2023 Surface Grinder is in production! Pre-Order yours now!
We are excited to announce we have started production on our redesigned surface grinder! We have collected a lot of feedback from our customers and spent the last year designing, reviewing vendor components, and prototyping new components. Almost every part of the surface grinder was evaluated and redesigned to get more out of the attachment.
Upgrades to the platform include:
3” x 3” 90 Durometer serrated wheel
Flatten up to 3” without flipping the blade on a 2” wide belt
Grinder must have a quality tracking adjustment similar to our Black Fox ONE grinder
15” grinding bed with MagSwitch Technology
Spark Shield
New Y axis slider. The new slider out preformed the original slider with tighter tolerances
Rubber stops rather than platic stops
X rail increase in length to match new bed and provide more overstroke
In additional to design changes and upgrades we have also designed in a whole new function to the system that we are really excited for. You can now order the surface grinder with an adjustable leveling kit that can help taper or adjust the flat grinding surface. The kit will also come with tang clamping jig that can be used to bevel a knife!! So many neat possibilities that can take your game to a semi production level of accuracy on bevels without the overhead cost of a dedicated CNC machine.
Pre-order details
Pre-Order Payment Method?
Once we receive your order request (see form below) we will work on setting up an invoice through PayPal that will require a $1000 down payment but will remain open. Full payment is not required until the order is ready to ship. If you do not receive an email from PayPal with the invoice or would like to discuss an alternative payment option (check or alternative 3rd party payment) please contact us at info@blackfoxknifeworks.com.
When will my order ship?
First 5 PreOrders will start shipping orders on April 17th. Next 10 orders will start shipping May 10th. First bottleneck is due to the long lead time of the new Y slider table. Trust us it will be worth the wait. Second is due to how much we can purchase without order commitments. If we fill up our preorder backlog faster than expected we can commit to more components sooner!
Pre-Order Your Surface Grinder Today!
2020 Year in Review with a look into 2021
2020 Yearend wrap up
2020 turned out to be a great year for us but not without it’s challenges. From releasing our 4th generation to moving to a new city to facing the supply chain challenges due to COVID. We worked overtime through out the year to produce enough grinders to complete our back log and keep up with demand. Looking forward into 2021 we have several goals that we hope you will be glad to hear about:
Attend Blade Show East and West (permitting they are live and in person)
Reduce lead times to 1 week or less for all products
Finalize a US made contact wheel supply chain and manufacturing
Release new products!
Thank you all for your support and we look forward to hearing from you in 2021!
-Thaddeus Hicks
Black Fox 4th Generation Release
We are proud to announce our 4th generation grinder is ready to go on sale! Stock will be loaded on the site to order by January 27th.
We touched just about every part of the grinder to improve the design to make it better while reducing cost! The improvements include:
Cast tooling arm slots
We are investing in tooling to get a main component cast at a foundry in Spokane, Washington.
Lower profile
Compact rotation profile
Less of a height difference between horizontal and vertical positions
Increased drive plate quality to get perfect tracking without needing complex tracking features
Easier upgrade path from ONE to PRO.
Our biggest accomplishment is providing all these improvements while lowering the cost by $200 and only charging a flat rate of $100 for shipping!
Visually the generation 4 grinder will look similar to the 3rd generation. Below is a side by side comparison. The photos below are 3D renders and are only a visual representation of the final product. The 4th generation design has the control panel label.
Pre-orders in February will be discounted 10% and 5% in March. First 20 orders will ship in April with the remaining orders shipping, as soon as, possible.
Interview with CK Knife and Tool!
Check out our full length interview with CK Knife and Tool!
White papers
We have decided to publish design white papers for all of you that want more information on the grinder or just general information to think about while making your decision on which grinder to purchase.
Checkout our first white paper titled “Design for Vibration”.
Surface grinder product release
You asked and we listened! We are excited to announce the release of our new surface grinding attachment!
This idea has been in development for quite awhile. I wanted to bring something new and exciting to the market that didn’t necessarily follow what was already out there. We considered may different ideas from a stand-alone unit to an integrated stand with a surface grinder build in. We settled on developing an attachment. Once we decided on the attachment style unit we worked hard to develop a great unit that was innovative while keeping the cost manageable. What we developed is an amazing attachment with a bearing-less slide, magnets that can be switch on/off without power, 15” surface, tilting surface, and a easy to use digital counter.
We are happy to open up preordering at a great deal!
The image below is of our prototype unit. We will be starting our production parts soon and shipping the first units in late March.
New Videos of our GEN 3 2x72 Belt Grinder design
We are posting new videos to our YouTube channel over the next few days of our new 2x72 belt grinder design and our other product offerings.
Grinder Raffle!!!!
Help support us by entering our progressive raffle! Click here for more information.
News update
Hi all,
We are currently sold out of our 2x72" belt grinders! We want to take a week or two to review the design, our suppliers, marketing strategy, and input from you to refine, control cost, and provide more add-ons.
Look for an announcement with the next week or two about our generation 3 design with pre-order opening up by the end of May.
As always please let us know if you have any questions or comments!
Thank you,
Thaddeus Hicks
Progress!
New announcements and lots of exciting things!
First off all our products are available thru USAknifemaker.com. This partnership has been a couple months in the making but we are excited to partner with them.
We have had an increase in sales and our product is being used across multiple industries! We have our grinders in custom motorcycle fabrication shops, general fabrication shops, as well as, being used for custom knife making. Check out our instagram page for more photos and videos of a complete Black Fox Knife Works ONE 2x72" grinder build.
In less exiting news:
We have received notice from our motor manufacture that prices will be increasing 5% and from our fabricator that steel and aluminium prices are rising. Even though price are increasing we are locked into our current pricing until we run out of stock. Get your orders in while you can to take advantage of the current pricing. Over the next few months we will be taking a hard look at our design, fabrication, and vendors to brainstorm solutions to keep pricing the same for next year.
Thank you all for your support,
Thaddeus HIcks, Owner, Black Fox Knife Works
2x72 grinder in augmented reality using the Augmented App.
Check out our 2x72 belt grinder design using the free Augment app!
You can view the design in 3D in real time and space thru your phone. Create a target to place the grinder anywhere to get an idea of the space required. Check out the video below of more information.
Check out our 2x72 Black Fox ONE belt grinder in the Augmented app. You can view the grinder design in real time and space using your phone. More info on the grinder at Blackfoxknifeworks.com.
Happy New Year!
2017 was an exciting and fun year for us. From design to production to startup we have been busy at work getting ready to enter the market. We had several pre-order customers that supported us and we are excited to announce that those grinders and kits were shipped or delivered in the last week of 2017. All the major components were made in America and the fabrication was sourced from local companies in the Pacific Northwest.
We spent the 1st day of 2018 assembling and testing our test grinder and we have very pleased with the results. It has been a long road to get here but we are looking forward to what 2018 brings. We have some big announcements coming in 2018. To keep upto date on all our announcements signup for our newsletter at the bottom of this page.
Quick demo of the Black Fox ONE 2x72 belt grinder. Profiling a kitchen knife.
Testing out the small wheel attachment from Knifegrinderparts.com on the Black Fox ONE 2x72 belt grinder | Knife Grinder.
Profiling is a breezy with the option of a 2" or 5" contact wheel and a flat platen all in the same place. Check out that beefy work rest. All this is includes with the complete Black Fox ONE.
Back to 2017 and the start of production.
Laser cut parts waiting to be welded.
Several tracking arms in progress.
Post weld cleanup on the base weldment. These guys really know how to lay down some nice welds.
Parts ready for assembly
Grinder assembly in process. Middle grinder has the knifegrinderparts.com platen. Highly recommended if you are looking for a standard flat platen.
Black Fox Kit being inspected and packaged for a pre-order customer.
2018 here we come!
Development of the Black Fox ONE 2x72 belt knife Grinder
Learn more about the development and history of the Black Fox ONE.
Engineering started in June of 2017 with the goal of making a knife grinder that would be versatile enough for anybody to achieve their ONE goal. The benchmarks of design were:
- Combine the functionality of a vertical and horizontal grinder
- Use standard grinder components
- Use standard industry part components
- Manufacture easily
- Be cost effective
The first design iteration was subjected to stringent finite element analysis (FEA) and computer modeling.
First design revision FEA results: Shows the von mises stress with a torsional load and weight applied by the motor
Shows the displacement of the same loads applied as the stress model.
Even though the results of the FEA testing showed that the grinder had low stress and deflection it was found thru a quick poll of peers that the grinder looked not as robust as it should. With this feedback in hand we upsized the sheet metal material thickness to increase the robust look of the grinder.
The first prototype of the grinder was built in August of 2017.
Prototype design
The prototype grinder hit many of the benchmarks:
- Can be positioned horizontally or vertically
- Uses standard knife making components
- Uses industry standard fasteners and components
- Costing at high quantities could produce a competitive pricing model
Some small details needed to be addressed:
- Tube had a seam and therefore a modification of a standard 1.5" arm was used
- Head unit was not as straight as it should have been
- Tracking block only allowed for limited motion
- Although the pivot locking system worked well we wanted it to work better
After some testing we decided that to take the design to the next level it had to be reviewed by a Master bladesmith. Luckily Bruce Bump lives in the same town. I contact Bruce to see if he was interested in taking a look at my prototype and providing feedback. Thankfully he was open to the idea and willing to take some time to review it. I trucked my prototype design over to Bruce's house where he and his apprentice picked apart my design have gave me some wonderful suggestions to bring the design up to another level. With Bruce's feedback in hand as well as the details I knew needed to be addressed I spent another 2 months tweaking the design.
The final design pushes the limits of what a great knife grinder should be and sets the benchmark high for future grinders. Not only do we believe that this 2x72" belt grinder will do well in the knife making industry it will do well in woodworking, fabrication, and any application where precision material removal is needed. We have received great feedback on the design and look forward to seeing what 2018 holds for us.
The first production run will be ready to ship the last week of December 2017 with a second batch of 5 that will be ready mid to late January.
Rendering of the final design