Thread: WB Wedge Restore Advice

Originally Posted by gssixgun

LOL what ya do is, pack up some stuff, including that J-nat and a few of yer blades so we can mess with them too and head on over to my place again, and we go out to the shop and tweak that baby up

You remember the directions ???

Now that's not a bad idea!

Update:

The horn blank from Brian safely arrived. I cut out the rough scale profile and now I'm letting the material adjust to the climate here.

The plan for replacing the blade etch is in the works. I created an image of the etching and the stencil is being made right now.

I also reground the blade a little bit to remove the pitting and clean up the geometry. I finished everything on the 16x Norax belt and the blade is ready for polishing.

Phillip

Glad all is going well.
I know it's late but I just got a W&B in to rescales that has the etching like yours....lol
It's a little faint, but it's all there. Day late, dollar short. I'm interested to see how it all turns out.

I suppose I could learn how far off I was on the letters I couldn't see. Thanks for keeping an eye out.

It would be a bit easier if it was extra hollow ground, with a lengthwise reinforce just behind the edge. I'd guess that this one, although termed a wedge, isn't completely flat-ground, but has a single, large-radius circular curve from the spine to the beginning of the bevel.

Greaseless or grease-based compounds on canvas mops act all the way across the blade. But a fine wheel of rubberised abrasive will bear on the parts of the blade adjacent to the edge and the spine, and do most of its polishing there. Choose a wheel of fractionally larger radius than the hollow grind, and you can remove quite a bit of pitting before the etching goes. Alternatively you can glue abrasive paper to some kind of can or drum, again just slightly larger in radius than the existing grind, and use that to sand longitudinally.

A trick which might be worthdoing on simpler etching of constant line width, is to coat the blade thinly with paint or vanish, and use a lens and fine needle point to scratch through into the bottom of the letters. You can then use acid (say 10% or 15% nitric) to deepen the etching before you begin polishing.

You are right about the grind, it's not a "true" wedge. (It's my understanding that flat-ground wedges are extremely rare.) I'd estimate the radius at about six inches. I used a ten inch contact wheel with Norax belts to remove the pitting and even up the grind. A little "feathering" helped me match the original radius.

My stencil arrived today and I did a practice etch on a bar of steel. I'm very happy with the result: clean and with plenty of fine detail. My etch is actually the inverse on the original. The original etch covers the field around the letters, leaving the letters themselves raised. I personally would rather have the majority of the blade polished with only the lettering etched, so that's what I'm doing.

I'll post a photo of the practice etch as soon as I'm on a real computer.

Phillip