knife profile cleaned up;
This is sort of unorthodox, but I hit the blade up against the 5" contact wheel on the Burr King (in line with the wheel) using a worn 60X ceramic belt to knock the forge scale off and it also gives me a quick look to see if there are a bunch of deep hammer marks left in the blade.
Fortunately it's pretty clean and the marks aren't too bad;
Now I go to the 9" disc and hit the ricasso to help see if the blade is straight and the edge is centered;
If I did a decent job forging, then the ricasso will be the thickest part of the blade, with the edge bevel and distal taper "fading away" from the ricasso, and the disc won't touch those areas;
Next I put the blade on the surface grinder and establish a FLAT ricasso. The sides of the ricasso being FLAT and PARALLEL will be the foundation for the entire build process of a knife in my shop. This will become quite evident as the knife progresses;
Here's a better shot showing how everything fades away from the ricasso;
I lay the blade on my large granite, machinist's surface plate (a very very FLAT surface) and then use a height gauge with a carbide tip to scribe a center-line (thickness) down the full length of the cutting edge and the spine. If the forging went like it should, then the edge will be centered. It's extremely difficult (theoretically impossible) to grind completely even, SYMMETRICAL blade bevels if your edge is not centered. I know many guys eyeball this, and do so with great results.... but I like a reference line and this one will be part of that foundation that I work from;
We got lucky, the edge is centered;
The clip is a little off center (0.020" sure looks like a lot when you're looking at it THIS close
) but it's easily within grinding tolerances so that it will come out centered and symmetrical. In a perfect world, it would have been right in the center like the cutting edge is, but this really is NOT a big issue. If it were, I'd get it hot and move it over;