A few knives today's work

[Bjankowski]

Well goofed off most of the morning and didn't get in the shop until after noon. I still managed to profile, rough grind, heat treat the last of the EDC's for Christmas orders, they are presently in the tempering oven. Will start putting on the handles tomorrow after I go to Tandy Leather; I only have on shoulder left.
Feels good getting caught up I'm just about there. Maybe I can squeeze in a few more hunts before the end of the year...Thank God!

[Bjankowski]

The next day..
EDC's done.

[Jeremy7306]

Very nice! Do ya sell these?

[Kevin Smith]

Wow, you've been a busy fella.

[paintman]

very nice bob

[Bjankowski]

Very nice! Do ya sell these?

Yes I do but all these are sold; these are some of the last of my Christmas orders. I've been in business over 20 years.

[Bjankowski]

Wow, you've been a busy fella.

Kevin each year gets busier and busier; I've been super busy the last two months on Christmas orders and long time customers... Feels GREAT to get finally caught up.

[SamHarper]

It's amazing you can crank out so many really nice knives in such a short period of time. It would probably take me two day to make just one of these, and they wouldn't be half as nice.

[Bjankowski]

Sam when I first started it would take me a week to make a knife and it sure wasn't as nice as the ones your making. Over the years I've learned short cuts, and methods to cut my time. I don't like to do less than five to eight at a time, the next day I'll put on the scales and make the sheaths.

Time is money, and I also have a full time consulting business that requires me to attend meeting once or twice a week with Architects and Engineers to insure they are complying with my customers requirements. So I don't have days to spend making knives for my customers.

And I'm slowing down now that I'm 65

Just keep grinding the best methods that will help you cut time without compromising quality is self taught, it's what works for you.

[Foot Patrol]

I would love to learn a short cut to hand sanding. That by far takes the longest amount of time to complete.

[Kevin Smith]

I would love to learn a short cut to hand sanding. That by far takes the longest amount of time to complete.

learn to let the grinder work to your advantage.

[Bama]

learn to let the grinder work to your advantage.

Also when hand sanding the flatter the blade the easier the hand sanding , a 9" disc grinder helps with the flattening as well

[SamHarper]

I've cut myself so many times when hand sanding that I've gotten nervous about doing it. I try to do most of my sanding with the belt sander.

[paintman]

the very last thing I do is sharpen

[Bjankowski]

I would love to learn a short cut to hand sanding. That by far takes the longest amount of time to complete.

I never touch a blade with sandpaper anymore. that's where I used to spend a lot of time as well. I don't do mirror finishes anymore, most people can't afford to buy a mirror finish from me. If see the knives in my gallery on my website there are only a few with a mirror finish.

Make your power tools with the right attachments work for you. Trizact and Scotch Brite belts have shaved hours off my production time. I use these before heat treating, simple clean up after tempering. I keep several dirty Scotch Brite to clean up after quench to get all the oil off the blades before tossing them in my tempering oven.

The more you do before heat treating while steel is best, then it's just clean up and secondary bevel on flat grinds.