We will now interrupt the regularly scheduled programming for this good old blades micro podcast. You've probably heard a lot of knife makers say to treat abrasive like it's free. And although I'm I'm gonna disagree, alright? Because everybody knows that abrasive is not free. Abrasive is probably one of the most expensive components of knife making uh next to raw materials and your time. And I I think that we need to pivot that mentality a little bit, uh, because there are certain operations within knife making that require fresh abrasive, all right? Like uh your final finishes on on blades, uh you know, specifically the bevels and um and uh various other operations, the freshest belts produce the cleanest work. However, just because that belt has been used very, very few times for all that operation does not mean it is worthless. Uh, for instance, I might go ahead and use a fresh, I don't know, if I'm putting a an as ground finish on a bevel, I might use a fresh uh 220 grip belt. Once that's done on the bevel, I will use that typically to either sharpen my blades, um, when I like put the initial bevel on the blade, or I might use that to uh to get a 220 grip uh finish on my handle material and so on and so forth. The the belt itself doesn't uh automatically get chucked just because I've used it for one operation. However, there's also a stratification uh of abrasive cost, right? Uh ceramics and and uh structured abrasive belts and things like that uh cost the most per per belt. Uh so those are probably going to be your highest uh cost. However, you can do initial rough grinding on a 50 grit belt, a ceramic belt, and you can do quite a few blades with it if you're running it properly. So if you're running it at high speed and high pressure, you can burn through, uh figuratively speaking, uh don't burn your blades, but you can burn through a bunch of blades with a single ceramic belt. Um you can finish quite a few blades with a structured abrasive belt. But as the backing gets thinner, uh so like if you're using a a J-weight um and it's thinner, it has more pliability. And so I noticed that the that the abrasive medium might fracture off of the belt a little bit easier than let's say on an X-weight. Uh, there are certain considerations that you make there. But the idea is this don't treat abrasive like it's free because you will end up getting into a mentality where you waste money uh when you don't need to. Think of an a belt and abrasive in general as a an expensive component of your making. However, you can break it apart into certain operations to get the most bang for your buck. Now, there are plenty of abrasives that I do treat with um the kind of mentality where I I you know it's it's free or you know it's it's a cheap uh material, just go ahead and move to the next piece or whatever. And that's in hand sanding. So I use uh Indasa's rhino wet uh right now, and I've found that to probably be some of the most stable until you get up into the high grits, and then honestly, there's not a lot of uh cutting performance differences uh between abrasives that I've seen. Um, every everyone wears out approximately the same. Uh, because of that, what I will do sometimes is I will switch to stones. So guesswind stones are really great, they are abrasives, right? Uh they are stones, but they're still abrasives. And you can get uh different guesswind stones, uh G E S S W E I N, in order to uh stone your materials like their EDM stones and and and tool and die maker stones. And so when you get to a certain uh when you get to a certain uh uh grit pattern, uh you can use stones in order to knock all the high points off, and then you can uh you can uh go to I don't know, like other 400, uh, 400, 600, 800, you know, 2000, whatever uh grit finishes higher up where stones kind of top out at maybe 1500 to 2000, um just because they become brittle. I mean you can get thick ones, but they lose uh you know their cutting power uh from what I've uh experienced uh around the you know 1500 to 2000 marks. So if you're doing mirror polishes and things, you might want to uh continue with like you know 2000 uh 2500 uh and 3,000 grit sandpaper for your pulse and everything before you go to a polish. Um but the idea is is that um with with hand sanding uh and you cut up you know smaller pieces of of abrasive material and you run through those. And uh rather than sit and wait for uh the sense the sense that this thing is not cutting well anymore, I would just uh before that happens, you know, uh figure out what your your standard stroke count is or whatever uh per blade uh steel type that you're using, and just you know, chuck it. Like don't try to nurse every inch of usability out of a piece uh for the sake of saving you know a penny. Uh you know, try to you know cut your pieces up, you have them in manageable, uh manageable pieces and use it um as well as you can. But if it stops cutting or right before that, just go ahead and throw it and you know start a new a new piece. So belts get them the highest priority of my attention because they're so expensive. And hand sanding, um, the abrasive collectively, like from MDASA books, books of uh of sandpaper cost, I don't know, maybe you know, between twenty and fifty dollars, uh, and you're getting quite a few sheets out of those. I cut them on a um one of those old uh guillotine style uh uh paper cutters, and from there I will organize them out according to grit, and I will you know progress up the grits. So any if I'm doing a 50 grit finish off the off the grinder, I will typically go up to at least 200 and uh 220 grit, maybe 400 grit on the grinder uh before I ever do any type of hand sanding work. And if I'm being honest with myself and I'm being honest with you listeners, I would try to do as much on the grinder as possible. It is a piece of machinery that you've paid a lot of money for. If you have the ability to be uh sensitive with your touch and you can you can go higher on the grits there, you will save yourself a lot of trouble with hand sanding because you know, a if you can get up to a 600 grit, um a 600 grit finish on the grinder, and then you're going and doing hand sanding, you might be able to start at 400 on hand sanding and uh get rid of all of your opposing lines and then move up the grit structure from there. But if you start at you know 80 grit or 120 grit on the grinder, and you automatically go to hand sanding, you will hate yourself. So use your tools appropriately. Um, in abrasive, my my standard is uh I use a a 50 grit ceramic, I use 120 grit ceramic, and then everything else I do is an aluminum oxide. So I'll go to two 220, um, 400, 600, and sometimes 800. And then uh I have structured abrasive that I use, like the gator belts uh sometimes, and then I'll also use micron belts depending on how high I'm um thinking I'm gonna go. But the the idea at least is that aluminum oxide um are are pretty cheap. You can get those for maybe a little over $2 a belt, whereas the ceramic ones are you know between $7 and $11 a piece, uh, depending. There's some places that I've paid $15 for, but that was when I first got st got started. And you can um you can purchase them in bulk and get a discount on them as well. Idea at least being abrasive is not free. Uh don't treat it like it's free. Uh figure out what the operations that you can use it on to get the most out of it, but don't sacrifice the quality of your work and the usability of the abrasive because you want to cut corners or save a dime. The idea at least is is you want clean, well-cut lines, and that requires a fresh abrasive. And in other operations, you might not need that same thing. You might not need it to have the the quickest cutting. Now for desert desert ironwood, I have to have really well uh cutting abrasive the entire time because it's super hard. And anything less and the heat that's generated, it will um it will burn it up. And it's you know, it smells like kind of like popcorn. And you know, then I have to just go back down and reef re-sand it and everything. So the idea at least is treat your abrasive uh not like it's free. Uh treat it like it costs a lot of money and you need to get the most out of it. Um target target your belt rotations according to how you're going to be utilizing your blades or your uh your belts, and always make sure that this the operations that need to be the cleanest, need to have the sharpest lines, are the things that you're using the first of the abrasives on. Another idea um or uh tip is on on abrasives that are ceramic, they have a lot of peaks and valleys, all right. And uh that when they come from the manufacturer. Um what I recommend is that in uh on like a if I'm doing a 50 grit or a 36 grit um on a ceramic, I will knock the tops of the of the abrasive off with a piece of steel, just run it through it quick, um, you know, on the uh on the surface of the belt, just to knock those ones off, because you will get sub the grit of the belt um on those peaks, and you they can dig pretty deep. So if I'm using a 36 grit, I might actually be uh I might actually uh experience that I have uh some scratches that are 24 grit or maybe a little bit higher than that, but still not 36. You know, fit I the same thing happens with 50 grit, that the very tops of that uh ceramic need to be knocked off, otherwise you're not getting a homogenous 50 grit finish. Um so food for thought. Um don't don't just listen to everybody who has a lot of extra uh disposable income. They're very cost-effective ways for you to be able to buy abrasive and to utilize those and you don't have to break the bank. But you just have to be conscious that it it is a real investment, like everything in knives, it's not free. It's can be an expensive hobby and uh andor an expensive uh career, um, you know, because of the return on investment that you have to consider um with how much you put into your knives. So just you know, be aware of those things. Uh be kind and uh I hope this helps.