3rd time at knife making

[Mikel_24]

Long ago I made my first knife. It was a beefy scandi with blue canvas micarta handles. After finishing that knife I started making two new blades with full flat grinds (my second and third knives). Instead of heat threating those two blades I decided to work in bigger batches so I made another two blades and threat the four of them at the same time (firing up my forge is a mess...).

One of the previous twin blades got ruined during the heat threating process. Basicaly I melt it good… It was my first time using a mixture of charcoal and coal instead of charcoal alone and I heated up the blade waaaay too much. The other three came out fairly good.

I finished the three blades, attached the white/green canvas micarta handles and started finishing them. Somehow I managed to finish this two blades earlier so I am posting them right here.

I won’t go over the whole process but I will tell you that I started with 5mm leaf springs for the blades and worked on them with an angle grinder, files and a drill. I skeletonized the handles to save weight via files. I did the spine cuts (non slipping purposes) with a 1mm cutting disc on the angle grinder. One blade came out fairly good (evenly spaced) but the other did not. I don’t have accesss to liner material so I just made a slab of pseudo-micarta with three strips of thick white canvas and about 14 strips of thinner green fabric (not exactly canvas but close). Blade is sanded up to 600grit (both knives have been used prior to taking pictures… sorry… I couldn’t resist) and the handles up to 800grit. I don’t have a buffer.

A few pictures of the process:

Feel free to say what you think about them. So far I can see I left a few deep scratches near the ricasso area (PITA to sand by hand). The glue line is visible in some spots (got to fix some kind of rig to distribute the pressure from the clamps along the whole length of the handle slabs). Next time I won’t do any spine cuts (hot spots and blade weakness).

Overall view.

Spine shots. Crap… I wish I had thinner stock available! Working with leaf springs doesn’t let you go thinner…

In hand.

In hand.

Glue line visible in some spots.

Convex edge on both knives.
Yesterday I forgot to measure and weight the knives to list the specs. I will try to do it this very same afternoon and edit this very same post with them.

So far I have been doing food prep with them and the wharncliffe blade also saw some wood shaving, battoning and such (we made a fire and I had the chance of using it). They really keep an edge so I guess I got the HT about right (two tempering cycles of two hours at 220ºC). Don’t ask me about the RC… I have no idea.

Mikel

PD: This designs are inspired by some TK knives I saw here in BF.

 

[JTknives]

o i live them. that warny looks bad A

 

[ddavelarsen]

Man those are great! With all your apologizing before hand I thought I was going to see some ugly knives, but No! Those look just fine. I wish I could say my first knives looked that good but I'd be lying. You are really on a roll, and that's very inspiring. Keep up the good work, and thanks for sharing!

 

[PB Wilson]

I find that I'm my biggest critic when it comes to my various projects. Yeah it's not perfect, but damn! Those knives look great! The look like you could work them hard until the end of time and they'd still come back for more. Nice job! Don't be so hard on yourself.

 

[Burchtree]

Those look good. It looks like your elbow grease paid off!

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

They look good, and especially good for knife two and three. Don't worry about the glue line. You can dye the glue with epoxy colorants to match the handle material to eliminate the problem. Keep up the excellent work.

Do yourself a favor, and order some steel.Buying some precision ground blade stock will make your life easier,too. A piece of metal will only cost from $10 to $20 ,depending on the type, and should make at least two knives.You can decide on the thickness you want, not the thickness you have. AND, you will know what it is for a better heat treatment.

Take a piece of micarta or hard wood and use it as a backing block for hand sanding. It makes for flatter sanding and better scratch removal.

Try a shallow curved depression (about 1/4-3/8" deep) for the thumb, instead of those saw teeth. It is more comfortable on the finger, and still provides blade control. I center the curve right above the ricasso, flowing the curve into the handle.
Stacy

 

[trentu]

Great Job!!! Love the spacer material and spines.

 

[Mikel_24]

...Do yourself a favor, and order some steel.Buying some precision ground blade stock will make your life easier,too. A piece of metal will only cost from $10 to $20 ,depending on the type, and should make at least two knives.You can decide on the thickness you want, not the thickness you have. AND, you will know what it is for a better heat treatment...

Thanks for all the good advices Stacy. I will try to apply them to my next batch. I need to ask in the Spanish Cutlery forum ARMAS BLANCAS about the dealers who can provide some precision ground blade stock. I am thinking about a few neckers and 5mm seems like overkill to me... . I still have a lot of leaf spring left (even thicker!) so I will be crafting a few bigger knives. My main problem is getting the pieces straight...

Love the spacer material and spines.

Not wanting to spend any money in spacer material I just used three strips of thick white canvas. I am looking for some red canvas to do the same in my next pseudo-micarta slabs. I will probably have to buy it. Seems like my gf and her sister don't have any old ones now...

Mikel