Two variations of the Wilton Square Wheel Grinder. (Images courtesy of Southern-Tool.com)
The variety and types of belt grinders available today is tremendous. Without a doubt each individual has his/her favorite machine. Although all are very good, we always wish that we could make them do more, or modify them to better fit how we each do things in our shop(s).
I have used every grinder out there at one time or another, and have chosen the Wilton Square Wheel as my favorite. The most attractive feature for me is the ease and speed of changing attachments.
As it comes from the factory or dealer, there are a few draw backs that can be irritating to a knifemaker. Below are a few modifications I have made to increase versatility and production in my shop.
Specs
The machine is set up to run either 110VAC or 220VAC. As delivered it is set up to run at 110VAC, I highly recommend setting it up to run on 220VAC. There is a world of difference in the power and smoothness of the machine from 110 to 220. (My machine had change over instructions located inside the switch housing.)
Slow Down
(All images by the author unless otherwise noted.)
If you did not purchase a variable speed machine, get a “slow down” drive pulley. As it comes from the factory, the Wilton Square Wheel has a 10″ drive pulley that runs the machine at 4600 SFPM (surface feet per minute) Before they were offered commercially, I had one made at a local machine shop. Mine is 7″ dia, and slowed the belt speed down to 2950 SFPM.
By slowing the machine down, it may seem at first that your progress is very slow, but your grinds will come out much nicer, and you’ll get a lot more mileage out of your belts.
Flat Platen Attachment
Next we turn to modification of the flat platen attachment. As it come from the factory, and with the way the platen attachment is cast, there is simply not enough room or tracking adjustment to allow one to create plunge cuts on the left side of the platen (as you are facing the machine).
It took me a while to work this one out, but the solution is a simple fix. I created a platen that bolts onto the existing platen. These “add on” platens are nothing more than a piece of 1/4″x 2″x whatever length you want (up to the original 8″) that the belt “rides” over. This will give you plenty of room for plunge cuts. In the photos below you can see how I drilled two holes in the casting, and use two socket head bolts (10-24 thread) to secure the “add on” platen.
The easy way to do this is to remove the contact wheels and use a set of vise grips to drill the holes for threading, and then enlarge the holes in the casting to accept the socket head bolts.
Modify Platen Lengths
For those who were paying close attention to the photos above, the platen may have seemed shorter than it should be. This brings us to one of the best improvements. Remove 2″ at the bottom of the factory platen casting. This gives an area that is ideal for convex grinding.
Platens can be made in different lengths, for various applications. The above photo on the left shows two different platen sizes, the large for flat grinding, and in the right photo, the shorter platen is in place for convex grinding. Below is a close up view of the setup I use for convex grinding. It’s easy to get carried away and use too much pressure, so nice and easy is the key. You can control the amount of convex with a combination of belt tension, and the amount of pressure you apply to your work piece.
Using the Short Platen
I seldom use the 8″ wheel, with the exception of profiling blades. The long flat platen, I use for flattening, and tapering, the shorter platen is used for convex grinding.
If you have made modifications, and are willing to share your ideas, let me know in the comments.
NOTE: Since first writing this article, I have trashed the idea of using Graphite canvas for a platen backing. This material wears too quickly, causing uneven grinds and just general mayhem. I now use “pyro-ceram” or tempered glass on all my platens. The platen MUST be flat, and the glue used to attach the glass able to withstand heat (I use AccraGlass) but it will improve you grinding 10 fold.
Keep Learning About Knife Grinding with This Download
Beards and blades never went out of style, so it’s only appropriate that an axe continue the tradition with a “beard” of its own. The BAX 002 Bearded Axe, offered via Williams Blade Design, draws from Viking lore with a formidable design hatched by ABS master smith Daniel Winkler, someone with plenty of beardly street cred himself.
While the follicles on the BAX 002 are noticeably absent, it should be noted that the “beard” refers to the shape of the axe head. The extra gap this allows between the head and the handle allows the user to “choke up behind the edge for detailed work,” according to a media release. The result offers enough heft to satisfy raiding parties of yesteryear or today.
From Williams Blade Design:
Inspired by the axes of the Vikings, this bearded axe is equally at home in the wild or on the battlefield. The full tang 80CrV2 steel construction makes for an impressively tough tool that excels in the roughest environments. The walnut handle scales provide excellent feel for delicate tasks, and solid grip when the need arises.
Well-made vintage knives by legendary makers can be very attractive to collect. Lloyd Hale does the honors here in a chute knife sporting an ironwood handle with pearl and abalone inlay. (SharpByCoop.com photo)
Eventually, All Knife Collectors Hit Crossroads
You may face a crossroads, a time of decision involving the realization that interests, tastes and possibly buying power change. In such situations, you may decide to begin collecting a different genre of knives, departing from what you have collected. If and when that time comes, evaluating your situation and making informed decisions is crucial.
Some basic questions loom large, from deciding what to collect to getting the best education on what is available, selling or retaining an existing collection, and, if the choice is to sell, then maximizing the revenue generated.
Should You Reboot? Ask Yourself These Questions
Do you have a very good reason for starting over?
Do you sell or keep your existing collection?
If you sell it, how do you get the most out of it?
Are you trying to recover your initial investment or trying to make as much money as possible to assemble your new collection?
Are you comfortable with the effort and costs it will take to build a new collection?
Do you want to make money or collect, carry or use the knives?
What knives should you collect, and how do you best research them?
How available are they and are they of recent vintage?
Are they still in production or limited in distribution, both of which influence collectibility?
If antiques, where can they be found and can they be found without undue cost?
What are the prices typically asked for the knives in collectible condition?
Are you going to collect only mint or near-mint examples, and can you afford to pay premium prices for them?
Guidelines for Going Forward with a New Collection
If, after answering those questions, you decide to liquidate and start over, keep these guidelines in mind.
Collect what you like or even use.
Chasing trends is a fool’s errand. Collecting knives that are hot now means paying top dollar now as well.
Know which knives are collectible in specific geographic locations of the country.
Inexpensive, low-end knives will never appreciate to any degree.
Well-made, fine-condition knives should not lose you any money.
Don’t buy damaged/poor condition knives unless they are very old and collectible, such as antique bowies and rare military knives.
Butterfly knives (aka “balisongs”) have evolved into meticulously crafted pieces of cutlery. Many of the best capitalize on state-of-the-art blade and handle materials coupled with progressive and modern designs that advance the genre toward the close of the century’s second decade.
Brous Blades B3
(All images by David Stanfield unless otherwise noted)
The B3 from Brous Blades is a modern butterfly knife with its stainless steel handles and D2 recurve tanto blade style. The handle interiors have cavities milled out to reduce weight. The knife has great action as a result, without the need to use bearings in the pivots. MSRP will vary depending on the finish, though this one is $320.
Bear Ops Bear Song VI
The hollow-ground 1095 carbon steel blade of the Bear Ops Bear Song VI has great edge geometry for all your cutting chores. A textured black epoxy coating guards against corrosion. MSRP: $174.99.
Mantis Knives Vuja De
The Vuja De from Mantis Knives marries the karambit’s large finger ring and hook-shaped blade with the free-swinging individual handles of a butterfly knife. The scales are textured black G-10 for both durability and grip quality. The blade is Mantis’ proprietary MV-1 stainless steel.
Emerson Knives Bali Commander & CQC7
The recurve clip-point blade of the Bali Commander (left) from Emerson Knives, Inc., is easily sharpened using a round profile sharpener to effectively capture the blade’s gentle sweeping curve.
The Emerson Bali CQC7 (right) in the background sports the chisel-ground blade like that of the iconic Emerson CQC7 tactical folder.
Attend a Flipping Competition at BLADE Show
Butterfly knives were a-fluttering during the balisong competition conducted by Blade HQ at last year’s BLADE Show.
Cyrus Vance, Jr., Allegedly Turned Blind Eye to Weinstein Accusations
Cyrus Vance, Jr. (Image via manhattanda.org)
The Manhattan district attorney notorious for his “gravity knife” prosecutions, Cyrus Vance, Jr., is now being investigated for apparently turning a blind eye to a 2015 sexual assault allegation against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo directed the state attorney general on Monday to review how the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., handled a 2015 sexual assault allegation against the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Mr. Vance decided not to prosecute Mr. Weinstein even though his accuser, an Italian model, had provided police officers with a recording of Mr. Weinstein apologizing when she asked him why he had groped her breasts the day before.
Mr. Vance said at the time that there was insufficient evidence, a defense he repeated last year after an outpouring of accusations against Mr. Weinstein reopened scrutiny of the decision, and also cast light on Mr. Vance’s acceptance of campaign donations from Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers.
Noel decided he didn’t want to go to college just yet. He also knew he couldn’t move down to San Francisco and pay rent on both an apartment and a steel-working shop. “I decided I could make my shop inside a trailer,” he says. “Then I wouldn’t have to pay rent, and I could go anywhere and make knives.”
These days he drives up and down the state: to Malibu and Santa Barbara for craft shows, staying afterward to surf, or up to the Sierra, where he can ski in his off hours. Sometimes he sets up his outdoor workshop by the side of the road, opening up the trailer to turn on the propane forge and set up his belt grinder, which runs on generator power.
One wonders, though, what retirement will look like when the getting is this good at 19. Read the full article here.
Video: Make a Knife From an Artillery Shell
The videos explaining how to make knives out of [crazy thing] sure are entertaining, and they reveal where a mastery of knifemaking basics can take you. Here’s one featuring an 88mm artillery shell.
The author’s finished flipper folder—sanded, polished and ready to go!
Folder making has advanced so much in the past few years. Now, flipper folders are the hot new ticket.
Following is an overview of the steps in making a modern flipper by hand.
Draw It Up
The parts are all cut out. The holes in one handle side (center) are center punched and ready to drill.Design the knife parts on clear plastic so you can see where to locate everything.
To begin, draw designs on paper and transfer them to clear plastic. Cut out the designs of the blade and handle from the clear plastic. Overlap the tang of the blade on the handle and insert a needle through both pieces where the pivot pin will be.
From there, fold the blade onto the handle and adjust the design as needed.
Next, trace around the plastic handle on a titanium sheet. I use titanium in a 1/8-inch size for the top part of the handle and .070 inch for the two bottom pieces. Trace the blade and cut it out.
Know the Drill
Counter sink all the holes a small amount before drilling them with the 1/16-inch drill bit.
Making folders is mostly about drilling holes. Drill out one plate of titanium with 1/16-inch holes. Place another plate of titanium underneath the drilled-out plate and clamp the two together. Turn it over and drill through the second plate.
Starting with the pivot hole, place a ½x1/16-inch hardened dowel pin in it so the two plates won’t move. Next, drill the end of the handle and put a pin in it.
Continue drilling, clamping and adding pins where your stand-offs go. Each time you drill a hole, take the plates apart and de-burr. A hand drill with a four-flute counter-sink is handy for de-burring.
Start drilling all the holes with a 1/16-inch drill bit.
This flipper will have an internal stop pin, so don’t drill all the way through the top plate. However, do drill through the bottom plate—the .070-inch one. From here, affix the plates with 1/16-inch dowel pins. Clamp, remove the pivot pin, and drill and ream to 3/16 inch for the pivot pin. De-burr and reassemble. Drill and ream a 1/8-inch stop pin.
CAUTION: Do not go all the way through the top 1/8-inch plate! Countersink the outside plates for the 2-56 screw heads. I use a #20 drill bit for this.
Pivot, Washers & Pins
Mill the slot for the stop pin.
Now it’s time to countersink the two pivot screws. Different types of spacers and stand-offs can be used on a folder. For this flipper I used ones with shoulders from Knifekits.com. Normally I use custom-made stand-offs from Sheffield Knifemakers Supply. The shouldered step-down stand-offs prevent any unwanted movement in the blade.
I open up the holes for the stand-offs to fit in with a 1/8-inch reamer. Actually, I use a reamer .001 inch larger, so it is .126 inch.
The cool new thing with folders is pivot washers with ball bearings. There are many different types from which to choose. Michael Burch recommended washers from Jantz Supply to me at BLADE Show.
Countersink the pivot screws.
You have to sink the washers down into the scales a bit. I use a 3/8-inch, four-fluted end mill to do this step. First, I index a 3/16-inch end mill into a hole on a plate of steel held in a mill vise. I lock down my table and take out the 3/16-inch end mill and put in the 3/8-inch one using a dial indicator to show how far down I am drilling.
Most tactical folders are going pretty thick with washers .020-to-.040-inch on each side of the blade. I sink the washers down so they and the blade are the same thickness as the stand-offs. You want the space between the blade and washer to be equal to the space between the stand-off s or spacer material. Drill and ream a 3/16-inch pivot hole in the blade. Mill a half-moon slot for the 1/8-inch stop pin.
Many makers put the pin in the handle at about the 7 o’clock position when open. Grind the pivot and stop pins down to the proper length. (Author’s note: Grind the pivot pin so it is not exposed past the top of the countersunk hole of the pivot screw. Grind the stop pin so it floats between the two scales.) Grind the 2-56 screws down so they don’t touch each other when they’re screwed into the stand-offs.
Profile the blade and grind the tang at a 7-degree angle. I use a 7-degree block of Micarta® held up against my disc grinder for a guide.
Lock & Detent
Grind the tang to fit the lock.
Now it’s time to cut the lock. Place the blade on the bottom liner with the pivot and stop pins in place. Open the blade and scribe a line with an X-acto™ Knife behind the tang onto the liner. Draw a line 3 inches long with a marker down the scale. Clamp in the mill, and, using a slitting saw, cut the 3-inch length. Use a band saw to cut the short face, which will be the lock. Using a cut-off -wheel attachment in a Dremel® Tool, clean up the end of the lock.
On a locking-liner or flipper folder, the lock is made by bending a tab of the titanium liner over so it engages with the end of the tang of the blade. The end of this tab must be coated with carbide. The machine that does this is a little hand-held micro welder and is called a carburizer. Simply run the rod onto the end of the titanium lock and it welds a coating of carbide onto the titanium. This produces a smoother action on the folder.
You can also flame harden the lock by heating it until it turns orange. In order to let the lockbar bend, grind in a .020-inch dent with a ¾-inch wheel at the other end of the lock.
It’s time to drill holes in the lock and blade for the 1/16-inch detent ball. Center punch a hole in the middle of the lock. Drill through with a #54 drill bit.
Close the folder and clamp it closed. Drill through the same hole as the liner into the blade about .060-inch deep. The #54 drill bit is .053 inch. You can also use a .054- or .055-inch drill bit depending on how you want to tune your folder. Grind, heat treat and polish the blade. Press the 1/16-inch ball bearing into the lock. The height left remaining of the ball bearing should equal the thickness of the washer.
Bend the lock over to about the middle of the folder. Now grind the tang at 7 degrees on a disc grinder until the lock starts to grab. You can assemble the folder, hold it up to the light and push the lock away from the knife to see how much more you have to grind the tang. Go slow and grind just a little before checking the lock. Drill and tap the scale for the pocket clip.
BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame® member Pete Gerber knew he was onto something with the FS1, a knife he remembers as “dandy” and one of three in the Folding Sportsman line that debuted with Gerber Legendary Blades beginning sometime around 1980.
“It was just a little heavy,” Pete recalled. “Blackie Collins was working with us on some projects then, and I asked him for help with it. I said, ‘Blackie, this is a nice knife. How can we take some weight out of it and put some pizzazz into it?’”
The knife engineers at Gerber Legendary Blades had been working with Micarta handle slabs, rather labor intensive at the time since the plastic laminate had to be machined to the appropriate shape.
The Bolt Action folders were among the Blackie Collins designs for Gerber that predated the LST. The original Bolt Action is at bottom and the newer Bolt Action hunter is at top.
“We had to mill it out and used brass washers with rivets to attach the slabs,” Pete said. “The original LST was the FS1 in-house design, and Blackie was first given the assignment to put moxie into it using the existing parts. He worked on the design and then put an injection-molded handle on it with nice checkering. Those were his contributions.”
As fine as it was, as long as the slab handles were involved the LST had trouble fully living up to the attributes that provided its name, “Light, Smooth, and Tough.” Collins already had contributed some well-known designs to Gerber, including the Bolt Action folder and the Touché belt buckle knife, and the wheels began to turn in his head.
The LST, as offered today on Gerber’s website. (Gerber image)
Blackie had a friend in Gastonia, North Carolina, just outside Charlotte, and that friend ran an injection-molding business. Instead of using riveted slabs as handle material, why not try a one-piece injection-molded handle to reduce both the weight and production cost of a knife design that was already selling pretty well? Just to add to the incentive, injection molding would open up the spectrum of handle colors as well.
After some experimentation, the production LST was manufactured with the glass-filled, nylon-reinforced Zytel as the handle material.
“It was the first time a folding knife was made with a one-piece handle, and it worked,” Pete remembered. “The action was so smooth because we went through an operation called ‘match catch,’ where the blade and the catch were kept together until they were assembled and until they were just perfect. When the knife closed, the blade referenced the catch, and it was as smooth as it could be.”
A New Car for a New Knife
Blackie Collins loved fast cars and motorcycles. When it came time for Pete Gerber to compensate him for his input on the LST, Blackie decided he wanted a Corvette—and Pete made it happen. (Meyerco image)
Almost as sweet as the story behind the LST, which has sold in the millions since the early 1980s, is the back-story of Blackie’s compensation for his input that led to the dynamic little knife’s eventual success. Pete asked Blackie what he wanted in the way of payment for services rendered.
“I didn’t think it could be a royalty knife since it was a modified in-house design,” Gerber explained. “I asked what he wanted for payment, and I suggested that maybe a new car would be something he would like.”
The story goes that the new car turned out to be a Corvette and that Pete’s check for $29,000 made it happen.
Blackie, a Cutlery Hall Of Famer who tragically lost his life in a motorcycle accident in 2011, loved cars and motorcycles and just about anything mechanical, and the idea of new wheels appealed to him. His wife, Jane, remembers well the search for just the right vehicle.
“We went from South Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida, to look at Avanti cars,” she recalled. “He didn’t like the way the new ones handled, so we looked at Corvettes, bought one that was two-tone gold, and drove it home. He owned that car for a few years and then traded it in.”
Pete remembers Collins driving around his hometown in South Carolina in that Corvette with a license plate that simply read, “Blackie.”
Offering items other than money for consulting seemed to work well for Pete, who also once paid Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Bob Loveless with an airplane.
While Blackie burned up the roads in the Corvette, the Gerber-Collins partnership took the knife market by storm with the LST.
“Blackie used to say that the LST revolutionized the knife industry,” Jane recalled. “He did a lot of work for Gerber, and he really reduced the number of parts on that knife and put the plastic handle on it to make it lighter.”
Taking the World By Storm
A box of lockback folders in the Gerber factory in the early 1980s shows the thick nature of the handles. The LST not only was lightweight, it was thin, too, adding even more to its ease of carry.
The new lightweight knife was a sensation, and soon other knife companies were taking notice, working on something similar. It was pure gold in itself—with a grand total of six parts to the whole enterprise. Buyers wanted the light, smooth-action, durable and reasonably priced LST, and competitors scrambled to keep pace with Gerber’s trendsetter.
Soon enough, there were similar offerings rolling off assembly lines and onto store shelves. The introduction of LST energized knife manufacturers in a manner seldom seen.
The LST developed its own legacy among the knives that changed knife history, and it is still being manufactured in Portland, Oregon, and sold under the Gerber banner today.
“It was the first true ultralight knife,” explained Dan Delavan of Plaza Cutlery in Costa Mesa, California, “and Gerber had a high-quality blade in that light handle at a good price. You could throw it in the pocket of your swim trunks and go! Lightweight became attractive, and the LST was thin, too. It didn’t bulge in a suit pocket and the checkering gave it a nice grip, just like an extension of the finger. It was the knife that introduced the ultralight, and we sold a lot of them back in the day.”
Lightweight vs. Airweight
Contemporary to the introduction of the LST, Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer A.G. Russell was producing ultralight knives of his own in the Airweight series. Like other knife manufacturers and designers, Russell also worked with Blackie.
He remembers the concept of the ultralight as the shape of things to come in the 1970s.
“I wanted strength but little weight in a knife, too,” Russell noted, “and my Airweight was using a Micarta handle. Blackie had that great idea of molding the handle instead of shaping it, which would have suited an operation like Gerber perfectly. The LST was extremely lightweight and it sold in the millions.”
LST Materials
Pete Gerber recalls using 440A stainless blade steel in the early LST, and says the knife had a good, husky blade that he never saw break—and it was complemented with a nicely polished tang.
“Many other companies were copying it, trying to figure out what we did and how the LST worked so well,” Pete said. “Many of those companies made knives that were quite similar to the LST long after ours was successful. I don’t believe we had a patent on it at all; I don’t think we could get one. The patent area was out of my expertise, but I told our folks to get one whenever we could.”
An Enduring Legacy
Peter Gerber was the headman at Gerber when the LST debuted in 1981. “It was the first time a folding knife was made with a one-piece handle,” he said, “and it worked.”
After almost 40 years, the staying power of the LST is undisputed, and its place as a milestone in the progressive development of knife design is secure. Along with other innovations attributed to Blackie, it stands out among its peers with a timeless depiction of design sense and simple user friendliness.
During the past four decades, the LST has been manufactured in several variants.
DuPont recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its nylon plastic with a commemorative run of LSTs handled in the company’s Delrin material.
Not long ago, Pete was in a company store in Lincoln City, Oregon, and one of the clerks showed him a Mini LST with a bright green handle.
“I had never seen that bright green before,” Gerber laughed. “It just goes to show you that things can develop that you don’t even know about.”
When the LST hit the market in 1981, the time was right. Since then, it has given Gerber and the knife industry a continuing boost.
“It has sold in the seven figures,” Pete reflected, “and I think it gave us a hell of a shot in the arm.”
Gerber LST Specs
The standard LST sells today on the Gerber company website for a modest $23. The knife weighs a remarkable 1.2 ounces with a drop-point 420HC stainless steel blade of 2.63 inches and a closed length of 3.61 inches. The handle is described as tactile, textured and made of lightweight, synthetic glass-filled nylon.
Light, smooth, and tough, Gerber’s LST has earned its place among the elite products of the modern knife industry.
What Other Knives Changed the World? Find Out With This Download
