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

[unky_gumbi]

Made some more progress today, the new belts and the grinder seem to have taken care of the banding marks on the second blade and I am ready to try take it to a mirror finish, but that is about all I did on the blade itself. Most of todays work has been getting the tang holes in the handle blocks and the handle profile cut out.

The first knife I used stabilized spalted wild apple on, the second is getting a nice looking piece of stabilized black dyed redwood burl, and the last one is getting stabilized maple burl. Only the first and second blades have been HT'd so far, the third should go out on October 3rd and while it is gone I can get to work on my KITH back up knife, and another one I need to get done for Christmas as well.

This is what all 3 look like at this moment. The recurve doesn't have a scratch in it, it is cat hairs that i didn't see till I looked at the pictures As soon as I saw it in the pictures I jumped up and went looking for the scratch I also know about the grind lines on the second on not being perfect. I am hoping that I can lessen it with hand sanding, if not then I go back to the grinder and a fine belt at slow speed till I get it right. Right now the blade is on the verge of getting sharp so I felt the need to stop with the grinder for now.

Tomorrow i have a bunch of house related stuff to get out of the way, but I am hoping to the the recurve glued up tonight, and the guard and pommel laid out for the second knife. the handle on the second knife is just a shade short, so I am thinking of adding a ring of amboyna and a copper or brass spacers in behind the guard just for contrast and add about 3/16-1/2" to the handle. Alternatively I could go with some ivory mycarta or tagua nuts (vegetable ivory) instead if the amboyna.

 

[unky_gumbi]

Well while fitting the handle on the second knife I had a bit of a set back. It was a little tight coming apart and when it came free I hit the threaded part of the tang on the vise and snapped it off I was worried about there being a stress riser because I had threaded them before HT so I was ready with a back up plan. The solution was to breakout the handy dandy dremmel tool and a cutting disc to cut out a keyhole and add some threaded rod. Cutting slowly and keeping the tang/blade cool with a steady misting of water I manage to get the V cut into the tang after an our of working. After that I used a diamond bit to make the round opening at the point of the V and pressed in a piece of threaded rod. It was slow going to try and preserve the blade, but I did it and I am on to shaping the guard pommel and spacers before getting to the handle itself. Once I get the handle roughed in and sanded a bit, I am going back to fix the grind lines, knocking of the sharp edge as needed. I went with a amboyna and copper spacers.

 

[unky_gumbi]

So the other day I mentioned that I broke the threaded part of the tang off of the second knife, but I was going to keyhole it to fix it. For those that may not understand what key holing is I figured I would post a couple of pictures as an explanation. Basically you just cut a keyhole shape in the end of the tang and press in a piece of threaded rod, very simple.

Once everything is epoxied together inside the handle it should never move again, but right now it is a tight press fit that would require being tapped out. No those aren't stress marks in the lower picture, that is from the cutting disc getting away from me when I was trying to get the cut started on the back side of the tang

The first thing I did was to cut the taper into the handle. I get my taper from putting the knife together and marking about a 1/16" out side them and draw a line front to back. Then I move over to the wood rasp and start shaping the handle leaving the front bottom section till later. I always mark a center line top and bottom of the handle and then make guide marks and only file to those mark. test feel the handle in both hands and mark out the next guide mark, and repeat till I have something that is the right shape, but a shade over sized.

Now I move on to getting the handle and guard roughed in. The piece of wrought iron I am using is .30" thick, so to make the transition from blade to handle I just marked out the halfway point, .15", and where the bottom of the choil was and started grinding and stopped .15" from the bottom of the choil line. Why .15" from where I ultimately want to be? Well that is so I can make a arched transition into the guard with a chainsaw file.

I also finish roughing in the bottom of the handle at the same time as I make the transition on the guard. I work slowly on the guard first then move to the bottom of the handle and make it match the guard. I do the guard first at each step because steel changes slowly compared to the wood in the handle and the copper spacers. I do my best to always start on my off hand and make my strong side match the weak, doing it the other way is just too hard for me.

So now the handle is just slightly over sized and I have used nothing but files on it, except for the little grinding on the guard. It may not look it in the pictures but things are just a hair big.

With the handle roughed in it was time to take care of the uneven bowed grind lines. Starting with a new 120g ceramic belt and my grinder running at 25-30% and using a light touch I started working on getting the grind line as flat as I possibly could. It went something like this, starting with my off hand I brought the blade to the belt about 1" from the plunge line as square as possible moved into the plunge, then slowly out to the tip, and dipped the blade. I kept doing this for about 5 passes, checking my progress each pass, then switched sides and did it again, until I had what I considered passable and I could fix any imperfections with hand sanding.

Before:

After:

Still not perfect but a heck of a lot better than before. Now I can move on to hand sanding the blade, and once that is finished I will finish the front of the guard, epoxy it together and finish the handle once I know it is not coming apart ever again. Once I get it ready to be marked and sharpened I will post more pictures.

Next week I start on a special knife and my Kith knife, both will be in CPM D2, but I still need to pick out some handle material for them, I better get that done today before bed

 

[Burl Source]

Have you made any more progress on these?
I am anxious to see how they turn out.

 

[unky_gumbi]

No I have been clearing out a flooded basement that had a bit of black mold I had to empty everything and truck it to the dump then tear down all the walls and insulation. Doing this all by myself and dealing with the most painful shots in my elbow at the same time. If a doctor ever suggest doing platelet rich plasma injections punch him or her in the nose:grumpy: I should get back to them tomorrow or the day after now that I have the basement cleared out. I still have to scrub the cinder block walls with bleach, but due to poor ventilation and not having a vapor rated cartridge on my respirator I can only spend about 15-20 minutes every 2-3 hours down there Tomorrow morning I will just be spraying everything down, then it off to physio, do some sanding for a few hours, spray again, back to sanding for the rest of the day. So with luck I should have some progress to post tomorrow.

I have managed to grind out a really nice 8 1/2" CPM D2 bowie last weekend though I have one more of them to do then they are off for HT the week of the 17th:thumbup:

 

[unky_gumbi]

Oh the frustrations of making knives with people who just don't know anything about knives around you:grumpy: I spent most of Friday afternoon and this morning working on sanding out the second knife. I had a beautiful even finish and nice sharp grind lines at 800g. I know this because I had just finished washing it off and drying it, and had just inspected every inch of it under 10x jewelers loop when my brother showed up, to take care of some things that I couldn't do thanks to my elbow here at my mothers. Well I could help him, but the brute force had to be applied by him, so I set the knife down on the counter, wrapped in paper towel to protect it and went to give him a hand. 2 hours later when I was able to get back to the knife I couldn't find it. after about an hour of searching I finally found it stuffed in a drawer with a bunch of tools minus the protective wrapping My mother thought that was a good place for it and that the paper towel wasn't needed. I am hoping that the scratches will come out just by going back over it with a few strips of 800g, because I don't want to have to go back any further

I have since explained to her that any knife that I am making is to be treated like fine china until it is shipped to its new home or I decide that I am keeping it and get some pictures before it gets used. So instead of taking update pictures tomorrow I will be sanding just to get where I was this morning. I was really hoping to get it sanded out to 2500 tomorrow, but I am not sure I will make it that far now before Monday. I also have my Kith knife and 2 others to get ready for HT. Looks like I will be burning the midnight oil for the rest of the week to get caught up again

 

[unky_gumbi]

OK so I am heading out to take some pictures of the second knifes current condition in a few minutes, but it isn't staying that way. I was going for a mirror finish on this one, but I have either lost my touch or my standards have risen. I wold go with the latter on that. While it looks OK I can see millions of tiny scratches and the whole blade just looks hazy, so I am stepping it back to an 800g satin.

Now that i have a bit of time to work on the knives again, things should move a little faster. Today I should get the satin finish done and some more shaping on the handle, guard, and pommel. Before the end of the week this one should be done, or close enough that all i have to do is epoxy it together. I am still waiting on my acraglas to come in, but if it isn't here soon I will have to go buy something else.

Next pay I will be sending the 3rd knife from the set off for HT along with my KITH knife and one other. Once again I am waiting on the postal system to deliver some handle blocks from Burl Source, that is kind of holding me up on the KITH and other knife. It is one thing to have a nice picture to look at and think it will fit a knife, but it is a completely different store to have the block in hand and see it in person. Once the wood order comes in I hand make any tweaks I need on the tangs to make the blades fit the blocks figure.

OK enough typing time to go outside and take some pictures, then make a some what shiny knife not so shiny.

My next tool build will be a buffer I am looking at pulley driven mandrels right now, and have a motor lined up.

 

[unky_gumbi]

So what started off to be a nice mellow knife making day quickly changed into a "do jobs around the house" day. I did manage to get the blade refinished and took before and after pictures, I even managed to get the guard shaped enough to start working on the finish, the pommel needs a bit more work but all in good time.

So here is what the blade looked like before taking it back down to an 800g satin

And with the real tree camo finish

Here you can see the scratches I mentioned in the previous post, they are not deep only 2500g scratches but without a buffer they is no way for me to get rid of them

Being that I has the blade sanded out to 2500g, it was real easy to back it off to 800g. It still looks good, but I think it would have been better with a mirror finish.

In those last two shots, I had shortened the guard and did some more shaping on the handle. I still have a bit of shaping to do before I start sanding for finish on the handle, but is just smoothing out some little bumps and keeping the transitions from metal and wood smooth from here on out. I may put a small wood spacer at the pommel, but will definitely be adding another copper spacer no mater what.

 

[unky_gumbi]

I just got back from the post office, and the mailman was nice to me this fine fall morning. I received a package from Burl Source today. Being that I operate on a tight budget there were only a few of pieces in there, but one of them is for my KITH knife I am just not sure which one yet. Not the best picture, but it will do. I don't want to give too much of what I have planned away

I am pretty sure I can rule out the Sycamore scales as I am not doing a full tang knife so it is up in the air between the Walnut burl and the Afzelia, both are interesting to look at and have the size I need. I guess I will decide as I get closer to finishing the knife. For now it is back to the WIP knives and shaping the copper spacers I put in between the handle and the pommel this morning. I also have to put together the base for a storage shed and do some more cutting on the tank I am going to use as a forge. then there is the buffer project I am starting on so I can actually buff the blade on my KITH knife. Yes it may seem like I have too many projects on the go at once, but I am not working right now so I have the time to get everything done as well as the setting up a section of the basement for a winter shop.

 

[Samael]

I saw that afzelia on Mark's website. It made me really happy that I picked up this chunk of afzelia somewhere else for $40.

(Sorry, Mark.)

 

[unky_gumbi]

Isn't that the one that ended up being o full of voids that there was barely enough left over for your knife? I found out just how much pictures don't do that stuff justice because the piece I got is much more vibrant than the web site picture

 

[Samael]

It's pretty full of voids, yeah. I'll get a couple of handles out of it, though.

 

[unky_gumbi]

So last night I got the guard and pommel near to the finish I want, the front of the guard is right where I want it and the so is the back off the pommel. Next will be to clean the tape goo and finger prints off of the blade and etch my mark into it. After that, thanks to not so good accuracy I will be epoxying the guard in place and letting that set over night, then I glue up the handle and pommel tomorrow. Once the epoxy has had proper time to set, I will be onto the finish work on the handle and sides of the pommel and guard. The set time on the epoxy will take the majority of the time, the finish work, half a day or so if I am able to work uninterrupted, 3 or 4 days the way things have been going

I would have epoxied the guard in place this morning but 2 things got in the way, first I left everything out in the garage last night so I have to wait till everything comes up to room temperature, and I second I got a delivery notice and had to run to the post office to pick the package up. Todays gift from the postman was the piece of steel for my KITH knife. Having a fresh piece of steel in my hands, some spare time, and a project with a quickly approaching deadline I decide I had better get to work.

The steel

a few minutes after the first shots

roughly laid out

After a few more minutes and some rough cutting on the bandsaw

all profiled, except for the tang, I may thin that out or taper it down a bit

and finally the shoulders marked out to be squared, and a rough guess at where I will be putting the plunge line

Tonight I will mark the center and grind lines and get to work at the bevels tomorrow. I should have this one and one other ready to go for HT Monday afternoon early Tuesday morning

 

[unky_gumbi]

Well I have managed to get the second knife almost finished, but the weather here the last week has been horrible and I haven't been able to take any pictures All I have left to do is start applying the tru oil to the handle and make the sheath, followed closely by sharpening it. Once I get that done I will be taking a break from the WIP till I finish my KITH knife. It is in Calgary right now so I hope it is back to me next week.

The weather is suppose to clear up and the winds hopefully will die down before this weekend, so pictures once that happens.

 

[tattooedfreak]

Without a buffer to mirror polish, use .5 micron paper from Lee Valley. Cut it into squares and lube with water and polish it like the Japanese sword polishers use the small stones.

 

[unky_gumbi]

Well I can't seem to be able to take a good picture to save my life so these will have to do.

I finished up the second one, well I still haven't sharpened it yet, but it is more less finished now. My big flaw in this one is I didn't pay close enough attention while I was shaping the bottom of the handle so it dips in to far. Not far enough to go through the handle material and into the tang pocket, but more than enough to disrupt the flow of the knife. I was going along smoothly and everything looked great, but I hit a soft spot in the wood and the paper ripped through to this depth in very few passes The block was free so I have no complaints about it and the overall finish on the wood is stunning and the handle feels right in my hands. The burl has almost a metallic shimmer to it so it dances in the light, but it just wont show up in my poor pictures.

The spacers are Amboyna Burl and copper and the guard and pommel are semi polished wrought iron. The spacer at the pommel end is red vulcanized fiber, sheath is 8-9oz veg tanned leather with some simple tooling and obviously dyed black to match the handle. This is the sheath that I originally made for the recurve, but I decided that the black sheath didn't suit it so I used it here instead and I have a brown sheath in the works for the recurve now. Only thing is I have no thread, or I can't find it in my moving boxes so I have to make a trip to Ottawa on Tuesday to pick some up. I have to go any how because my acraglas never showed up and I used up the stuff I had. I am going to give West Systems epoxy a try now

 

[Mack]

Those pics are pretty darn good. Great looking knife. I must say that I'm impressed.

 

[Frank Niro]

Well done Unky. It looks good. Frank

 

[unky_gumbi]

Thanks guys, maybe its just that I have stared at these for so long that I see every imperfection, but I think I can to much better. We will find out soon, I start the finish work on my KITH knife this afternoon. I must say the CPM D2 comes back clean I am interested to see how easy or hard that it finishes and to just what level I can get it too. I have 28 days to finish it up and put it in a box for shipping, being that I don't work a regular job I think i will be done with plenty of time to spare