3rd knife ever finally done

R

Rick1-2

Joined
Nov 14, 2016
Messages
34
first of all thanks guys for your advices, for the knife i used a piece of old angle iron my neighbor gave me(she has a gigantic barn with all kinds of old stuff in there) acording to the spark test it seems to have a high carbon content, the sparks are alot different than a mower blade or rebar, first i had to aneal it to cut it then shape it, gave it the bevel then heat treated it, after the treating the file just glides off it, then the oven at 340 for 1 hour, did that twice, the pins are solid brass and the hole i put copper tubing thru, this sure taught me alot, i did it all with a grinder and a 1x30 hf belt grinder, the handles are red oak, they sell little slabs in lowes anyways tell me what u think and thanks




 
Good job buddy! Little tip, use a q-tip and rubbing alcohol to clean the epoxy off the ricasso while it's wet.
 
you can get the epoxy off now with acetone, just dab it on with a qtip and let is set for 10 seconds or so, then scrape at it with a toothpick. I would also suggest grinding the scales back to the tang to even it up. Great third effort.
 
I don't know if your posting to show us the knife or to get us to review it for tips to make it better.
I will give you some tips any way.

1: The pins are not centered and do not go through the handle scales straight. this is usually one of the first things the human eye sees as our brain is very good at establishing centres of things and when somthing is off it sticks out like a sore thumb. Tip, make sure your scales are an even thickness and the sides are parallel. Use the holes in the tang to establish the location. If the scale surfaces are not parallel then the side that's going to set on the tang I set on the drill press table because the drill bit is square to the table. When I drill holes in the tang I eyeball them. Your eye can detect very fine amount of "not centered". I use a center punch to mark the drill location and create a little hole for the drill bit to center on.

2: handle needs to be taken all the way to the tang. I can see in the picture that in some areas the handle is wider then the actual steel. You should be able to run your finger over the tang area and not feel where the wood and steel start and end. You don't need fancy equipment for this. You just need corse sand paper and somthing to wrap it around that gives you control. Use somthing round like a 2" Diamater pipe. This is very quick and only takes a few min to bring that wood down. Then move to finer grits of sand paper and keep working the tang area around the handle. Now you can use that same pipe and corse sand paper to shape the handle. It needs to be flowing without sharp or angular edges. Your going after a sort of oval shap if looking at the butt of the knife with the point pointing away from you. You want somthing that fits your hand with no hot points that are uncomfortable.

3: DONT RUSH. Biggest mastake new people make is rushing becaus thy want it to be done. Being new and not having a shop full of tools is not an excuse to just hacking out a knife. If you take your time and really work at it you would be surprised at what you can do. Don't take any shortcuts or say that's good enough becaus it's not. Trust me I have been there, as soon as you start excepting flaws becaus you don't want to put it the time to fix them you are on a slippery down hill slope. My father ALLWAYS told me growing up while I worked with him. Son it's not worth doing if you don't do it right. So ALLWAYS do your best and put your Heart into it and you will be surprised what you can do.

You have started down the path of learning and the more you learn the more you relize how much you don't know. As a little analogy, say you draw a small circle and everything you know is inside that circle. From inside the circle you look around and see the perimeter of the circle. This perimeter represents the boundary of your knowledge. But as you learn more the circle gets bigger and so does the perimeter. Don't let this get you down, let it be a driving force to help you grow and get better.
 
thanks guys, fochops thanks for the tip (i had to look up what ricasso was lol) and kevin i don't understand what u mean abou t grinding the scales back to the tang to even it up, please explain, thanks guys this is what i need, i like to hear what i did wrong so i can improve it, im always willing to learn, ive been fishing since i was born( my mom has pics of me as a baby on a boat) 44 years later i still ask questions and learn.

jt thanks i had wrote the top and when i pressed post quick reply it said something about expired and to refresh the page so i copied the top part to not lose it, i know what u mean about the pins not being centered, don't understand number 2 part, would love too, please explain and number 3 you're absolutely right towards the end i rushed, i wanted to see it finished cause these months i barely have time for anything.

again thanks for the reviews
 
also just noticed what u said about the pins at an angle, i guess time for a drill press
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top