do you grind wet or dry?

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Smallshop

KNIFE MAKER
I normally grind dry...small knives and I'm slow...lol.

Today I had to rough surface grind 20 blades on the TW-90 to flatten 'em a bit and take scale off...so I dug out my trusty Amflo spray mister...had to fix it first as usual...and plowed through the 20 blades on one Norax belt.

I'm in the perfect storm situation...I have 3 charity knives to finish by Jan 11th...I am going away for four days for the first time in a long while...and my military customer emails about a bunch of work he committed to without calling me first...that is due Jan 8th...and I can get that for him by that date only if I skip going to see my son at college...so I told him the 15th of Jan. is what I can do....

So getting blades ground and through the machine will be tight timewise...the spray mister really made things much faster/cooler shoulda started using it a year ago...lol. I hate the mess it makes though...

how about you? Wet or dry?
 
Dry,,,

OK,,,, after reading the other posts I'll have to change my answer. A little... I'm a dunker for heat reasons only. I do not wet grind.
 
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I generally dunk but I understand that some belts don't like water. Easy way around that is to get belts that work wet.

Doug
 
I tried a mister set up years ago. It’s a mess to plumb and use but it is a solution in the right situation.

Norax and gator belts do not like water. They get soft, muddy and large chunks start floating around in the slurry leaving streaky random scratches.
 
This is not a sales pitch. It’s passing on some personal experience recently.
This stuff: https://usaknifemaker.com/grease-stick-14.html
Is belt lube. Generally you apply a thin coating to your belt and then go about your grinding.

I have been forcing myself to use it to understand if it helps me or not. There are some guys, not many, that use this grease all the time. The few I’ve talked to about it with were very positive about it. It’s growing on me and I will be using it going forward. For me, it’s about heat. I mainly grind folder blades. They get hot fast. Constantly dunking (and wiping if using Norax which is most of the time for me) makes things slow. Sometimes you are working on a stubborn spot and need to spend some time there. It gets old burning the bejeebers out of your fingers.

The marketing claim advantages are cooler grinding (absolutely true), smoother finish (true again), extended belt life (not sure about that part and in some cases shortened life), less dust (true again)

Disadvantages are: the expense of the stick (about $13), the greasy mess, it tends to clog very fine grit abrasives (400+and finer).

When using this stuff you have to keep a rag handy to wipe off the blade occasionally as it builds up as a warm gooey mess. Not a deal breaker and a wipe takes as long as a dunk in water so not a big time killer.

It will absolutely lower the heat when grinding. Sometimes enough for 3 or 4 extra seconds (or an extra pass or two before dunking) and that helps when hand holding a thin blade. It also gives a nicer finish. I don’t know why but it does.

It does load up finer grit belts and kills them sooner. By finer I mean 400 and up but not instantly. You might use a worn 400 grit as a 600 grit normally and get by with that. That worn 400 will grind hotter though. Use the grease on a 400 and you get most of the “400” life from the belt but it will load and cake up to where using it past that won’t work. Not a big deal but I stopped using it on higher than 400 grit.

I use this most often on my disc grinder coupled with Rynowet 9x11” sheets. There is a huge improvement in heat management with this.

Belt loading isn’t usually an issue coarser than 100 grit and the cooler/finer finish is there also. Heat usually isn’t an issue hogging with coarse grits but it will help there also.

It will not work with Norax or Gator type engineered AO belts. If you wear gloves to grind, you will probably hate the stuff.
 
A good post on the belt grease - I've seen it before but wasn't sure. My next order I think I'll add a stick to try. If it helps keep blades cooler that's good. I'm a dunker myself.
 
Always been a dunker but recently got tired of having burned fingers all the time and worrying about ruining blades after heat treat,
So I just got a misting system. I have to say it really does keep the work cool and it really really makes a mess.
Yesterday my son asked me how I got rust spots on top of my hat.
Anyone have suggestions for the best belts to use wet?
 
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