About to start making my 5th and 6th knives on CNC

[Macchina]

I am about to start cutting my 5th and 6th knives. I design them in CAD, cut the general shape on a CNC (along with the bevels), and finish them off by hand. I plan on finishing these ones with nylon, aluminum, or G11 handles, I haven't decided yet.
The big one has a 5.75" blade, and the smaller one is 4". The steel is 3/16" O1. I like to make my grinds almost full flat, but leave 1/4" full thickness for spine strength.

Here is the design:

I made one last year that fit my hand like a glove, but then I broke my hand and it healed funny. Ever since, the knife has felt funny when I hold it, So I'm redisigning a new one to fit my new hand shape.

Here is another one I made a while back. I am using the same handle design, because it turned out so well:

Feel free to coment on the design, I don't get the material (3/16" O1) until tomorrow.
Thanks for looking,
Michaelmcgo

 

[Lucky Bob]

Very cool! Since I learned CAD at college, I'm a big fan of people doing CAD/CAM knives, and those are GREAT examples (although the blade curves look a little fake/computery)

 

[Macchina]

I keep my curve resolution somewhat low on AutoCAD to increase speed. I design machines, and trying to manipulate 200 mb of rendered CAD data bogs down even the fastest computers.
This is what the big one above looked like in CAD:

 

[Lucky Bob]

Nah, it's not so much the resolution as that the curves themselves seem forced. Not that I've done a statistical analysis, but I'd be willing to bet that no more than a few of the knives this site feature exact arcs on any meaningful scale.

It's something I've been working on in my designs, making them less signaturely-computer-generated. On the other hand, if you look at some of Nathan the Machinist's work here, it's all/mostly CAD/CAM, but his designs go from hand-drawn to NURBS curves, so there's less over-geometrification.

Yes, I like pulling words out of thin air, even if FireFox doesn't like me doing so.

 

[marineni]

I think that looks like a pretty nice knife, thanks for the pictures michaelmcgo

 

[Hard H2O]

I like the 4". Looks like a nice user shape. Looks like a knive I could take hunting.

I think the curves look fine But I do draw lines and circles all day. At least that is what I tell the kids.

My 8 yo daughter asked me how I could stand a job drawing just lines and circles. I had to go into detail about CAD and machines and such.

I am going to have to try my hand at drawing up a knife.

 

[Macchina]

Hard H2O, what CAD program do you run and what do you do?

I'd recommend you draw up some knives. It's fun to design a shape, plot it (or 3D print it if you're lucky), and cut it out of wood to see what it feels like. It's a lot cheaper and easier than making a knife by hand and realizing it sucks to hold onto.

 

[Macchina]

I just finished up these two knives.3/16" O1, green G-11 handles, 5.75" and 4" blade lengths. I plan on using these, so I didn't finish them to look nice, just to work. I left on the scale from the motor oil quench and the straw color from the temper. Full flat ground primary bevels, then convex ground edge: