I can't wait until you done with that, either. And I'm still waiting on the pic's of the Solingen Bowie and new sheath!

You better get some more popcorn then cuz it might be a while on that one. Everything I'll be doing will be "out of pocket expense" so it's lower on the food chain. Maybe in the next month or two? If biz gets bizzy again the bench will have to collect dust though. Trying to utilize every minute of free time to stave off the cabin fever with these projects for now, keeps the gears turning.
I'll definitely update when I get rolling with that though!

I'll go stock up! And hope that you get bored...... you'll finish it then!

:) Quality takes time! :) thats why im so slow!:)

I got a great deal on this 4X36 belt sander from Harbor Freight last week and it's going to speed up my work considerably.
It's not mean enough to work metal but so very nice for woodworking. Will make handle shaping a breeze!
Also has a 6" sanding disc for the side but I haven't mounted it yet... I'll use that for leather work. The belt tilts from vertical to horizontal and everywhere in between. About 1200rpm.
With a coupon I got this thing for only $59! Really gonna make my life a lot easier.

Nice!!!!!

Nice Chris! I have a Ryobi(sp) and it sure does cut work time in half, I used mine for some metal shaping(welding) but I have a different type of belt, its called diamond Carbon something or another, I'll see if I still have the package and get that info to you. You are going to love this thing!

I forgot to ask, do you sharpen the blade before you polish it or after- i was thinking after. My son and I are working with a blade from an old knife and I'm going to have to grind down the edge as it has some nicks in it. Finally found a nice piece of deer antler for the handle, I'll try to post photo's this weekend on what we've done so far. Thanks for any advise you can give us.

Hi!
If you're working on a knife with an old blade... you are working on hardened steel. I would highly recommend 'not' to put a mechanical grinder to that steel unless you have 2X72 belt grinder with specialized belts. Any other mechanical device typically removes too much metal fast and generates friction heat that can radically effect the temper of the steel thus leaving you with either a brittle edge or one that is too soft and won't hold an edge.
If you can re-establish or resurrect the original cutting edge, I think that would be best if possible. You should be able to do that with good sharpening stones. If it's in rough shape with nicks, dings, etc you'll want to start with a coarse stone. I use a Smith's Tri-Stone for this which has coarse, med, and fine stones. I'll be having to do this on the Bowie restoration that I pictured earlier. That one's in ruff shape and will probably take me at least an hour with the coarse stone alone. Probably at least a half hour with each of the other stones and finally a sharpening steel for the final razor edge.
I'd love to see some pics of your project!

Thanks for the feed back Chris, I didn't think about possibley over heating the blade, I have a good stone kit so I'll just take the time and work it with that. I'll try to get some pic's up soon, was way to busy today. Once again thanks for the info.

I've found that with any power tool from harbor freight if it doesn't break the first time you use it then it'll probably last a good while if you treat it right. I'd steer clear of their sanding belts though, I bought a pack for my hand held belt sander and they were junk. Which is surprising, their regular sand paper (especially the fine grit) is actually pretty decent for the price.

Chris, if you decide you want to upgrade to a proper belt grinder I think I have some plans floating around in the garage for a homebuilt one, it'd be a good excuse to get out the welder and make something.

there are plans/pictures of one bilt on treasurenet.com in one of the forums. i dont need one but id like to have one for tinkering around. on Harbor Freight tools, if you treat them right and dont use them everyday for makeing a living, they should last a good while. i think Swizz useing on handles and light sanding would work fine! it was cheap($$) enough! i had bought some tools that i wanted to use just a couple of times (?) and some worked fine while others (air impact hammers spring) kept breaking! i followed all the directions and they all broke! But they did replace all of the many broken springs that i bought to finish the job.i even turned the air down real low to help prevent this from happening. it broke about 8 springs and they all were made in china. so i guess that answers the big question!

Oh sure Russau, blame the Chinese!

swizz, sorry I haven't put up any photo's yet, but will. question, we are using a tang or stem style blade. So with using the deer antler, lower half of main beam W/burr end, do you drilll a shaft/void for stem to fit in snug and then brass pin/glue or just glue? not sure the epoxy will hold without pins. Thanks for your advise.

Stick tang.... I'm definitely not an expert on these as this Bowie restoration is the first I've worked on. If the tang is flat you can either give it one pin toward the front of the tang (near your guard), or put a pommel at the end of the handle to keep it on. If it's a rod shaped tang you can't pin it... will need a pommel on the end.
Yes, you'll need to bore a hole in that antler lengthwise to snuggle the tang into and fill er up with epoxy. Use a very good epoxy like Acraglas or Gorilla (Devcon, Locktite, JB Weld not recommended). If you choose to drill the tang it may be very difficult depending on the hardness of the tempered steel of that knife. Typically drilled prior to heat treatment.