Another Typhoon... this one from scratch

tryppyr

tryppyr

Joined
Feb 5, 2010
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After doing some work on a balisong for a friend, I decided I wanted to make one from scratch for myself. Mostly this sprang from a desire to replicate the handle parts that I paid so dearly for on my friend's knife... but also, in part, just because I wanted one that I'd made by hand.

Some of the parts of the handle are very small, and I wasn't at all sure I was capable of working at that diminutive scale.

Anyway, I've made a fair amount of progress already and now have roughed out versions of the handle parts. I cut the parts from a piece of enamel coated steel of some unknown type (used previously to make a guard, among other things). I know this steel will polish up nicely, and it's thick enough for my purposes. Moreover, the enamel coating makes it easy to etch designs onto the piece that endure the cutting and grinding process better than ink or pencil.

Anyway, here's what I have so far.

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If you're curious, I made the nylon spacers by punching holes in my Choice Rewards card and snipping around the edges. Not pretty (yet), but they do fit the pivots well.

You'll also notice I countersunk the holes... but only on the outside of each piece. I intend to cut some slots into the pieces for wood inserts. I'm thinking the wood bits should form chevrons when the handle parts are locked into place... unless I come up with a better idea.

- Greg
 
Greg,

I like your choice of washer material.

I've made my own washers out of delrin plastic not as slippery as Teflon, but it doesn't deform very easily.

Here's how I did it. It should work with a variety of materials.

1. Drill holes in washer stock.
2. Cut them out, leave some excess material to be trimmed off.
3. Put a stack of the crude washers on a machine screw(match to ID of washer) and hold them in place with a nut. make sure you have about 1/2"or more of threads sticking out beyond the nut.
4. Put the threaded end in a hand held drill.
5. Grind them round on your grinder/sander. I have both spinning.
6. Take them off the screw, you may need to sand lightly to deburr.

You may want to run your drill ccw so that the nut doesn't works itself loose as you grind the OD or you can lock a second nut against the first one.

BTW, I take no credit for this technique. I saw it on a tutorial which I have lost the link and cannot remember the author. He used old razor blades for stock and had some home made punches to make the ID holes. It was much more eloquent than what I did.

Ric
 
Thanks for the tip Phydeaux.

Today I spent some time filing out the slots for the wood inserts. They're still very rough, but pretty close to the right size and shape.

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Today I selected an interesting piece of wood to use for the chevron inserts. I've forgotten what type of wood it is, but the grain lines were bold and highly contrasted. I cut the pieces such that the grain lines would run the direction of the chevron grooves, and cut numerous trapezoids of roughly the right shape. Now I'll square up the slots and select which pieces go where, trying to achieve an effect of the lines and colors matching (though in truth that will be a bit challenging since I'll be sanding away a fair amount of material and therefore trying to match what I cannot yet see).

Here's a pic of the fiddly bits as they are now.

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With the wood pieces fitted and mostly sanded down... still left some edge so I can do the finish sanding by hand. I'm generally please with the way the wood pieces lined up.

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That shows a lot of patience and dedication. I'm looking forward to seeing more as the project progresses :)
 
I've cut the blade blank out and drilled the holes for the stops. Here's what I have so far.

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Just did some precision measuring (best I know how to do at any rate) and drilled the pivot holes. I'm pleased with he way they came out. I decided that I wanted a 3mm gap when the handles were locked in either position (hence the dots in the center of the blade). The gap looks larger in the open position due to the size of the nail head... it will be the same 3mm when completed. Also, disregard the fact that the sides don't match up... I picked the parts at random, and didn't select the matched pairs.

Here's the preliminary pin/pivot test.

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Ball bearing pivots sounds great. Where would I get them? I saw nothing like that at Jantz.
 
Current status of the blade. Shaped and sanded to 400 grit. The blade still needs some finish sanding.

Waiting now for Jantz to deliver the pivots and corby bolts. I did a trial fitting with nails tonight, and everything comes together as expected. I need the actual hardware so I can size the holes before HT.

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Interesting hardware, but it won't work for this knife... with an inner diameter of .25 inch and an outer diameter of 11/16ths, it's too large. I'd have to design handles around those dimensions.
 
Unless I misread the web sites, IKBS requires a license... which is not likely to be available to a one-off maker.

I did see some other options... such as the one on Alpha Knife Supply. Sadly, because I live in the state of Washington (and do not have a business tax ID number), I can't buy anything from AKS.

- Greg
 
I have received the hardware from Jantz and determined that the mini Corby bolts will be my pivots. I redrilled the pivot holes and countersunk the holes in the handles. So now I think I'm ready to send the blade off for heat treatment.

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Unless I've missed something in your design, I don't think you'll be able to adjust the pivots after the knife is complete. I'd suggest making the pivots serviceable.
 
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