1/30/04 The bolster material has been cut to size, drilled to match the holes in the knife and ground to get the front and back to match exactly. The four corners have to match or it will show up on the knife as uneven when you look at the dovetails or the front of the bolster when looking at the top or the bottom of the knife. To drill the material, one piece at a time is super glued to the knife and the holes are drilled through the knife into the stainless metal.

1/30/04 The dovetails are ground on the disk grinder. The bolsters are pinned temporarily inside out. I made a 45 degree platform for my disk grinder just to do dovetails. Each side is ground 45 degrees to the middle. The bolsters are kept pinned together for the entire process to keep them registered and all the corners lined up.

1/30/04 I’ve finished the 45 degree dovetails and now I’m grinding the front of the bolster to it’s design shape. I have them pinned and clamped in a jewelers vice. I am using the slack belt attachment for my KMG grinder here. The belt doesn’t have a backing and will move to conform to the shape you are grinding. In the back ground you can see attachments for the 8” wheel and massive 14” wheel for hollow grounding. I will use 6 different grits, progressively smaller followed by buffing to get a mirror finish on the front edge of the bolster.