Am I on the right track?

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TheEdge01

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It’s not quite as refined as I want it to be, but my belt is getting pretty worn on my belt sander and I don’t have a replacement handy. Anyway, I finished this one up today. I made it out of leaf spring steel since that’s about all I have at the moment. I welcome any opinions or constructive criticisms because I want to know where I need to improve. Thanks
 
Good job on getting one finished up. And for the record, I don’t know many knife makers that see their finished knife without seeing things they want to improve. But kudos to you for asking for feedback.
-I like the blade shape for utilitarian tasks. Your grinding will get better the more blades you do along with having the various grit belts you want that aren’t worn out :).
-I can’t see a lot in the picture as to your plunge lines, but making those areas nice and symmetrical are all things that come with practice. It looks like there may be some marks or gunk in front of your scale on the steel. If it’s from trying to sand/shape the front of the scale after it was on your knife, the best bet is to sand/finish the front of your scale before you epoxy it on. There’s no good, effective way to shape it after it’s on without accidentally marking up the steel. If it’s epoxy squeeze out, a friend told me a trick once. After you’ve finished the front of the scale and have the placement figured out on the knife, put a little glob of Vaseline in front of that line on each side. Apply your epoxy and scales and once it’s clamped, wipe up the squeeze out. Use a little denatured alcohol if you want on a folded blue paper towel or q-tip right at the front of the scale. Once you’re fairly satisfied, push the Vaseline up to the front of the scale. This helps keep epoxy from being able to adhere to the steel very well at the front of the scale. When it’s all dried, wipe away the Vaseline and clean it all up. A little brass rod with a point ground into it can be used to carefully pick away any epoxy right at the front of the scale without marring your steel blade.
-With good surface prep and the right epoxy, you can certainly get away with no pins in your handle, but it can be risky. Especially depending upon the intended use of the knife and what sort of environment/tasks it’ll be in and used for.

Use the knife for whatever stuff you can. See how it feels in hand when actually using it. See how it reforms and how long it takes before you need to sharpen it. I’ve made my best discoveries on what I want to change on the next knife by using the ones I’ve made. From blade length, shape, steel thickness, handle shape, etc-it all might seem good in my head, but there’s no substitute for putting it to work and seeing if theory and practice match up :). Oh, and if possible, get your hands on other maker’s knives. Especially towards the beginning, seeing and handling other knives gave me really valuable starting points on changing some of my handle designing, shaping, etc. Hope some of that was helpful and thanks for posting your knife up. It sure is satisfying working on a project like that and having a useful tool at the end.

Jeremy
 
First let me say welcome to the addiction. LOL.
Second never take any criticism negatively. Those who offer constructive criticism usually want to help. The few who are rude may be having a bad day or just a bad life.
For a beginners knife it looks pretty good. Without a reference for size it limits the appraisal. The blade shape looks good, the small tip sticking down behind the coil looks like it would be hard on the fingers. It is usually good to have something to keep your fingers from slipping forward onto the cutting edge; a guard, a finger grove, or a handle which the butt rest in the palm of the hand to keep it from sliding forward.
Remember the purpose of the knife is to cut, looking pretty is secondary. Your grinding looks fine and will improve with experience.
Your grips need a couple of pins in addition to whatever adhesive you used. It's kinda like soldering, make a good mechanical joint first then add solder (or in this case adheasive.)
I'm not saying your grips are shaped wrong, they may be wonderful in the hans but without holding the knife I can only guess so I'm making suggestions as to thi gs to consider:
Hold the knife in your hand and squeeze as hard as you can, if there are any sections of the grips which make your hand uncomfortable, change them. If you plan on using the knife in the opposite hand repeat with the knife in the other hand. with the blade full or taped really well, grip the knife and put the tip against a firm vertical surface and push your hand should not slide forward onto the blade. If it does reshape the handle or add a deeper finger grove.
Most people hold a knife like they were cutting down. Just remember to rotate it like you were cutting left to right, right to left and from down to up. If it feels like crap in your hand I any of these positions you may want to consider changing the grip shape in the next knife
It has been my experience that is is usually as fast to build a new knife than to disassemble the existing one and start over.
Oh, yeah most wood holds up longer with some kind of finish on it.
Jim
Ps looking forward to seeing the next knife
 
gudspelr said:
Good job on getting one finished up. And for the record, I don’t know many knife makers that see their finished knife without seeing things they want to improve. But kudos to you for asking for feedback.
-I like the blade shape for utilitarian tasks. Your grinding will get better the more blades you do along with having the various grit belts you want that aren’t worn out :).
-I can’t see a lot in the picture as to your plunge lines, but making those areas nice and symmetrical are all things that come with practice. It looks like there may be some marks or gunk in front of your scale on the steel. If it’s from trying to sand/shape the front of the scale after it was on your knife, the best bet is to sand/finish the front of your scale before you epoxy it on. There’s no good, effective way to shape it after it’s on without accidentally marking up the steel. If it’s epoxy squeeze out, a friend told me a trick once. After you’ve finished the front of the scale and have the placement figured out on the knife, put a little glob of Vaseline in front of that line on each side. Apply your epoxy and scales and once it’s clamped, wipe up the squeeze out. Use a little denatured alcohol if you want on a folded blue paper towel or q-tip right at the front of the scale. Once you’re fairly satisfied, push the Vaseline up to the front of the scale. This helps keep epoxy from being able to adhere to the steel very well at the front of the scale. When it’s all dried, wipe away the Vaseline and clean it all up. A little brass rod with a point ground into it can be used to carefully pick away any epoxy right at the front of the scale without marring your steel blade.
-With good surface prep and the right epoxy, you can certainly get away with no pins in your handle, but it can be risky. Especially depending upon the intended use of the knife and what sort of environment/tasks it’ll be in and used for.

Use the knife for whatever stuff you can. See how it feels in hand when actually using it. See how it reforms and how long it takes before you need to sharpen it. I’ve made my best discoveries on what I want to change on the next knife by using the ones I’ve made. From blade length, shape, steel thickness, handle shape, etc-it all might seem good in my head, but there’s no substitute for putting it to work and seeing if theory and practice match up :). Oh, and if possible, get your hands on other maker’s knives. Especially towards the beginning, seeing and handling other knives gave me really valuable starting points on changing some of my handle designing, shaping, etc. Hope some of that was helpful and thanks for posting your knife up. It sure is satisfying working on a project like that and having a useful tool at the end.

Jeremy
Click to expand...

Thank you, I really appreciate it, your advice was very helpful.
 
DAMNENG said:
First let me say welcome to the addiction. LOL.
Second never take any criticism negatively. Those who offer constructive criticism usually want to help. The few who are rude may be having a bad day or just a bad life.
For a beginners knife it looks pretty good. Without a reference for size it limits the appraisal. The blade shape looks good, the small tip sticking down behind the coil looks like it would be hard on the fingers. It is usually good to have something to keep your fingers from slipping forward onto the cutting edge; a guard, a finger grove, or a handle which the butt rest in the palm of the hand to keep it from sliding forward.
Remember the purpose of the knife is to cut, looking pretty is secondary. Your grinding looks fine and will improve with experience.
Your grips need a couple of pins in addition to whatever adhesive you used. It's kinda like soldering, make a good mechanical joint first then add solder (or in this case adheasive.)
I'm not saying your grips are shaped wrong, they may be wonderful in the hans but without holding the knife I can only guess so I'm making suggestions as to thi gs to consider:
Hold the knife in your hand and squeeze as hard as you can, if there are any sections of the grips which make your hand uncomfortable, change them. If you plan on using the knife in the opposite hand repeat with the knife in the other hand. with the blade full or taped really well, grip the knife and put the tip against a firm vertical surface and push your hand should not slide forward onto the blade. If it does reshape the handle or add a deeper finger grove.
Most people hold a knife like they were cutting down. Just remember to rotate it like you were cutting left to right, right to left and from down to up. If it feels like crap in your hand I any of these positions you may want to consider changing the grip shape in the next knife
It has been my experience that is is usually as fast to build a new knife than to disassemble the existing one and start over.
Oh, yeah most wood holds up longer with some kind of finish on it.
Jim
Ps looking forward to seeing the next knife
Click to expand...
Thank you, I really appreciate the feedback. I gave this one to a family member to use so they can offer feedback about how well it feels and performs. I used olive oil on the scales. What could I use that would improve the finish on them?
 
Hey...good job of getting one done and finished up. I am fairly new to knife making. Ground about a dozen now. One thing that I do is look at a bunch of knives by other makers and then try to design my own knife with different qualities that I like in the knives I have seen. So maybe a drop point with a particular shape to the front of the handle scale, finger groove, shape of the spine....put it all together and play around a bit with drawings until you have something that is yours. On an appearance level I like the scales to have a curve or angle to them at the front. Yours seem very square and straight up and down in my eyes.
Keep going, make another one and add your new knowledge to it and see what you get.
 
Randydb said:
Hey...good job of getting one done and finished up. I am fairly new to knife making. Ground about a dozen now. One thing that I do is look at a bunch of knives by other makers and then try to design my own knife with different qualities that I like in the knives I have seen. So maybe a drop point with a particular shape to the front of the handle scale, finger groove, shape of the spine....put it all together and play around a bit with drawings until you have something that is yours. On an appearance level I like the scales to have a curve or angle to them at the front. Yours seem very square and straight up and down in my eyes.
Keep going, make another one and add your new knowledge to it and see what you get.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the feedback, it is very helpful.
 
You've received good feedback on construction and design so far so lets address handle finishes. Olive Oil is for cooking;) WATCO Danish oil is for wood finishing...There are a few youtube videos on how to use Danish oil to seal the wood and my own personal experience is it's a High Quality easy to use finish that hand buffs to a nice finish. A small can of Danish oil will finish many knife handles...Good Stuff:thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Busto said:
You've received good feedback on construction and design so far so lets address handle finishes. Olive Oil is for cooking;) WATCO Danish oil is for wood finishing...There are a few youtube videos on how to use Danish oil to seal the wood and my own personal experience is it's a High Quality easy to use finish that hand buffs to a nice finish. A small can of Danish oil will finish many knife handles...Good Stuff:thumbsup::thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Lol!!!! I guess it’s time to leave my wife’s cooking supplies alone. Thanks for the suggestions
 
OK, not a bad start, but some newboe errors and things to improve:
1) No rivets. The epoxy will let go sooner or later and the scales will fall off. This is the major structural issue with the knife. The rest is monor appearance issues.

2) The handle looks pretty good, but is a bit "Blocky" looking at the top (It may be camera angle). It should have a cross section somewhat egg shaped with the narrow part at the bottom. Oval is OK, too. What you don't want is a block of wood with the corners rounded off. Kudos on the bottom of the handle, it is well shaped. The point in the center should be a little more of a curve than a point. The point will be "Hot-in-the-hand", meaning it will rub your fingers and create a hot spot.

3) Shape is pretty much OK. The knife, however, is very "stiff". Putting a slight curve to the spine and a little drop to the handle butt will make it "flow" more. These can be as little as 1/16" to 1/8"and make a dramatic change. You can still do that to this knife.

4) Knife looks like it is VERY thick, maybe 3/16" to 1/4" - 1/8" is a thick hunter, 1/16" is a much better thickness. I rarely make a hunting knife more than .08" thick at the ricasso.

5) There is no spine photo of the knife, so I can't see the top of the handle and the blade taper. Distal taper from the ricasso to the tip is very important. The blade should reduce by about 50% of its thickness between the ricasso and the tip.

The above is guidance for the next knife. Your knife is a very respectable beginners knife and you should be proud of it. Keep it and in a year or two lay it next to your latest knife then and post a photo.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
OK, not a bad start, but some newboe errors and things to improve:
1) No rivets. The epoxy will let go sooner or later and the scales will fall off. This is the major structural issue with the knife. The rest is monor appearance issues.

2) The handle looks pretty good, but is a bit "Blocky" looking at the top (It may be camera angle). It should have a cross section somewhat egg shaped with the narrow part at the bottom. Oval is OK, too. What you don't want is a block of wood with the corners rounded off. Kudos on the bottom of the handle, it is well shaped. The point in the center should be a little more of a curve than a point. The point will be "Hot-in-the-hand", meaning it will rub your fingers and create a hot spot.

3) Shape is pretty much OK. The knife, however, is very "stiff". Putting a slight curve to the spine and a little drop to the handle butt will make it "flow" more. These can be as little as 1/16" to 1/8"and make a dramatic change. You can still do that to this knife.

4) Knife looks like it is VERY thick, maybe 3/16" to 1/4" - 1/8" is a thick hunter, 1/16" is a much better thickness. I rarely make a hunting knife more than .08" thick at the ricasso.

5) There is no spine photo of the knife, so I can't see the top of the handle and the blade taper. Distal taper from the ricasso to the tip is very important. The blade should reduce by about 50% of its thickness between the ricasso and the tip.

The above is guidance for the next knife. Your knife is a very respectable beginners knife and you should be proud of it. Keep it and in a year or two lay it next to your latest knife then and post a photo.
Click to expand...
Thank you!!!! I will post another pic showing the top of it. I goofed on a couple things. I tried to hurry and unclamped the scales before the epoxy dried. Apparently, some epoxies expand a little while curing and it slightly pushed the edge on one of the scales out. I also tapered one side of the blade toward the tip a little more than the other.
 
What epoxy did you use? The one you want is a slow cure 24 hour cure resin. The one hour epoxies at the hardware store is as fast as you want. System Three or West System both make excellent epoxy that cures at the right speed. ... and is very strong.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
What epoxy did you use? The one you want is a slow cure 24 hour cure resin. The one hour epoxies at the hardware store is as fast as you want. System Three or West System both make excellent epoxy that cures at the right speed. ... and is very strong.
Click to expand...
Oh, and yes, the blade is very thick. I’ll measure it when I get home.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
OK, not a bad start, but some newboe errors and things to improve:
1) No rivets. The epoxy will let go sooner or later and the scales will fall off. This is the major structural issue with the knife. The rest is monor appearance issues.

2) The handle looks pretty good, but is a bit "Blocky" looking at the top (It may be camera angle). It should have a cross section somewhat egg shaped with the narrow part at the bottom. Oval is OK, too. What you don't want is a block of wood with the corners rounded off. Kudos on the bottom of the handle, it is well shaped. The point in the center should be a little more of a curve than a point. The point will be "Hot-in-the-hand", meaning it will rub your fingers and create a hot spot.

3) Shape is pretty much OK. The knife, however, is very "stiff". Putting a slight curve to the spine and a little drop to the handle butt will make it "flow" more. These can be as little as 1/16" to 1/8"and make a dramatic change. You can still do that to this knife.

4) Knife looks like it is VERY thick, maybe 3/16" to 1/4" - 1/8" is a thick hunter, 1/16" is a much better thickness. I rarely make a hunting knife more than .08" thick at the ricasso.

5) There is no spine photo of the knife, so I can't see the top of the handle and the blade taper. Distal taper from the ricasso to the tip is very important. The blade should reduce by about 50% of its thickness between the ricasso and the tip.

The above is guidance for the next knife. Your knife is a very respectable beginners knife and you should be proud of it. Keep it and in a year or two lay it next to your latest knife then and post a photo.
Click to expand...
F23521-D1-221-D-4-BDE-ABC9-6-A5-E3-F392-B25.jpg

Ok, here is an image of the top part of the knife.
On the right side of the handle, you can see how the epoxy pushed the scale away from the tang. On the blade toward the tip, you can see that the right side doesn’t taper as much as the left.
 
While some like it, I am not a fan of Gorilla Epoxy. It seems to have too much peroxide and foams up while curing. This is a large part of why you don't want a fast resin.

System Three resin part A is the epoxy I use. You can get the hardener in #1, #2, and #3 ... fast, medium, slow. I keep medium and slow on hand. A quart of resin and two pints of the hardener ( #2 and #3) will last for many years ( looong shelf life). It will do all your knifemaking and other tasks. The System Three clear coat set is super for filling holes in burls, and things like impregnating paracord wraps.

Distal taper is a continuous taper from the ricasso to the tip. It is even and not sudden like your taper. As you said, the blade is crazy thick.
 
TheEdge01 said:
I used Gorilla two part epoxy.
Click to expand...
I noticed Gorilla's polyurethane glue needs water to catalyze and foams in the process of curing.

Is their 2 part epoxy formula some form of polyurethane formula too that it foams/expands as it cures? I read on their site "Gap Filling: Fills voids and bonds uneven and vertical surfaces"
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
While some like it, I am not a fan of Gorilla Epoxy. It seems to have too much peroxide and foams up while curing. This is a large part of why you don't want a fast resin.

System Three resin part A is the epoxy I use. You can get the hardener in #1, #2, and #3 ... fast, medium, slow. I keep medium and slow on hand. A quart of resin and two pints of the hardener ( #2 and #3) will last for many years ( looong shelf life). It will do all your knifemaking and other tasks. The System Three clear coat set is super for filling holes in burls, and things like impregnating paracord wraps.

Distal taper is a continuous taper from the ricasso to the tip. It is even and not sudden like your taper. As you said, the blade is crazy thick.
Click to expand...
Is there a trick to doing a distal taper, or does it come with experience?
 
Here is a short discussion on distal taper - https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/how-to-distal-taper.1166663/.

I remember reading on another forum that some people even do it before grinding the bevels. Forgers usually forge it in. If you are limited to grinding, you could mark the middle of the spine and then put the distal taper in (knife mounted on a magnetic holder and grinding lengthwise or maybe with grinding on a rest and using a push stick). Afterwards you could do the free hand grind of bevels. I think it is considered to be an advanced grind.
 
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