Amateur Hour - Customized Imperial and other traditional knives

This is great! I am impressed. I also have an Imperial Barlow that I got for $1 at a yard sale, and I will attempt to re-furbish it. I need to read on how to do the soldering of the bolsters first. I have already fixed/modified some Swiss Army Knives, but those do not require bolsters (albeit some peening on both cellidor and alox scales). I'll appreciate any links you might have on how to work the bolsters.
Raul
 
chivaceae said:
This is great! I am impressed. I also have an Imperial Barlow that I got for $1 at a yard sale, and I will attempt to re-furbish it. I need to read on how to do the soldering of the bolsters first. I have already fixed/modified some Swiss Army Knives, but those do not require bolsters (albeit some peening on both cellidor and alox scales). I'll appreciate any links you might have on how to work the bolsters.
Raul
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I can only speak to what I did - but basically once you get the shells off you have 3 liners and 2 blades. Dremel the heads of the rivets off and you can push the pins out and separate the pieces. I used a hacksaw to cut some nickel silver stock to the sizes I wanted, and then the soldering works the same way like soldering copper pipe in plumbing. I lightly roughed up the scales and the attaching surface of the new bolster material, applied flux, clamped it with a steel clamp into place, and then heated it up with a propane torch to apply the solder.
 
So my next project is a bit different. Its another imperial - this time a spear main blade.

What is going to be different, is that I nabbed a very old rusty barlow off the 'bay for a few bucks whos main blade was about sharpened to nothing. However, it appears to have very old traditional sawcut bone slabs on it. I plan to try and salvage those onto the imperial!
 
The latest knife is coming along nicely. Today I assembled it, and through the rest of the week I will be working on final handle shaping and finishing.

Here is the Before - much better overall condition - however the faux pearl wrapping was crumbling in my hands while taking these:


Blades cleaned up nicely!


Here it is assembled with ivory paper micarta and nickel silver pins - time to start working on finishing!



Stay tuned - I hope to finish it bye the end of the weekend.
 
Jeff, I really like what you are coming up with lately!
 
glennbad said:
Jeff, I really like what you are coming up with lately!
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That means a lot coming from you!

I can tell I need more tools. A band saw would really make it easier and less wasteful to make these scales. I have just been going through a lot of sanding belts.

I did find some 600 grit and 1000 grit belts that fit my sander to help with finishing. I really enjoy it.
 
donutsrule said:
Looks good so far. :cool: Would you need a full-on bandsaw or just something like a scrollsaw?
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I don't know enough to know the answer. I was frustrated trying to cut the block of micarta into thin sections. I ended up using a small hand coping saw, but it was difficult to make a good straight cut and it took a bit of effort to get through the material.

I just looked up scroll saws - yeah I can see an application for sure.
 
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Well, here it is. I have to say, I am not completely satisfied with how this one came out. The ivory paper micarta shows very little texturing. Also, it was a VERY difficult material to work with.

This was also the first time I tried working on a single spring knife where the blades had to share the same space. There is all kinds of blade rub going on, probably because I took a tiny bit of material off each side of the spring to clean it up. I have a brand new respect for knife makers who work with micarta or who work with small multi bladed knives.

Anyway, here it is!















 
glennbad said:
Looking good!
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Thanks Glenn. I am doing another small knife next. Its a two bladed small serpentine jack. I dont own any case peanuts, but from the pictures I see, it looks exactly like an Imperial peanut. I have two tiny undyed bonw slabs, and I am thinking about trying to dye and jig them for this knife. Do you do the jigging first and then dye? Or the other way around?
 
Here is a preview of the next knife. It began life as a plastic handled 2 blade imperial Barlow in spear point.

Afterwards it will be a one blade Barlow with nickel bolsters and what I will call antique rescued saw cut bone. It came off a 65 year camillus that was beyond repair. The scales were good though so I am repurposing them to the imperial.

Obviously lots of steps to go, but here is a preview:
7400c552b1cbd1de3faa9458c0cc49af.jpg
 
Here it is.

It was a two blade barlow initially. I disassembled the knife and cleaned everything. I salvaged the saw cut handle slabs from a 1940s era camillus barlow that had been neglected and abused beyond repair. The sizing was a bit different, so I have to make it work on the Imperial frame with a bit of sanding and new pin holes. I fabricated new nickel silver bolsters, and the pins are hand hammered and domed nickel silver. I converted it to single-blade by removing the middle liner and pen blade that came on it. I sanded everything smooth along the liners, and buffed everything to a smooth surface, but making sure to keep most of the original character of the bone.





















 
I love what you are doing. I get the same pleasure from doing the same to old axes/hatchets/blacksmith hammers/vises. I want to do this and am fine with the refinishing of parts but have no confidence with the disassembly/reassembly. Your work is great, and the best thing about it is that you are going to get much better with every one to the point that you could probably make your own super nice customs. Even doing only refurbs could be a very nice side biz with that quality of work. The rosewood Imperial wharncliffe Barlow from page 2 is just awesome. We spoke before, I need to send you another e-mail.
 
jblyttle said:
I love what you are doing. I get the same pleasure from doing the same to old axes/hatchets/blacksmith hammers/vises. I want to do this and am fine with the refinishing of parts but have no confidence with the disassembly/reassembly. Your work is great, and the best thing about it is that you are going to get much better with every one to the point that you could probably make your own super nice customs. Even doing only refurbs could be a very nice side biz with that quality of work. The rosewood Imperial wharncliffe Barlow from page 2 is just awesome. We spoke before, I need to send you another e-mail.
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Thank you!
 
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