used tools in my shop besides my
grinders!
 
+1 on a portaband and SWAG table. I went with the SWAG 4.0 table which only works with the Milwaukee saws. I went that route because there is no need to remove anything from the saw to mount it in the table. If I want to use the saw without the table its a matter of lossening one knob and removing the saw.

The SWAG stuff is high quality. For me, the lack of mess and ease of use have made it much nicer than using cut off wheels.
 
Col, if you're talking about cutting several knives out of a damascus billet like what was discussed in your other thread, about the only way you'll get that done is with a bandsaw. You'll have an awful lot of wastage with an angle grinder. I have the Dewalt portaband with the Swag Off Road table. If you don't mind dropping the money on this it will serve you very well. I'd originally intended to cut steel with it then put it away. Wrong, I use it for everything, I leave it permanetly set up. I use it for cutting pin stock, bolster stock, handle materials including mammoth ivory and tooth (those two probably ought to stay away from an angle grinder), I open steel packages from Aldo, excess handle and pin material after glue up prior to handle shaping the list goes on and on. And I cut steel with it. Lots of steel. Its safe and easy to use and changing a blade is like 90 secs or something. Blades are cheap and locally available. I have a shop full of tools and multiples of most. I need not in any order of importance a drill press, a grinder and my portaband. I couldn't recommend it highly enough.
 
Col Defender said:
Recommended tool for cutting our blanks from bar stock?
Click to expand...

A dedicated metal-cutting bandsaw is definitely the proper tool for the job. The type will depend on your needs, space allowance, and budget of course. There are basically three options you can go with. A porta-band, horizontal/vertical, or a dedicated vertical. The first two will require a "table" of your choosing, either bought or made to be the most effective for our purposes. Like many of the others, I went with the porta-band. Like drysideshooter, I use a Milwaukee with the SWAG V4 table. My saw has a full 5" throat and with the V4 table, it literally takes just seconds to remove or reinstall. So far, I've not run into any situation cutting bar stock or rough profiling that I can't use the saw for. I also highly recommend the foot switch if you go that route. A porta-band/table combo is very versatile for many of the tasks in knife making as Horsewright mentioned, not just cutting metal. Admittedly, at some point in the future I would like to have a dedicated vertical for cutting sheets, but for now I would be hard pressed to get by without my porta-band.
 
Actually for steel as thin as 1/8 a variable speed jigsaw with some 18 tooth blades
works great.
 
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