some quick shots of the progression of a rough grind. starting with nested blanks freshly liberated from a bar of O1 i profiled each blank, leaving them all slightly oversized. after profiling i mark center of cutting edge, heel, toe and top and bottom of tang. to start the rough grind i "break the 90s" and bring the cutting edge thickness to just a little proud of where i want it for heat treat. i then grind in the rough hollows leaving meat up top and just connecting each pass down to the thick cutting edge, smoothing it all out on the final pass, narrowing the cutting edge if need be and walking the grind up closer to the spine if need be to make sure all is sufficiently even on both sides and centered to avoid warpage. after roughing in the hollows i rough taper the tang on both sides. once im satisfied its time for heat! once im completed with heat treating, after final tempering i usually let blanks sit for a bit and move on to another quick project. when i come back to the hardened and tempered blanks i can usually come at them with fresh energy and progress through the finish grinding quickly. before finishing and polishing completely i like to test fit mocked up scales just to make sure everything is centering proper and laying in the scales just right. i usually dont need to adjust anything bladewise at this point but i prefer to allow this pause in finishing just in case i do need to adjust. if i take a blade to finished state and then find i have to grind one side of the tang to center the blade properly then........:banghead: just not something i want to experience!