Made a second set in keystock. Came out pretty much like the first set. On the second set I used an 80 grit belt after the 40 grit. It's a little harder to maintain the right angles after switching the belts as some of your reference lines got ground off, but not too bad. The threading point is a little hard to maintain exactly at 60 degrees. Both my thread cutter angles (on the keystock) are very slightly off. I suppose that will just take practice.
So, this made me brave enough to try some HSS. I have some 8x8x200mm HSS. I cut the 200mm piece into thirds. Each piece is 66mm long, give or take. (2.6 inches) It's a little awkward holding the smaller piece, but not bad. I cut a square tool, first using 40 grit ceramic and then 80 grit ceramic. I then cleaned it up using 2 diamond cards. (325 grit and 600 grit). Using the 80 grit belt makes the diamond clean up a lot easier. Maybe next time I will also use my 120 grit ceramic belt. I found it a little difficult maintaining nice flat faces, especially on the smallest face. It's hard to avoid rocking the face relative to the card. Is there a trick to keeping it flat? Mind you, I'm doing this by hand. I also have a 1200 grit card, but am wondering about diminishing returns. (And holding it flat relative to the face.)
You can see some deeper gouges that I didn't get out. It just needs to be super smooth at the tip? Also the angle of the tip is slightly more acute than the keystock example I ground. Is this a problem?
This face is easy to polish with the cards.
There is a tiny flat spot near the tip. Next photo is a better one of that face.
How can I do better on this? Practice, practice, and practice some more? Soon I'll have some 3/8" HSS to work on. I think the larger size is easier to hold when grinding.
through a 5' chunk of 3/8" stock!!
