1st Production Run/WIP: SS Hunter/Skinner

[EZ Cad Blades]

After 20 years of playing at knifemaking and discovering how satisfying it can be, I've finally decided to take a stab at doing a production run of one of the designs I've gotten a particularly positive response on, from family and friends. And, since WIP threads are, and have been over the years, one of my favorite types of threads, I decided to take a shot at posting my efforts as a WIP at the same time. I've ordered a partial sheet of 440C (.187" - .207" thick X 5.250" wide X 77" long) to be cut on a waterjet. These blanks will be my project. I'll be posting pics as soon as I receive the blanks (shipment is due in on 4-8-2010) and then more as the project progresses. According to my calculations and my CAD layout, there should be 14 blanks, but I haven't verified that is how many were actually cut yet. I also have not yet decided what handle material(s) / option(s) to dress them out in. I'm posting a JPEG of the outline of the knife I chose to make and would welcome feedback as to what handle material(s) will look/function best. It is titled "SS HUNTER". I designed this knife to be a Hunter/Skinner so with that in mind please feel free to post your thoughts. I made the handle to be a bit oversized because I am debating converting a few to a slightly different handle style (pic titled "SS HUNTER 2") The grind will be a flat grind as I think it suits the shape and purpose of the knife. A few of these will be finished with a teflon coating and at least one with a "parkerized" finish and I'd welcome your thoughts regarding that as well. This ought to be fairly interesting, but a word of caution: I work a fulltime job that is NOT making knives and have a wife and 3 small daughters at home, so my time will be balanced between all these. I fully expect this to be a long project.

Larry

EDIT: I forgot to post dimensions: 10½" OAL x 2" at widest point (belly) x 3/16" thick 440C.
2nd EDIT: Added pics of the blanks as received from vendor. Cell phone pics and not that great, but I'll break out the digital camera at some point and post some better ones.

 

[blindhogg]

Both great looking design IMO. I would definitely try different types of handle material (Micarta, G-10, wood etc) if I were you so you can get a handle on what its like to grind and file different types of material and how they grind shape etc. I would start with green, tan or black micarta as a start (Dont forget your respirator). have you decided what kind of fasteners you will use and what kind of glue you have decided on. Also any lanyard holes on your handles? Lots of options when you make your own knives, have fun and good luck.
Chris

 

[blindhogg]

Almost forgot to mention you probably will not be able to parkerize the knife as that process only works on carbon steel, not stainless steel.
Teflon coating will work fine though, I always favored the spraying with a airbrush technique vs the aerosol can technique.
Chris

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

Chris,

Thank you for the compliment on the designs, Sir. I was thinking on trying several different handle types. I have a pretty decent collection of materials to choose from. Seems that when people find out I make knives and see some of what I've produced, alot of times they give me handle material. I'm sure most of us get that from time to time. G-11 will be one I do for sure and a respirator will be in use. Pretty nasty dust. For pins I will probably be using some of the Mosaic pin stock I have on hand. I'm kind of addicted to the way it looks. I have both black and tan Micarta (no green) and have toyed with doing something unique with those also. Regarding a lanyard hole, I suppose I could incorporate that as well, but it might seem almost non-functional on a knife this size. Maybe that's not true, but it seems to me that I mostly have seen lanyards on smaller knives than these will finish out to be. Anyway, thank you for your input. I'm almost chomping at the bit to get going on this, so I'll be glad when I get the package.

Larry

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

Almost forgot to mention you probably will not be able to parkerize the knife as that process only works on carbon steel, not stainless steel.
Teflon coating will work fine though, I always favored the spraying with a airbrush technique vs the aerosol can technique.
Chris

Chris,

I have a friend who is a gunsmith and I had asked him about that. He said he uses a liquid and 150 degree heat combination process and can do stainless. I made a camp knife for a guy years ago that was D-2 and I gave it a parkerized finish when I heat treated it. It has a really high Chromium content (12%). I Googled the phrase "parkerizing metal" and came up with something that supports what you said about stainless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkerizing I'll have to ask him if he is certain about doing stainless steel. If he made a mistake and mis-spoke, no big deal. I will still be able to do a few in teflon. He said he can even do a camo type teflon coat. Should be a fun project however it comes out. Have a good night, Sir.

Larry

 

[Sticky]

look great! Im debating about getting some blanks cut out myself. what all did yo have to do draw them in cad or? Who's doing the cutouts? How much $ if i may ask?
thanks
btw those llook like fantastic skinners!

 

[black mamba]

Larry, I love the overall design, but would suggest a little more butt for grip security on a knife that size and weight, maybe with a lanyard hole as well, something like this:

Contoured canvas micarta is hard to beat for strength and gripiness in handle material.

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

look great! Im debating about getting some blanks cut out myself. what all did yo have to do draw them in cad or? Who's doing the cutouts? How much $ if i may ask?
thanks
btw those llook like fantastic skinners!

Sticky,

I drew these up in a program I use for making vinyl decals. That program allows me to export the saved file as a DXF file (a CAD file in case you don't already know). I was then able to email the file off to the company I had do the waterjet for me (I also bought the steel through them). Total cost for steel, waterjet cutting, shipping, and insurance was a little over $500.00 for 14 blanks. I had them ship me the drops as well and I still have about 6 linear feet of usable steel that I can get several other knife styles from. Well worth the cost. I will be posting their contact info later in this thread. I've been designing knives for about 15 years so I actually have over 100 designs saved as DXF files. At some point I may offer them for sale on CD as a DXF library. I am still in the process of organizing the files by style and checking into pricing to produce and market the CD. If there is anything else I can help you with please feel free to contact me. Have a good night, Sir.

BTW: Thanks for the compliment on this one ... glad you like it. :thumbup:

Larry

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

Larry, I love the overall design, but would suggest a little more butt for grip security on a knife that size and weight, maybe with a lanyard hole as well, something like this:

Contoured canvas micarta is hard to beat for strength and gripiness in handle material.

black mamba,

Glad you like the design. That's an interesting design that you came up with for the handle. You are the 2nd person to tell me that I should consider incorporating a lanyard hole into the design so I may take that advice and do just that ... at least on a few of this first batch. I was also thinking of a textured handle finish. I will probably drill some lightening holes in the handle since these are pretty hefty without handle material attached. I don't know how much they weigh, but I am taking one with me to work tomorrow and will weigh it just to satisfy my own curiosity. I'll post that info here. I actually made the handle on this one a little oversized to be able to make modifications if need be. I can fit the 2nd option (posted in my original post) onto the shape I had cut out or I can cut the handle down to end up with a hidden or through tang. Lots of options. I actually like the shape the way it is, but a bit smaller. Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy the thread as I progress with my project. :thumbup:

Larry

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

FYI:

I dealt with Niagara Specialty Metals for this order. Tim Gelnett and Jeff Rich were both great to deal with. I can say that I am 100% satisfied with this company and I will order from them in the future. Below I'm listing their contact info:

http://www.nsm-ny.com/


Niagara Specialty Metals
716-542-5552
Jeff Rich email: jeff@nsm-ny.com
Tim Gelnett email: tim@nsm-ny.com


My thanks to Tim and Jeff for their professionalism and great customer service. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Larry

 

[Fred.Rowe]

Larry,

A very enthusiastic project. I will follow it with interest.

I think your design concepts are solid. The knives should be quite functional.

Regards, Fred

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

Larry,

A very enthusiastic project. I will follow it with interest.

I think your design concepts are solid. The knives should be quite functional.

Regards, Fred

Fred,

Thank you, Sir. I have been extremely busy lately with things that have taken priority over this WIP project, but I will be getting back after it in a few days. I am close to wrapping up most of the things that have kept me away from this WIP.

Larry

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

I invited Fred to follow this thread after ordering his Bubble Jig. I intend to use his Bubble Jig on at least a few of these blades. From what I can tell on his videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp5NLNmMe2Y

AND

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZX5RLO_fMg

this tool should be a big help. There is a particular type of flat grind that I think should look good on the style of knife I'll be working on for this project. Here is a link to a pic of the type of grind I want to accomplish on 2 or 3 of the blanks I'll be working on:

http://www.jbrucevoyles.com/a43%20described/DSCN0071.JPG

If posting a link to this picture is infringing in any way on someone's copyright rights, I can only ask pardon for my ignorance. That certainly was not my intention. I have a friend who is a personal friend of Ruffin Johnson; of Houston who is the maker of the blade in the picture, and my friend has promised to take me with him sometime to visit Ruffin's shop. To date, that hasn't happened. And regarding J. Bruce Voyles copyright rights to the picture I say the same. I have much respect for both of these gentleman for all the enjoyment I have had throughout the years of exposure to their work efforts. (My hat's off to you both, Sirs, for excellence unrivaled!)
Anyway, I have never tried this type of flat grind on an upward angle like the pictured knife has and am open to any hints and/or advice on accomplishing it. Who knows? I may even get my friend to make good on his promise to drop in and visit with Ruffin sometime soon. (If so, can you guess what one of my FIRST questions for Ruffin will be ?? ) If there seems to be similarities to Ruffin's blade (the thumb grip grooves in addition to the angular flat grind), what can I say? Who doesn't try to incorporate something that they hold in high regard into something of their own? I hope to be able to do something to really get this rolling by this weekend. This past weekend I wanted to, but things didn't go my way and my time was given to others. Anyway, as I said, I am absolutely open to advice...

Larry

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

I received Fred's Bubble Jig today (or maybe I need to have said my Bubble Jig ) and I can't wait to try it out. I have a couple of small knives that I will try it on first to get a feel for it before I use it on the Hunter/Skinners. At this point the weekend looks free so I am looking forward to have something to post.

Larry

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

Today I was able to visit Ruffin Johnson with my friend. What a nice guy! He made time for me to both explain and show me how he does the angular grind I like so much. I about half suspected that it probably wasn't much different than a conventional 90 degree grind. Ruffin made it look easy. He free handed the grind as a hollow grind. Turned out great looking. He also showed me a few tips on doing file work. The man is very talented and turns out some beautiful knives. I now have an invitation to visit again and will do so first opportunity I have. In the meantime, I plan to do a little grinding of my own this weekend. I'll post the results here. I'm anxious to try Fred's Bubble Jig, so that will be something I hope to address after this weekend too. I still need to decide at what angle I want to grind the blade(s) at. I still have a day to think on that before the weekend, so I'm going to take a little time off the computer tonight and figure out what will be the best approach to take. I'm still open to suggestions and will probably pop back online later tonight to see if anyone has posted any. Thanks for following along and I hope to speed things along soon.

Larry

 

[koyote]

excellent looking designs. I like simple handle shapes for long days of use, but I actually like your RH, contoured design a bit better overall.

In either case, excellent profile.

I am personally not a user of lanyards on knives I'm not chopping with unless I want to bungee the knife to the sheaht for some horseback riding or other bouncy tasks. BUt people want them, so we do them. I have managed to chip micarta with a lanyard hole too far back.

While I realize it's not terribly popular, you might try making the pins into the lanyard holes (1/4 inch 316 tubing for the pins) on a few. It's realistically no weaker than solid pins, and gives the user options for different lanyard placement. When I do use a lanyard on a larger knife, I prefer a forward mount for it.

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

excellent looking designs. I like simple handle shapes for long days of use, but I actually like your RH, contoured design a bit better overall.

In either case, excellent profile.

Christof,

Thank you for the compliment, Sir. On the contoured design, I actually made the handle a bit too small as black mamba pointed out. I have to agree with him on that. I was shooting for a look that would lead the eye more to the blade and kinda lost track of functionality. No problem as I actually made the handles a bit oversized so I could offer another handle option on the same batch of knives. Thanks for your input regarding lanyard holes as well. Glad you like the overall design and I'm finally getting started on them tomorrow. I have a boat that I need to put some custom decals on tomorrow morning, so I'll be driving EARLY to Baytown (maybe 1½ to 2 hours away), but the minute I get home the rest of the weekend is MINE!

Larry

 

[EZ Cad Blades]

I don't know how much they weigh, but I am taking one with me to work tomorrow and will weigh it just to satisfy my own curiosity. I'll post that info here.

I forgot to weigh these when I said I would in an earlier post, so I took one in to work with me today and weighed it. It weighed 13.6 ounces ... almost a full pound!

Larry