new knives

Today after doing all the needed things to keep the shop running full tilt I was able to get some time on the profiling machine and grind a new knife. I have a total of three knives to make currently and finished one today. I have had some realizations about profiling. First the knife stock comes in different widths, so it behooves me to buy the widest one as I'll be re-sharpening and in effect making the knife smaller each time I sharpen them. So the knife will last longer. Also it is commonplace to grind an entire new profile into a knife if you don't need the profile any longer. So now I know to buy the widest knife stock. I am still battling with the stylest not matching the grinding wheel in width. I suppose that the problem is that I cannot dress the grinding wheel, those parts on my machine are broken. I'm left with the dilemma of trying to repair these parts or doing it in a different way. This knife I made today came out very beautiful in it's own right. For the most part it is one sweeping compound curve and a quarter round. The grinding wheel discrepancies won't matter on this type of profile, although I do wonder how much cleaner of an edge I would get with a properly dressed wheel I can feel the variations in my hands when I'm doing the profiling. All in time, I need to contact the grindermans association. They don't have a web site which is unfortunate but I do have their phone number.
This week I have been very proud of my team. We are working exceptionally well right now and very hard. c74 is very near complete, and a75 is almost done as well. I did not think that Gagan was going to able to complete a75 this week but he'll do it with ease. Ventura has shown the most progress lately. I never thought I'd say that but it's true. He could be the most improved employee if he keeps it up. There is a review coming for Ventura so this could be an effort to impress me shortly before his review and get a higher rating. Our rating system is the same as many other companies. The best is an O for outstanding then E for exceeds expectations and P for performer and N for non-performance. It is a very simple system and works well.
Tomorrow we have our training day event in the afternoon. We will be talking about how we keep our tool boxes in the shop, and why it is important to keep them orderly. I have my props already prepared, I made two full size drawings of the drawers in plan showing what tools go in which drawers. Then we will go into the shop and make sure that each of the three tool box locations are properly outfitted. The benefits of that are huge. It decreases the time it takes to locate the tools when you want them. It keeps order to the hundreds of tools that we use every day. And it establishes some ground rules for the guys who do clean up. They in theory should be able to pick up a tool and look at the drawing and know where to put the tool.