Oldtoolsniper

I like the jig, I have cut quite a few brass casings with varied results, never figured out how to do it straight except on my lathe. The lathe works but is a pain to do in quantity. My jewelers saw will be getting a work out. As for flaring the backside, would a splash rivet setter work on the smaller calibers?

Those black foam brushes. Squeeze them in the store to find the ones with plastic reinforcements attached to the end of the handle. Pull off the foam, trim reinforcement to suit the application and spread the joy.

Go to eBay closed autions. Item number 272127202950 both sides of the instruction sheet are there too.

Just for clarity when you say 20° it's the total bevel, correct? On a single bevel the bevel would be sharpened at 20°, on a double bevel it would be each bevel sharpened at 10° to make 20°. Is this correct?

Art, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this stuff. I like the fact that you don't just say "sharpen at this angle" you explain why. It's almost like you want to know what the customer intends to use the cutting edge for and its sharpened for that purpose. Could it be that a cutting edge is actually a specialized tool? Imagine that.

I use a marking knife woodworking and it's a single bevel grind, in theory it forces the blade back against the guide I'm using for the blade. Reality is that I'm only scoring the wood, I'm not cutting very deep at all so I doubt it helps much except that a flat back is easier to keep against a straight edge. On leather we are cutting all the way through, seems as though it might work. On draw gauges you only sharpen a bevel on one side for the same reason. As soon as I get a chance I'll give it a shot. I'm cleaning up a pile of leather working tools from an estate sale right now.

I don't know the answer to that. It seems as though the old ones were listed as "high speed steel" as are the ones I have. I can say without a doubt they never reach the "High Speed" part with me powering the hacksaw. The new ones have all kinds of crazy names and that leads me to believe that most of it is word smith marketing type stuff to get you to buy their blade. I'm going to did around and find a modern one and test it out. Without making a handle or polishing out the blade I should be able to bang one out in twenty minutes. Here's a thought. Marking knives are sharpended on one bevel to keep the edge of the knife forced against the ruler or straight edge. I wonder if a single bevel hacknife will do the same thing when cutting leather. Kind of like a boat with only half a bow,

It looks awesome. You know your way around a camera too. Your worn out hacksaw blade looks like an old Japanese woodworking marking knife. I collect (horde) old tools, I've got some old 1 1/2" power hacksaw blades I'm going to try next. I'm also going to try an old handsaw blade. I know most new hand saws are just edge tempered for cost savings unless it's an expensive saw. The old ones are full plate tempered. I tried drilling one to no avail. There are a gazillions of them out there in second hand shops for next to nothing. Cutting it without losing the temper will take some thought. I'm betting those old two man saw blades are full plate tempered too.

Thank you!

Here is the one I just made. The blade is from a simonds hacksaw blade that is many years old. They came from an estate sale from a farrier. Red tang or some such name. Art, I was wondering about the new stuff. By the way I got the idea from the video. It was fun to do. And cuts really good.

I'm glad he shared it too. I watched the video you did on a hacksaw knife. Here is what I made in a few hours. I'm shocked at how well it cuts and holds an edge. It's a used 1/2" hacksaw blade, a scrap of wood from an old piano and three inches of 5/16" brass rod. All stuff laying around the shop so my cost was in the pennies. Epoxy was the adhesive.

Art, What I've found is that most folks are looking for the easy, fast, foolproof way to obtain that razor edge with no investment of their own time. I have not yet found the easy way to sharpen anything that works for everything. I own the jet version of a tormek and even that takes time to learn to be able sharpen something on. The tormek jigs are nice and they cut down on the time needed but you still have to learn how "that tool" needs to be sharpened. For my head or round knives I use a worksharp 3000, 1 X 30 belt sander, sandpaper on glass and or oil stones. It just depends on what I need to do. I just finished bringing a little W.M. Dodd 2 1/2" round knife back into shape all on oil stones. It was in rough shape and came from EBay. I'll never be able to remove the pits but they are not on the cutting edge so it's just cosmetics. I do the little ones this way so they don't heat up, there's not much steel to absorbe any heat. What in your opinion is the easiest system for someone just learning with a slant towards leatherwork to become proficient at? Some people won't ever want to learn how to sharpen anything and I completely understand that. As someone who did this for a living what would you charge for sharpening a round knife? No, nicks or anything required except sharpening from dull. I'm asking so there is a perspective for an investment in a system verses just sending the knife out to be done. I'm also talking about tools that the ordinary leatherworker would be using. Basic, ordinary tools not the harder specilty steels that are out there. If you were teaching sharpening leather tools as a class which tool would you teach first and why. I'm asking all of this because I think you are on to something here that everyone on this forum can benefit from. We all need sharp tools. I also believe that even if you send out your sharpening to be done you need an idea of what to expect and what you are asking for. Roy

https://www.olloclip.com/shop/lenses/macro-pro/ The macro lens set are the only ones I'd recommend, I own the others and they are pretty bad. Lots of distortions and photos that are hard to look at. I tie flys too so those macro lenses get a lot of use by me and they really work very well.

This is using my iPhone and a 21 X magnifier. It's the edge of a rose knife as I was restoring it to useful condition. This way I can upload to my iPad and really zoom in on the edge.