Hello all! Newbie here and recently completed my 2nd knife. I started out a few months ago and after having my first attempt turn out somewhat better than a prison shank, I was encouraged to continue on. Have a look and feel free to give me some constructive feedback.
This one began its life as a $4 Nicholson mill bastard file that I had picked up from a flea market along with four others just like it. The bevels were hand ground with a filing jig that I copied from Gough Customs. The heat treat was done in a home made forge copied from I Like To Make Stuff. I did two normalization cycles then brought it up to non-magnetic, held for a minute and quenched in canola oil. The temper recipe was (2) two-hour cycles at 425. I tried out a few new things on this one that I think worked out really well. The handle is made of three sections separated by three shims each. The center section is Brown Malee burl with acrylic from a wine bottle stopper blank on either side. Separating the two materials are three shims of G10 alternating red, white, red. The same red G10 was used for liner as well. I was really happy with the color contrast. I made the mosaic pins from a 1/4" brass tube with three 1/16" copper rods inserted and then filled with resin that I colored battleship gray. I did some ornate file work on the spine that I was really proud of. I can tell you that there was a fairly high pucker factor to take a file to the spine and start carving away having never done it before and already put a fairly significant amount of time put into it!! The last new addition was an acid etch and stonewash to the blade itself. The etching was done by soaking the blade in 100% ferric chloride for about 10 minutes. The stonewash finish was done by putting the blade in a container full of nuts and bolts and shaking it around for about 5 minutes. For the handle finish, I sanded up to 600 and then used a polishing compound followed by boiled linseed oil and then capped that with beeswax.
This one began its life as a $4 Nicholson mill bastard file that I had picked up from a flea market along with four others just like it. The bevels were hand ground with a filing jig that I copied from Gough Customs. The heat treat was done in a home made forge copied from I Like To Make Stuff. I did two normalization cycles then brought it up to non-magnetic, held for a minute and quenched in canola oil. The temper recipe was (2) two-hour cycles at 425. I tried out a few new things on this one that I think worked out really well. The handle is made of three sections separated by three shims each. The center section is Brown Malee burl with acrylic from a wine bottle stopper blank on either side. Separating the two materials are three shims of G10 alternating red, white, red. The same red G10 was used for liner as well. I was really happy with the color contrast. I made the mosaic pins from a 1/4" brass tube with three 1/16" copper rods inserted and then filled with resin that I colored battleship gray. I did some ornate file work on the spine that I was really proud of. I can tell you that there was a fairly high pucker factor to take a file to the spine and start carving away having never done it before and already put a fairly significant amount of time put into it!! The last new addition was an acid etch and stonewash to the blade itself. The etching was done by soaking the blade in 100% ferric chloride for about 10 minutes. The stonewash finish was done by putting the blade in a container full of nuts and bolts and shaking it around for about 5 minutes. For the handle finish, I sanded up to 600 and then used a polishing compound followed by boiled linseed oil and then capped that with beeswax.
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