Spyderco Gayle Bradley – reground, wicked slicer

[Josh]

Well recently I have been wanting to a knife in more of an “exotic” steel that has much better edge retention than s30v . what I came up with is the GB which is a superb knife for a great price. I picked this one up used (but never sharpened) from BF for $85 (it had an “acid” patina that didn’t go to wel, which I didn’t care about since I will soon be cerakoting it :-D). After I sharpened it on the Wicked Edge to 15 dps, the edge shoulders was a little thick for my liking; around .020″ on the main part of the edge and around .038″ thick bear the tip. So I decided to fix that. This is my first hollow re-grind but I’m so glad I did! It makes such a difference 🙂

So this is the result. Note that I did have to do some multi facets because my 8″ wheel wasn’t a large enough radius to match the grind, but it turned out really well I think. You can see a few minimal grind marks from the radius of the 8″ wheel, but other than that you can’t really tell. Plus I’m hoping the cerakote will cover some of that =) ! I only finished it on a 600 grit belt. But now most of the edge measures .008″ with it closer to .013″ near the tip. =D If you measure back near the heel, it is still near .010″ about an 1/8″ in from the edge, so hopefully I didn’t go too thin, but only time will tell. So far I’ve cut paper, a small amount of cardboard, plastic packaging, and carved some hard dried out wood – it loved all of those tasks. 🙂

Any of you guys re-ground your blades? If so, which ones? (pics are nice)

I have some other mods in mind for this in the near future 🙂

Of course, nothing will ever touch my edge sharpening wise other than the WEPS. This was finished the a nice toothy 1k diamond stones.

[Leo Barr]

Great result !
When you say you used an 8 inch wheel was this cooled or was it sufficiently quick like a belt sander that it was easy to maintain the angle on quick passes?
I used to have a Tormek but these were 10 inch wheels and it would have taken an awful long time to do so much so that when I tried to thin blades with it the results would be poor since holding the same angle for half an hour was impossible and none of the jigs went low enough.

I should like to see what you used the result looks like it is factory finished so well done.
Although I have no need of such a sanding disk or whatever was used I should like to see it so that if I feel the need to do something similar I will know what to get.

[Josh]

Haha, thanks Leo! no it wasn’t the tormek… I used an 8″ wheel on my belt sander, although to match the grind completely it would have taken a 10″ wheel I believe… check out the video I made on it.

… Ah! I have to re-render it, it screwed up lol. Stay tuned

[Leo Barr]

That must be a pretty serious belt sander the sort knife makes use . I have a Robert Sorby belt sander but I cannot change the wheels on it

[Josh]

Here ya go Leo… yeah, it is the kind knife makers use, I built it over the summer and it is a HUGE benefit to me. I can change the speeds, change out accessories and arms, etc. I would love to get into knife making in the near future. Check out this knife I made out of a file…

Here is that video… finally got done =)

http://youtu.be/49zRMNcx30Q

[Leo Barr]

Thats a beautiful file knife I like the point part tanto part samurai. The vid has not shown up I like to see some pictures of your belt sander have you checked out this website http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/ there are some awesome belt anders there although possible you have already looked at their site.

[Josh]

Thans for the knife making download Leo! I will definitely check that out along with the link you posted 🙂

That’s weird… The video is showing up for me… Hmmm

[Mikedoh]

Video shows for me.
Like your file knife.

[Leo Barr]

I got the video on my iPad but not on my mac for some reason. Awesome belt sander. Your coatings are they powdered ceramic ? I understand now why you were installing an oven since ~I read somewhere that a domestic oven does not hold a consistent enough heat to cure the coatings(and I cannot imagine that the curing fumes would be very good for food) it strike me as a good side line for you considering that there are a lot of knife & gun enthusiasts throughout your part of the world .

[tcmeyer]

I’ve seen a number of knives made from files – none looked as nice as yours. Well done. Now you need to come up with a handle design that matches the quality of the blade.

Leo’s Rockstead made of ZDP-189 peaked my interest and I found that Spyderco is also making knives of the same stuff. I wonder how the CPM-M4 compares with it?

The video of you chopping off pieces of twine made my butt-hole clench. I did the same thing once, trying to demonstrate how this D2 knife I’d made would shave the edge off of a nickel. Took a chunk out of my left knuckle. Lots of band-aids. Still have the scar. My brother, who I was showing it to, swears it was caused by a Manhattan.

All very interesting stuff for me. The knifemaking I did years ago was all hand-held, as I didn’t have access to a belt sander. Most of the books I read back then (’70s thru ’80s) said that “square wheel belt sanders” were the hot setup. I see from google that there are still quite a few on the market. I bought a pedestal buffer when I retired, hoping to get back into it, but now my arthritic thumbs don’t have but maybe 10% of the strength they used to.

I have a cone-loc drum sander which I’ve had for 40 years and use for almost everything. I buy 2″-wide rolls of abrasive, from 50 to 150 grit and tear off a section as I need it. Everything from jewelry to mower blades. Nothing I’ve seen works as well for free-hand shaping. The ones listed on google are smaller than the one I have, but there’s a company out in WA that sells them, but doesn’t have a web page. Here’s a photo to show how it works:

And here’s a photo of a D2 clip-point skinner I made back in about 1984. The handle was a piece of French walnut I cut out of a broken rifle stock and was shaped entirely on the cone-loc. A rancher in Wyoming still has it and I don’t think he’s ever used it.

Attachments:

• Rossmansknife.jpg
• cone-loc.jpg

[Leo Barr]

That looks purposeful that is both the knife & the cone loc drum.
I have yet to make a knife myself once I have a yard I shall start with a file knife I imagine the best way to do it is to de temper it for shaping & drilling etc and the to re temper it once the heavy work is done .
What I am sure will interest you was a link to an 800 year old Swedish sword that an American smith made from scratch it was posted here a couple of months ago well worth the watch The title is” Secrets of the Viking Sword”it is a great film showing how this fantastic blade was made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbLyVpWsVM

[Josh]

I got the video on my iPad but not on my mac for some reason. Awesome belt sander. Your coatings are they powdered ceramic ? I understand now why you were installing an oven since ~I read somewhere that a domestic oven does not hold a consistent enough heat to cure the coatings(and I cannot imagine that the curing fumes would be very good for food) it strike me as a good side line for you considering that there are a lot of knife & gun enthusiasts throughout your part of the world .

They are a ceramic paint, not powdered I don’t believe… this is off of Cerakote’s website:

“Cerakote is a ceramic based finish that can be applied to metals, plastics, polymers and wood. The unique formulation used for Cerakote ceramic coating enhances a number of physical performance properties including abrasion/wear resistance, corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, impact strength, and hardness. Each of these properties is rigorously tested to guarantee that Cerakote products remain at the foreforont of the ceramic coatings market. Cerakote ceramic coatings utilize state-of-the-art technology to out-perform any competitive coating in both laboratory settings and real world applications. ”

They have two different series, air dry (C-series) and thermal cured (H-series). The H-series is supposed to be one of the most durable finishes on the market. I am just getting started, but am really looking forward both to the experience and the art work part of it, it should be fun. I have a brother in law that is a graphic arts designer and I am going to get him to design different logos/decal designs that I can air brush into the paint. It should be a lot of fun! Check out the videos on my website about it’s durability…

Yeah, I converted my oven from a food warming unit. A normal oven would not be large enough for the larger barrels =)

I want to take Cerakote and also do it to knives (in addition to firearms), the sky is the limit =) check out some work done by others…

[Josh]

I’ve seen a number of knives made from files – none looked as nice as yours. Well done. Now you need to come up with a handle design that matches the quality of the blade.

Leo’s Rockstead made of ZDP-189 peaked my interest and I found that Spyderco is also making knives of the same stuff. I wonder how the CPM-M4 compares with it?

The video of you chopping off pieces of twine made my butt-hole clench. I did the same thing once, trying to demonstrate how this D2 knife I’d made would shave the edge off of a nickel. Took a chunk out of my left knuckle. Lots of band-aids. Still have the scar. My brother, who I was showing it to, swears it was caused by a Manhattan.

All very interesting stuff for me. The knifemaking I did years ago was all hand-held, as I didn’t have access to a belt sander. Most of the books I read back then (’70s thru ’80s) said that “square wheel belt sanders” were the hot setup. I see from google that there are still quite a few on the market. I bought a pedestal buffer when I retired, hoping to get back into it, but now my arthritic thumbs don’t have but maybe 10% of the strength they used to.

I have a cone-loc drum sander which I’ve had for 40 years and use for almost everything. I buy 2″-wide rolls of abrasive, from 50 to 150 grit and tear off a section as I need it. Everything from jewelry to mower blades. Nothing I’ve seen works as well for free-hand shaping. The ones listed on google are smaller than the one I have, but there’s a company out in WA that sells them, but doesn’t have a web page. Here’s a photo to show how it works:

And here’s a photo of a D2 clip-point skinner I made back in about 1984. The handle was a piece of French walnut I cut out of a broken rifle stock and was shaped entirely on the cone-loc. A rancher in Wyoming still has it and I don’t think he’s ever used it.

That’s cool TC! Great work on that skinner! It definitely feels great to make something with your own hands that you can use and abuse =) I have never seen a cone-loc before, that is something for sure! you could probably build a jig for that to sharpen /grind hollow grinds into knives if you wanted even. Sure makes lawn mower blades easy huh? =)

[tcmeyer]

Josh:

Thanks much for the kudos…

I don’t think the cone-loc would work with fixtures – there’s a “bump” every turn as the clamp segment comes around. Not as smooth as a belt sander.

You’ve got me stoked though; I’ll be doing a little more digging into what the possibilities are. There’s a lot of neat s**t out there, and I’ve got more money than brains. I’ll spend $20 to have $5 of fun.

I’ve been waiting to hear if your oven was up and running the cerakote thing… Have you qualified to sell the work yet?

BTW, what kind of steels do you use or plan to use? I used D2 because it was so easy to harden – 5 minutes at straw yellow with an acetylene torch, then air harden in the vise. After cool, maybe 4 hours in the wife’s oven at 400F to temper.

[Josh]

TC,

Yeah I got it up and running finally! Lol, I did run into a problem though… Apparently the insulation they used in it is not for higher temps. I tried to heat it up to 300F and it started popping at the seams. I found out that I can go with just 250F and it works great, so I’m extremely relieved about that! I got my PID controller set up and functioning great now too!

I actually just got my first rifle (Rem 700 308) in just the other day… I set up a makeshift paint booth and will probably blast and paint it Monday or Tuesday. I’m also looking forward to doing my gayle bradley… Thinking of going with a black/white theme on the blade, to keep it classy. Ideas?

As far as steel goes, man… I have a LOT of research to do before I decide! Lol. The primary thing in my mind is going to be optimization of the HT more than the steel I use. I have read that 1084 is a good intro steel and easy to HT. I didn’t know that about the D2!I may go with that… It sure does hold a decent edge!

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