AlamoJoe2002

Hi all! I also made a stitching pony with a used kitchen cabinet hinge and cam-lock hardware. My jaws are lined with thin leather. I am experimenting where to put the magnets for my needles...thus the taped down magnets under the white duct tape. It is designed to clamp onto a bench or sit in a chair under one of my legs. I have no clue on attaching pictures...but I resized them. In the back of one of the pic's you will see a inverted driftwood tree root bird house I'm making..."never slow down, never go old." Joe

Chrisash, Nice work. I also liked your 2 round knife concept you displayed in an earlier post. I don't have a printer but could find someone...I know the University of Colorado has one in their student library. So...maybe I can find one at a more local university....or I'll send the file to my friend who is on staff at the University of Colorado and ask him to make one. Can you send the files/ single and double versions in a PM to my message box here in leatherworker? I'll provide my private email address to send the file. I have a few bits of 13 oz leather. I'm thinking of taking your design and making a stand up box using what I have. I think that may be a good start for trading ideas on storing the round knife on a workbench in a handy location with the blade not drawing blood every-time I reach in the last general location for it. My other consideration is with all the time I'm investing in sharpening my own tools I don't want to mess with an edge that took time which had me put on another band-aid to stop the bleeding. Joe

How about I configure and mount a ceramic tile onto the orbital rubber pad and eliminate the soft moving vibrations? Will a hard baked sandpaper do a nice job? I have an idea where I will use spray adhesive to mount the sandpaper on a granit or marble floor tile. Then make a linkage-dinky-mount on to the orbital sanpaper machine... Or take all the rubber off the sander and replace it with solid metal or ceramic to attach the sandpaper to the sander.... My friend always is telling me I am over-thinking and incorporating unnecessary steps in a process to achieve results desired.... Make me go Hummm...and my wife kicked me out of my own shop a few hours ago. Looks like tomorrow night is a date night. JOE

Here are pictures of the Osborne Blade after I scrubbed the black iron oxide in water, rubbed down with acetone to prevent flash rusting, then rubbed the blade with WD40. The WD40 seemed to hydrate the wooden handle. I just let this air dry after pulling it and treating it to prevent flash rusting. I saw a round blade kit that had a few magnets glued flush in wood on youtuber where an individual was developing a sharpening system for round knives. I did something similar but used a piece of granit counter top trash picked on the side of the road. I might not be making any leather goods but I am sure enjoying making a few things and keeping my mind and hands busy. I started at 40 grit sand paper with a block of wood by hand. I have since moved to 60 grit. I think I will experiment with an orbital sander next. The blade does have character and will remain that way. I received a quick reply from B about their product. Here is a cut and paste from the email. I will say the company is customer service driven. "Please see attached product flyer for Belzona 1111. This would be your best bet from a Belzona perspective. 1kg unit is $281." No epoxy for this renovation! And...I don't see any benifit of filling in the pitting and eliminating the "character" of the blade. The next update will be when I get time to sharpen and polish the blade. Joe

Thanks for all the great feedback. I saw a video on rust converter (phosphoric acid). I will hunt this down. I used this in the past as part of the process of recoating petroleum storage tanks that were rusting to prep for epoxy painting. Great stuff...I bought the coating from a local paint supplier (Sher-Erwin Whatever). After 48 hours I notices a very small on going reaction. I changed the solution, scrubbed the rebar with a wire brush to expose good steel, scrubbed the knife with a brass brush to clean off the black coating from the electrolysis. Below is the dirty solution. Here are pics of both sides of the round knife. My focal point is looking for the star under the Osborne Makers Mark. It is there and faint. I reloaded using distilled water from the dehumidifier and less quantity of washing soda. I restarted the reaction and it was 20 times more reactive than the 1st attempt. Very aggressive reaction. Below you can see the suspended knife and the reaction of the closest rebar to the knife. I went an checked the reaction and it was very aggressive. The solution had warmed...the 1st attempt never generated any reactive heat. I must have better connective areas of the blade and rebar (cathode and anode) since I scrubbed them. I attempted to load a 21 second video. I'm using a chromebook and can't find an good easy extension or app that will quickly resize the video to insert. Ideas on video software requested. I want to show this almost violent reaction that is ongoing and heating the solution. It's warm and bubbling. Enjoy. Joe

That is a good observation Vintx. Originally I suspended everything above the blade, including ferrule above the solution. Then I moved the ferrule about 1/4" into the solution to see what the iron electrolysis will do to the copper ferrule. The should have no reaction to the electrical current. We shall see. Once the blade is removed from the solution I intend to place it in a oven at around 150 degrees F to dry out the handle slowly. The handle was tight prior to all this soaking. Once dry, hopefully it will return to the steady position it was in before the wood got wet. I never took apart a knife before...well once or twice with a large hammer...I thought I'd go with a little bit less effort on this handle. JOE

The blade has been in electrolysis for 40 hours and is still exhibiting reactivity on all the surfaces. I lowered it by mistake which put more of the tang into the solution and the reaction took off. The reaction resembles very little formation of smaller than a needle point to a pin head bubbles and appears to be an opaque white stream of material floating away from the blade. Here is the picture of the blade at the 40 hour mark. I will continue the process. Now I'm really interested on what will be left of the knife when I remove all visible rust and rust down in the pitting. JOE

I would like to find a vintage round knife to shape sharpen and make my own. Currently, I'm working on a very pitted subject and I may be wasting my time on trying to shape, sharpen and put to work. This is my 1st round knife. Please send a PM (private message) if you have a reasonably price candidate. Joe

Thanks Bruce. You have got me thinking...may be I need a new specimen to spend my time on. I truly am looking forward to learn how to properly sharpen and use a round knife. The blade is still in the electrolysis bath. The pitting is still bubbling the rust away. It has been 24 hours and I don't see much of an improvement to the blade material. I will keep up the process and see how long it takes in solution for the reaction to stop. So in the mean time I am now on the look out for a round knife to clean up, sharpen , and make it mine. Right now I paid $26 US for the knife. I will begin the hunt for a new specimen. I feel honored to have Bruce weigh in on this project. If anyone has a vintage round knife they would like to pass along at a reasonable price please send a PM. I say vintage because the train of thought is the newer manufactured knives on the market are produced with lesser quality steel. JOE Joe

Dikman: I have a belt sander...I'm looking for design ideas to change the symmetrical profile to asymmetrical...almost a two in one round knife. I was thinking I need a sharpening board to mount the blade on for sanding. I'm thinking about using a handheld sander in straight line sanding (lateral as opposed to round) movement. If I can use the 10 inch portable sander I can really work on a gradual reduction of material to the cutting edge. I have a feeling I will be starting out with 80 grit paper or more aggressive sandpaper and hours of relaxing mind numbing meditation while I hand sand this blade down. My goal is a sharp shinny blade and something like world peace... Joe

The blade has been in solution under 3 amp DC Power for 12 hours. I checked it this morning. I pulled it out and wiped it off. I was expecting a black residue to cover the white cotton cloth. Not much...so back into the solution and power it up. I know the process is working as I observe a reaction on the full surface of the blade and around the ground down areas of the rebar. I'm taking this low on power and long on time. Another 12 hours and I will check it again. If it continues to have a very slow reaction as I have observed I will keep the blade on electrolysis. I don't think I can hurt the blade. However, I am concerned about the water content of the wood under the ferrule. I am thinking about the re-profiling the side of the blade where it chipped. So the question is how would you improve a standard round blade if it chipped a point? Joe

I purchashed an original Osborne blade. It is too thick. Then I purchashed the same blade tuned up by Bruce Johnson. A world of difference. Rounded off tip for safety, thinned down and beveled correctly which produces a nice cut. However, I guess I should have known better than teaching myself how to use a draw blade on a side of 12-14 ounce skirting. Lessons Learned. Go big or go home...and always keep on learning. Fixing my mistakes is quite an educational experience. Joe

I made a quick electrolysis tank using an old laptop power source that converts 120 volt AC to 12 Volt DC @ 3 amps. I used a multi-meter to determine the negative and positive wires. I used a clear tub and zip-tied a few rebar cutoffs that I hit with a grinder to provide a clean conductive surface. The blade is hung using coated wire to where just the blade is submerged. I hooked up two alligator clips to the immersed blade which is the negative anode and the rebar is tied together in series as the positive cathode. The idea is to surround the blade with the cathodes as the current travels only line of sight. The solution is distilled water from my dehumidifier and Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (Sodium Carbonate) to increase conductivity. I don't know if tap water and a higher amp power source would work just as well. I am going to leave the blade in solution at the low current overnight. One of the good things about electrolysis is that new metal will not react...so only the oxidized metal / rust will be affected. The pitting will remain...but will be free of rust. I'm interested in seeing how the Osborne Makers Mark turns out. The key will be if the star is more visible under the stamp. Will it be more legible or will it fade away with the rust? This is the first time I have used electrolysis. I don't know much about metal...but if this lowers my sanding time on the blade I will be happy. I uploaded a few about 11 images. However, I may have screwed them up getting them into this forum. I resized at 364 pixels...I think at that size they have no detail. What do you resize your pictures for uploading to this forum? Tomorrow I will pull the blade out of solution, dry it off, and maybe put it in an oven around 180 degrees f to dry out the handle. Oh, part of the brass is in solution. Don't know how that will affect anything. Joe

The knife just arrived via US Post. I did a quick touch up cleaning with xylene, a brass brush, a green scrub pad and a bit of wet 2000 grit sandpaper. The blade is solidly set into the handle. No movement. However, the blade is leaning toward the side with the Osborne mark. I will have to be very gentle with alingmnent. I will do this after sharpening. Now some choices...I might just try to use the electrolysis to clean out the makers mark....the star is very faint. I think I will forget about filling in the pits... The edge is as dull and pitted when I run my finger nail along it. Public Service Message: Don't go hunting with a dull spear...it's pointless (Your turn.). Here are the pics. I hope they load as I resized them to 364 pixels in width.

Gents, you have provided a ton of information. If the knife arrives today I will present a few pictures of the subject. I am not a knife maker and never forged anything in my life except my bond with my wife. Hah! And I'm finding I don't know squat! However, I have learned not to spend too much time on my hobby interests as that also gets me in trouble. I'll probably need a few counselling sessions by the time I'm done with this round knife...if you know what I mean... Joe