HIDI part 4; Grinding

I find that one of the most important things to do prior to grinding the bevel is an accurate lead-in bevel.  This sets pre-heat treat edge thickness, establishes the start of your plunge and saves you from stripping the abrasive from new belts.

My lead-in grinding set-up; 10" wheel and the MAP arm

Accurate lead-in grind established

I got ahead of myself. All the bluing was removed during the lead-in grind, had to go back and remark

10" wheel ready for grinding a hunter

A 6" wheel ready for grinding a fighter

Free hand grinding

I do all my grinding free hand. I do fairly well know, after a lot of practice. 

 A few rough ground blades ready for the next step: some hand work and guards!

HIDI part 3; Getting ready to grind

In the last installment I tapered the tangs with the mill scale on the profiled blade; I do this to save time.  I am removing a lot of steel along with the mill scale when I taper the tang so that when I end up at the surface grinder I only need to grind half of the profiled blade.

Post surface grind Utility Hunter.

The above step makes for a flat ricasso and saves on belts.

I use two methods for scribing reference lines on the blade profile. One for the edge thickness and the second for the grind height.

Good old surface plate and height gauge for marking the blade thickness.

Loveless shop trick - grind height gauge.

Grind height gauge in use. 

The value of using this simple gauge is that you can consistently scribe the same reference on the same pattern time and again mirrored side to side.  You no longer need to try to get your blade plumb to a height gauge or worry about one jaw of your calipers being in the wrong location creating a reference that is different side to side.  Another bonus is zero set-up time.

Ready to grind.

Next installment - Grinding!