3 similar blades WIP ***Now including KITH updates***

[unky_gumbi]

Thanks I did miss that, guess I need to get some borax before I grind my next set of blades. I know I should dump my bucket soon and change that water

 

[unky_gumbi]

OK after some questions and long hours sanding my elbows are shot, but I think I have the second one ready for HT. When I first started sanding this one I kept washing out my grind lines and would have to start over with filing the bevels to get the grind line back so I started another thread to get some help fixing the problem. It turned out to be a combination of a few things, some I could fix others I would have to work around for now. I made a new sanding block that wouldn't flex and went really slow concentrating on keeping my block flat on the bevels and flats. The thing I have to work around for now is I should really be grinding to a higher grit that I am. I am stuck with only going to a 220 grit machine finish for now, the next set I do I will be ordering some higher grit belts to solve the problem

Any how on with the pictures for #2 sanded out to 600g It may not look like it in the pictures but the grinds are fairly sharp and the finish is consistent and no scratches from the previous grit are to be seen, even under a 10X loupe.

I am not sure if the elbows will be ready to tackle the recurve tomorrow, but it is next on the sanding block. It is already draw filed and its just a thing of sanding now

 

[unky_gumbi]

OK I just wanted to do a little update here. I haven't quit this but after all the sanding the last couple of days my elbows have given out so I had to take a little break. As of yesterday I have the first two sanded out to 600g and ready for HT, and the recurve I got up to 320g before the pain really set in. I haven't taken any pictures of it in its current state, but I did snap a couple right after a little draw filing and a quick pass with 150g to knock down the file marks. Once my elbows stop hurting I will finish up the sanding so they can go out for HT next Monday.

I also got a little care package in the mail today so I think I have two of the three handles covered. I got 3 blocks of bloodwood and a block of spalted wild apple.

The apple looks sort of like old bone in person so I think I may put that on the recurve, one of the bloodwood blocks for either the FF or the hf grinds and antler for the last.

I am really hoping to get back to sanding tomorrow. I still have to finish prepping the kitchen knife I am making for my mother and I have a couple other EDC like knives to go out too, this will give me 6 blades to finish in the coming weeks

 

[james terrio]

They all look nice but that recurve is especially sleek. :thumbup:

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

:thumbup::thumbup:

Nice work Unky Gumbi, that is looking awesome!

 

[Brian Ayres]

I like the recurve too, especially the long swedge.

 

[unky_gumbi]

So like I said I wouldn't drop this midway through, but its been scorching hot here the last few days, even managed to get heat stroke while trying to work on these. Last night we got a bit of a break in the weather and while it was raining I decided to rough in the handle on one of them. The first thing I did was make a guard and a pommel to figure out just how I was going to shape the handle. These pieces are just temporary things and not going to be used in the finished knife so I wasn't too concerned about getting the perfect fit on the tang with no gaps. As long as they fit over the tang and butted up fairly flush it was good enough for what I was doing.

Once I got the pommel and guard to that close enough fit, I placed everything on the block I planned to use and drew in the shape of the handle on the block of stabilized spalted wild apple I got from an other forum member. I removed the temp fittings and traced the tang onto the block. Once I had that done I measured in my center line and laid out the hole for the tang on the ends of the block. Sorry no pictures of all this With the layout done I lined everything up on the drill press and started drilling out for the tang. With all the homemade tools being shown lately I decided to make a broach from some 5160 scrap I had laying around a few weeks back and yesterday I put it to its first real test. It aint a pretty tool like some of the others we see here, but it preformed flawlessly. I was able to square up the hole and fit the tang into the block in no time. Now that I had the tang fitted to the block I cut out the profile of the handle and then tapered it to flow from guard to pommel.

I found a couple of worm holes/voids after cutting, but I don't have a lot of options for handle materials so I did the best I could to fix them with sawdust and crazy glue. They are visible but sort of add a nice rustic look to the knife. If it starts looking bad as I finish it I will have to go hunt down another block for this one, but I am now leaning towards making this one a take down like Patrice suggested, only time will tell

Once the block was some what fixed up and cut to rough shape I put everything back together and put the blade in the vise grabbed my handy dandy rasp and started rounding, smoothing, and getting everything to flow together. I did throw and old 60g belt on the grinder and at low speed smooth out the rasp marks. All through this I kept an eye on the worm holes and fixed them or added more crazy glue anytime they started looking rough. I then finished up by doing a little shoe polishing with some 60g to blend in any gouges left from the grinder. When I was done I had a rough sanded but shaped handle, the worm holes are solid and now I just have to wait for the wrought iron I have coming to get here so I can make the real guard and pommel. I am still on the fence about going with a double guard on this one, but that doesn't change the shape of the handle.

So this is where I a mat right now, pictures have my minigrip in them just as a size reference.

Today I hope to finish sanding out the last blade and rough in another handle, this next one will be bloodwood. I may go take a look at some antler drops a guy is selling up the road a few miles from me to see if he has something that will work for me, if not then I will be trekking into Ottawa next week to buy some claro walnut.

 

[unky_gumbi]

Well I started pre shaping the bloodwood handle today, god this is tough stuff to work with. My saw barely cuts it, and it actually dulled a drill bit Its not a fancy looking wood but it still looks good. Only thing is with it being so tough I resorted to trying to use a power drill to get rid of a little material and poked a hole through the handle now I have to start all over again. If I look on the bright side I have a template to work from with the ruined piece, and I can take pictures of how I lay out a handle, fit it to the tang, and rough in the shape.

The piece I screwed up I can cut down to use as scales so nothing lost but time

 

[unky_gumbi]

Welcome to day 23 of my WIP. I figure I should start off by showing my mistake before showing the replacement handle

I had this block laid out, cut, drilled, and most of the tang hole shaped when I decided to take a short cut and use a hand drill to make the hole a little deeper, as you can see I drilled just a little deep. The block wont be wasted, because I hadn't cut it down to its width yet so I can use it for scales some place else.

So yesterday I started all over again with another block of Bloodwood. The first thing I did was get the tang laid out on the block after scrapping off all the wax. The blocks are a little on the narrow side so I have to angle the blade to get things to fit. Then I draw in the general shape of the handle and make sure to leave enough space top and bottom to be able to take it down to my finished size.

After I get everything laid out I cut out the profile on the band saw then clean it up in the belt grinder with a used 60g belt and very low speed, around 10-15% on my grinder.

You will notice that there are 3/16” thick lines at the front and back of the handle, they will be cut off and ground down after I get the tang fitted. I do this so that I can have room for error, and the ability to square everything up afterwards.

Now I layout for my tang hole, normally I do this in pencil, but it wasn't showing up on the camera so I scribed in the lines and went over them in marker so they would show. My lines were a little off on the back so I just eyed up my mark

I actually centre punch my holes because this wood is a bear to work with and since I am drilling on an angled face I need all the help I can to stay on my mark. The hole from the butt end is even more of an angle so I made a flat spot with my dremel tool.

After a few hours of work with my homemade broache I had the tang fitted to the handle.

Next was putting it together with my temporary guard and pommel so I could draw in my lines to taper the handle.

I keep everything oversized just so I can work into my final shape and not have to worry too much about chip outs or going too far. Yes it makes a bit more work, but it is just easier for me to adjust and keep things even with more room to work.

After I take everything apart again I cut the taper into the handle, put it all back together and draw a centre line top and bottom. These are my work to lines, they leave about a 1/4” of flat top and bottom that is easily rounded out with some sanding.

Next I break out my rasp and start working the squarish block in to a smooth flowing handle. I start on the top and work a bit on ones side then the other till both sides are equal by eye then flip it over and do the bottom.

Once I get it to a reasonable shape I smooth out most of the rasp marks on the slack belt of the grinder and do some shoe polishing to blend it all together.

I will have to use the butt of the handle to make a proper size pommel, but the general shape of the guard will stay the same.

After about 4 hours of working on the new handle this is where I am at on the second one.

and the recurve using the same pommel and guard.

And last but not least for today a picture of my ugly broache, it works like a dream even though it looks like crap

Right now I am waiting on the wrought iron I bought to show up and I can start making the real pommels and guards for these two, and hopefully I can find a suitable piece of antler to do the third handle with before the end of the week. Once I have the last handle roughed in I will clean up the sanding on the blades, wash them down and send them out for HT

 

[Brian Ayres]

Ooh lah lahhhh.... Looking nice George! Sucks about the drilling through the block :grumpy: , but very fortuitous that you started with 4 blocks for three knives!:thumbup:

Good job on the broach!

 

[unky_gumbi]

So I will getting back to work on these tomorrow morning, I got my wrought iron today, laid out the guard on the piece that was already forged down and squared up, then flattened a piece of rim, ground it roughly smooth and laid out the guard. Tomorrow morning I will be cutting and grinding them out, then going over the blades again just to make sure all the scratches are out, wrapping them up and sending everything I have ready for HT out. This is the biggest lot for me so far, the 3 Bowies, a Kitchen knife and a couple of utility knives. I have the camera charged up and ready to go so there will be pictures tomorrow.

 

[unky_gumbi]

So as I mentioned I received the wrought iron I bought from AC Richards, so right away I started planning things out and just how I was going to use it. I decided that it would look best on the recurve with the spalted wild apple, so that is where I started. I didn't buy much WI, only 3.5 pounds, because I figured with the type of knives I had been making in the past I wouldn't need much. What I got in the mail was two sections of rim, and a piece that had been already forged down and squared. Worked great for me as I don't really have the set up to forge anything right now.

This is what my 3.5 pounds of WI looked like yesterday

The forged piece looks to have a real nice grain to it:thumbup:

The forged piece was earmark for the guard and I figured I could flatten out a piece of rim for a pommel, so off to the work bench I went and got to work. First thing I did was make sure the forged piece was wide enough for the guard, it was. Then it was over to the band saw to cut off a strip of a rim section and took off the rust and heated it up so I could flatten it out. Once I had that done I could see just how the grain was running in it and I blocked out the section I was going to use, cut it and squared it up on the grinder. I clamp a piece of PG steel to the tool rest and square it to the belt then feed the 4 sides into the belt to get it square. Once I had it squared up I gave the piece a coat of dykem and traced out the test pommel and location of the hole.

With that done I move over to the drill press and load up the proper sized bit and start boring the hole for the tang starting with a pilot hole and coming up to my finished size.

You can see that the piece is still square and slightly over sized. I keep it square so I can easily clamp it in my press vise and over sized so if I miss my mark I have some fuddle room. I have mentioned it before but my drill press is a little wobbly so so a bit of scrap is better than having to make a whole new piece. With the hole drilled I put the knife back together and scribe the actual shape of the butt of the handle onto the steel, then cut off the corners and head back to the grinder to bring everything within fractions of an inch to the finished shape. Yes I center punch my holes, I just didn't take a picture of it

I gave it a test fit, and it looks pretty good in its rough shape, and the pommel is thick enough that I can fine tune the sweep of the handle in that area to make it all blend in nicely.

Next it was onto the guard.

 

[unky_gumbi]

The guard is a bit more challenging for me. The piece of WI that I used for the guard is twice as thick as my test fit guard, so I knew I was going to have to do some shaping and filing on it. Still I started it off the exact same way as I did every other guard I have made. Dykem, pattern, laid out the tang hole, then cut it out to rough shape, punched and drilled a series of holes, and ground the profile the same way I did the pommel.

Now I had to figure out what to do next, I wanted to keep the full thickness of the piece to add a little length to the handle, but I wanted the actual guard to be thinner than the 3/16" test piece. I decided on just splitting the piece of WI and taking away everything below the handle.

Right now it is rough and ugly looking but there is a lot of material to remove, and I am going by my standby of, if I am butting or blending a piece into another start bigger than you want, and slowly take it down to size. If I am making a hole I start way under sized and bring it up to the proper size. It may look like my tang hole in the guard is off, but I mark it with about .030" under sized, so I am well withing my specs and have a ton of room to work with in the fitting.

Tomorrow I may take away some more of the guard and bring it closer to its finished size, but I really want to be able to put everything together to get the transitions perfect, and I wont work on the tang hole now till it gets back from HT, simply because I don't know how much thickness I will lose in HT and finishing. So this one may be done till after HT now. I need to get a pommel nut still and I have a couple of ideas, one is trying to forge something and tap it, the other is just cut off a piece of the forged WI, shape it with the grinder and some files and epoxy a #12-24 nut inside of it. I have a bit of time to figure it out still though.

 

[unky_gumbi]

Wow things are getting pushed back quickly these days

Not much to report in the way of progress today, my elbows are a little tired from yesterdays filing session.

I did finally decide on a handle for the 3rd knife, and how I am going to do the nut on the knives. I am just going to go with mild steel rod, cut it shape it, and give it a finish of some sort. I am not sure if I had mentioned it, but I had wanted to go with antler for the last one. The thing is the place I was going to pick up some locally shut down his out of house business and moved everything to a Flea Market in Ottawa. I searched all the online stores and the buy and sell here, but everything was out of my price range or just didn't fit my vision of how the handle should look. If I could have seen things in person I may have changed my mind about buying some of the stuff I looked at, but its just too hard to picture all the little nuances and twists and turns in a piece of antler from a 2 dimensional picture on a computer screen. I still want to do an antler handle at some time, but I will buy the antler and design the knife from there. Or I could just get lucky and my brother will bag a big buck this season and I can grab the antlers from that in exchange for a new hunting knife

 

[unky_gumbi]

Well due to financial reasons, I can only send 2 of the blades out for HT at this time, but in 2 weeks I will be sending out the third and possibly 2 or 3 other blades I have on the go as long as I get the money I lent out today back by then. On a brighter side the block I ordered for the third knife shipped today, so I get to do the antsy waiting game till it gets here.

Right now I have the recurve and the high flat grind blades packaged and ready to drop in the mail tomorrow morning, depending on what is in line ahead of my stuff I hope to get everything back by the end of next week early the week after.

 

[unky_gumbi]

So I sent out the first two blades 7 days ago yesterday and they still haven't arrived at their destination according to Canada Post's online tracking I am at a stand still till either they come back or the block of wood for the third knife shows up. I did some work smoothing out the WI guard and cut out and rough shaped some copper spacers for the recurve, but can't bring the spacers up to the finish shape because I have no way of keeping the handle together till the blades get back from HT.

To make the copper spacers I just went out and bought a couple of 3/4" couplers at the hardware store, slit them, and hammered them flat. I had been using some black spacer material before for the test fitting, so I just transferred them to the copper, including the alignment pin holes to the copper, drilled and cut. I didn't want to change the current shape of the guard or pommel, but wanted to use them as guides to rough shape the spacers on the grinder. Knowing that dykem comes off fairly easily I figured what the heck and hit the guard and pommel with a little cold bluing so I could see if I got to close to the guard or pommel. I actually like the way the cold bluing looks on the wrought iron. I had the pieces sanded out to 1000g just because I was bored and with the cold blue they almost looked like black chrome. Combined with the light color of the apple handle and the silver of the blade it made for some stunning contrast, so I am up in the air on whether or not I will cold blue the finished product.

Oh well thats it for today's non update.

 

[unky_gumbi]

WooHoo, the knives have made it to Cremona, and it only took 2 weeks Now all I have to wait for is Rob to work his magic:thumbup: and the post office to return them. If I was still in Winnipeg that would be about a week, maybe less, now that I am in Eastern Ontario I see it taking another 2 weeks once Rob is finished. I am kind of hoping to get these three and three others finished before I start my next round of Tennis Elbow treatments (platelet rich plasma injections) because I don't know how much it will lay me up. At least I think it wont be as long as the surgery was that was, 4 weeks before I could even bend my arm

 

[Brian Ayres]

Nice... Looking forward to seeing how all three blades turn out... I bet that extra shipping time just might push you into getting that heat treat kiln...

 

[unky_gumbi]

Yup, but WCB decided that tey don't have to back pay me for the last 4 months and that was the money I was going to use to buy it I like using knifemaker.ca for my HT, I know that I am getting it done right and what the hardness is. I am just going to have to start setting my pennies away to buy the Even Heat, but until I get the funds together I think I wont be using the cheap shipping any more.

 

[Samael]

I'm really just jumping in here to subscribe to this thread, but you know I cut that bloodwood for you with a handsaw, right? Quit yer moaning.

Looking good, George. I look forward to seeing more.