A Destruction Test Knife WIP

My comment was not to deter you from your goal or process. And not directed at you, but rather my general feeling that some people seem to be more focused on making a knife that will bend to 90 degrees than designing it for its intended purpose (a skinner can be left far harder than say a large chopper).
I admire that you for going through all of your steps on your test knife, to give you the most accurate results possible.:thumbup:
Great thread, and keep up the fine work!
 
I agree with Rick on this one. The ABS test is an okay test of a smith's skill but a poor test of a real knife. Personally, I wouldn't want a knife that COULD pass the bend test as bending to 90 degrees is not a quality I desire in a knife and requires compromises in the qualities that I do care about such as edge holding and strength.

I think a more realistic version of the bend test would be to measure how far it can bend without taking a set or cracking and how much force does it take to get there.

If one knife bends to 90 degrees before cracking and takes 200 ft/lbs of torque to get there but only springs back to 50 degrees and another knife only bent to 60 degrees but took 500 ft/lbs of torque to get there and sprung back to true then which is the better knife? Assume that both were identically ground to the optimal dimensions for cutting and balance.

The bending portion of the ABS test has IMHO really muddied the waters and introduced a lot of confusion as to the actual optimal performance of a good knife due to common misunderstandings of the purpose of the test.


All that said, The knife looks pretty sweet and any kind of test will help go a long way towards understanding the performance of your knives. I think it's great to test a knife made exactly how you would make any other, that way you know for sure what any of your knives can and can't do. And when you're done it can go on the shelf as a proud reminder of your current skills and future goals.
 
Good example,Rick.
I was going to use the example that Blue might be studying French for his German test. Both languages are good to know, and should be learned beyond just taking the test, but no mater how good your French gets, it won't be much help on the German exam.

Blue has a good knife there, and if he wants to break it, that is OK,too. It just won't tell him about how good the knife is...just where it fails the test.

In my opinion, the makers plate on the RICASSO (The choil is where the sharpened edge meets the unsharpened edge, usually with a small indentation) is a bad idea. It will make a weak place where you want strength, and there will be a potential rust area that will constantly haunt the owner. The sanitary issues are not a real worry, but anything that gets under the plate ( and stuff will) will grow all sorts of bacteria. The plate is a neat idea, but should be intetted and pinned to the handle, or on the butt plate.


I feel that the ABS test is one of th most misunderstood things in the knife community.

It has nothing to do with the knife being a good knife.....it has everything to do with the maker being a good smith.

The assumption is that being a good maker will allow you to make a good knife....but the test is of the maker, not the knife.
After all. it is the American Bladesmith Society, not the American Knife Society.


Don't be too hard on Blue, folks.
We folks down in the temperate zones don't understand the Canadian need to pursue things to the max. It is genetic, comming from milennia of hunkering down for 10 months a year trying to find things to do and not go crazy ...or freeze to death ;)

Go for it Blue, I am interested in seeing how the test comes out.
 
bladsmth said:
Don't be too hard on Blue, folks.
We folks down in the temperate zones don't understand the Canadian need to pursue things to the max. It is genetic, comming from milennia of hunkering down for 10 months a year trying to find things to do and not go crazy ...or freeze to death ;)
Click to expand...

:p:p

Stacey - Thank you for your perspective...... and for correctly defining that flat part thingy. :thumbup:

A few updates:
-Yesterday, following Rick's advice, I re-tempered the blade at 425 F for 1 1/2 hrs.
-I've decided to use a piece of fairly plain Red Maple for the handle. The Red Oak I had originally intended to use is actually reclaimed from a New Brunswick bog and has some wonderful figuring and color... its just to damn nice for this project.

At the moment I'm out at the forge pounding out a copper spacer. I have a bunch of errands to do in town today and a dinner party tonight, so I might not get a whole lot done today.... we'll see.

Thanks for ALL the comments and tips.

Back later.
 
I just finished the copper spacer for this knife. Here's my process:

This backyard shed is where I keep my forge:


My Chili Habenero forge:


Anvil and canola oil quench tank:


Steel supply..... some new from Aldo, some old stuff from our farm.


I'm using a piece of an old boat propeller shaft for this spacer:


I'll use the small piece on the right:


Showing promise:


Forging is completed:


I just need a small portion of this plate:


I'll flatten on the belt sander:


Refining the surfaces and getting a consistent thickness:


All these little vertical scratches need to vanish:


Rough shaping is done:


Marked and drilled for the tang slot:


Filing one hole big enough to fit my saw:


Sawing out the remaining material:


The spacer has been filed and cleaned up a bit. It is now completed and ready for assembly:


That's all for now folks.

More to come...........
 
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Here's today's work:

To this point everything has been rough shaped and fitted. And it shows. So, the first thing is to clean up the blade/guard/spacer fit.

The shoulders need to be refined and radiused, and the adjoining guard slot needs to be fine tuned to accept the radiused shoulders.
There can be no light showing from this angle as well as from head on, and the fit will be tight and solid.


The next step is to refine the guard/spacer fit. This will entail removing a bit of stock from the contoured handle-side face.... essentially extending the length of the flat contact surface.


AFTER the guard/spacer fit is perfect, I can move on to the handle. I have a template from a previous project, that will work just fine for this knife:


Mind you, I will need to do this layout again after the fitting session described again, but......
Handle profile is transferred to the block and the tang is positioned appropriately. I then extend those lines to the end surface and layout the dimensions and position for the tang slot. ** keen eyes will detect that I'm using a block of fairly plain Cherry, rather than the Maple I earlier mentioned**


The blade, at the ricasso, is 3/16", so I'll use a 5/32" bit to drill the slot holes and then carefully refine the fit with broaches and files.


Being that the drill bit is only "so" long, this determines the depth of the hole I can drill and somewhat correspondingly, the length of the tang.


So, block and tang are marked with reference lines and work can begin. Again, I need to do this part of the layout again after guard/spacer fitting to get a more accurate layout.


So, there's today's work. I'll take photos of the process along the way.

Thanks for putting up with my decidedly poor photography.
 
Progress!

I managed to get everything fit and nearly ready for final assembly.

I still need to check the joinery - yet again, cut the handle block more to shape, give the guard and spacer a final shaping, and give the blade final polish and cleaning. I might get it glued it up later tonight..... we'll see.

Anyway, this was my day:
Start with a reference line for the shoulders. I don't have a file guide so I do this by eye and feel.


Here's my mark:


Check for square:


I'm using a warn 120 grit:


Finished on the grinder:
Spine shoulder -


Lower shoulder -


Fitted with the guard. I needed to contour the lower shoulder to the slight curve of the guard.


NOW I can give the blade a good cleaning and wrap it with paper towels and tape:


To fit the spacer I need to extend the surface area just the bit. So I set up my Rube Goldbergian jig on the drill press with sanding wheels and fair in a longer flat.


Just a check to see where I'm grinding:


Tape up a piece of 220 and smooth things out a bit:


I accept this for now:


I redrew the tang and handle layout to the new profile and marked the drill holes:


Check for square:


Drilled out. I used dummy bits in the previous holes so the active bit didn't drift into the adjacent hole:


I made up a bunch of broaches to clean out handle slots. These are old T-shank jig saw blades that I soldered together and ground to shape. I have singles, doubles and one triple. I've used these for years and they work fairly well.


I use these two the most:


Drill holes connected:


I also modified this rasp to fit into the slot and clean up the sides.....the flat-side teeth are left intact:


I coat the tang with red marker to indicate high spot and just keep filing and fitting, filing and fitting.......


Cleaned up a bit:


To get rid of any slop from overzealous digging, I use two small strips of Bloodwood veneer.


These will be attached to the sides of the slot with quick setting epoxy using the tang to press then into place. The tang will be removed just as it tacks up.:


Here's the slot and face cleaned up:


All contact surfaces have been cleaned up and the joints checked for fit.


This is where I stop for dinner:
 
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I'm gonna hate to see the photos of this beauty all beat up ;). Looks Great, and enjoy all the pictures thanks for taking the time to post them.
 
That is looking really nice! When you are finished, I think you should just send it me and I'll test if for you...long term testing...like the rest of my lifetime...;)

Matt
 
Last year, at Ashokan, I witnessed a JS test. I couldn't get over how nice of a knife it was, then destroyed on the final test. Sure, some research showed that there are lots of knives tested with duck tape handles and 120 grit finishes, but a lot of them appear to be nice knives. Today I finally understand why you might go through all the effort of finishing before the test. I originally thought it was for the extra experience of finishing a knife, I now realize this probably isn't the case. It's your first attempt at the JS test(even if you aren't an ABS member) and you will probably keep the knife as part of your collection. You're gonna want to show it off to other makers saying "Here is the knife I did the JS test with!" If you're gonna have a destroyed knife in your collection, it should be a darn pretty knife otherwise!

Is this about right, BigBlue??
 
Zaph - At some point it might be great to say... "This is the knife I did the JS test with"............ quite likely when I take, and pass, the actual ABS JS test. But, yes I'll be tickled if the thing does well.

This began as folly....to enjoy and learn from the process of making a new knife. Its how I learn. I also did it to see if a knife I built, could withstand a good testing. Am I going overboard to produce a test knife? Yup., But I'm not making a test knife..... I'm making a knife that will be tested.

Hair splitting, I know.
 
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I respect what you're doing and am particularly interested to see what happens around the tang and ricasso when you go to bend this.

Still... it's a shame to ruin such a nice piece of work. I guess you could always rip it apart and salvage the guard.
 
Just my 2 cents, and maybe I'm half asleep and not making sense. But you could draw back the temper before putting a nice finish on it.. then you won't have to sand it twice. I am quite interested to see how well it does on the bend test! This is something I want to try doing myself.
 
mgysgthath - You're half asleep. :p

But, yes. I certainly could have done that..... if I wasn't half asleep.
 
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Bigblue17,

While I may not agree with every procedure your are undertaking during this project, "I APPRECIATE YOUR TIME, EFFORTS, and ESPECIALLY YOUR ZEAL". I am following your experiment closely and learning a lot from the robust discussions. Your tenacity, in approaching old paradigms with question will likely make you a better smith. I would personally adhere to the Masters and Journey Smiths tutorials for such an import project. Thanks for generating such healthy and informative learning.

Bobby,

Hershey, PA:thumbup:
 
I agree with Bobby - You are cutting no corners on this knife. If you shipped it to a customer, it wouldn't need one single thing....but you aren't going to do that.
What the full detail job on this knife will tell you is how your best knives do in the tests. With this, you will be confident exactly how your knives will hold up in rough use when they get to a customer.
 
I managed to get the guard and handle glued up and curing for the night. I was hoping to get this done by 10:00am this morning, but.......... I "chose" to spend most of the day installing a new toilet and bathroom floor instead.

I did spend about two hours this morning (pre-bathroom reno) fine tuning all joinery. Then, just for shits and giggles, I blued the guard with some Birchwood Casey Perma Blue that I was given by a hunting guide who lives up the road. I've never tried blueing and I like the look, so........the guard was sanded to 800 then given two successive coats of blueing, then polished to a nice luster.

I started the day with a young, but determined helper in the shop:


Shaping the spacer:


Its a bit more "oval" than I wanted, but its a good shape and there's plenty of contact surface.


Cut away some stock:


Shape on the drill press:


Checking the fit.... yet again. Just a nice perspective to detect if everything's flush as it approached contact:


Contact:


The tang was sanded clean with 180 grit, then textured with a file. Everything was then deburred and given a good cleaning with acetone to await assembly:


The blade was given a final polish at 1000, as well were the spine and ricasso, then cleaned well and re-wrapped for gluing:


I usually have System Three around the shop. Its a good epoxy and I'm used to working with it.


The tang is coated with epoxy steel and the guard lowered into place:


The same is done with the spacer, then the handle block is fitted and press firmly in place. The handle block is then clamped in place until the epoxy steel is set. After ten minutes, the handle block is removed and the faces cleaned well.


I start by cleaning away the excess with a sharp copper wedge.


I'm looking for a nice smooth seam. I remove most of the bulk with the wedge, then use q-tips and acetone to clean it up. This side is almost there:


After I scuff up the inside of the tang slot with a broach and then clean it out well, I pour in some epoxy. Using a stir stict, I'll mash the epoxy about to get it into cracks and such, then pour in more. I use a bamboo skewer to poke around and get out any bubbles. I'll let that settle for a minute or so before inserting the tang. I also give the block face a coating of epoxy.


The tang and spacer face are slathered with epoxy being sure all the notches and crevices are filled in, leaving no air bubbles:


The tang is fully seated and the excess epoxy has been quickly wiped away. I don't mind leaving a small bead of epoxy around the handle/spacer seam. I just don't want any epoxy left to dry on the guard, so I go to lengths to get it good and clean:


And, finally.... after everything has been checked, and double checked for alignment.... its time for my gluing jig.
I'll leave as is it to cure overnight.


Have a great night,

Peter
 
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I got some work done this morning and thought I would post some progress photos while I have some lunch.

Fist - I should introduce my most valuable, and likely the most accurate, jig my the shop. A collaborative, albeit unknowing, effort between K&G Stabilizing, Aldo Bruno, Sharpie, Scotch Tape and myself, this is a jig Nick Wheeler would truly be proud of.... indeed he was the inspiration for it. When I saw(read) Nick do this with decidedly nicer tools and immeasurably more skill, this become standard procedure to confirm everything is still in alignment. Someday I'll get some fancy stuff, but for now this works.

I have a bar of precision ground 1" square, O1 steel, and a 7/8" block of stabilized Box Elder burl atop a clean slab of polished granite. I tape the top of the steel bar to protect the blade, press the ricasso down firmly and proceed to run the pen from blade tip to the handle butt - on both sides. On knives with a significant taper, the pen tip doesn't make it all the way to the tip, but it will at least indicate any problem by about half blade. When I want to check the blade tip I tape a sewing needle or drill bit to the block and check by eye. If any of this showed something was drastically off, then I screwed up somewhere.... something's not flat or square. I was pretty confident in the alignment before I glued it up anyway, but its a great post glue-up check and a good way to extend layout lines onto the handle block.




The conflicting pencil lines seen on the block were drawn last night when I showed the process to a friend. At that time the ricasso was still well wrapped with paper towel and tape which translated to falsely drawn lines.


After layout I could give the blade a good cleaning and wrapping, and tape on two protective strips of wood to the sides of the blade. I'll also wrap the guard a bit later. Now I can drill the pin holes. Check for square:


Two 3/16" pin holes.


The holes are plugged with a wood dowel:


Trimmed and ready for handle shaping:


The block is sanded down to my layout lines and is now ready for shaping. I use a new 50 grit belt for this and go cautiously to prevent heat generation. I don't want to screw up my epoxy bond:


The template lines are re-drawn:


Stock is removed:


The shape is refined with a new 50 grit belt:


The curves are refined on my drill press with a variety of wheel sizes. I'll attend to the very front edge later on, but the handle is now shaped and ready for contouring.


That's all for now.
 
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