Bizarre Tools You've Made in a Pinch While Making a Knife. Lets Hear Your Story.

[KnuckleDownKnives]

Hoping people will share their stories on this thread of some of the bizarre and weird tools they've come up with in a pinch in order to do something in the knife making process. I'm sure there are older threads on here but I haven't read or seen anything new or the type I'm hoping for. The type of stories I'm hoping for are the ones that you would not ordinarily recommend to someone, but like the story your about to read ended up working in a "desperate" situation and getting the desired results from the strangest of places.

So here goes..

I found myself at a crossroads this weekend while shaping a handle. I currently only have a flat platen and a small wheel attachment for my 2 x 72 and don't have the funds for a large wheel attachment, which at this time would make the task of shaping the handle of the knife I'm currently making easy/possible with my current skill set. As seen in the image below, the handle has a palm swell with a good sized curve on the back. An 8" or 10" wheel attachment would make easy work of this.



I attempted to make it work with my platen and one of the 2" wheels and it didn't work out so well and I got a lot of ripples in the shape which proved to be hard or next to impossible "for me" to fix considering the knife has a set of bolsters in the design at the back of the handle and the wood removes at a much quicker rate than the brass when trying to sand/file it.



I could easily set the knife aside and waited till I have the funds for a large wheel or change the shape of the handle to something I can achieve with my current tools and skills, but there is a deadline of Feb, 2nd (17 days from this posting) and a desperate desire to maintain the current design. I had a very long and sleepless night pondering idea after idea on what and how I could get this shape into the handle. One of my thought was to shape a wood backer so I could hand sand the curve, find a metal can close to the desired radius ad use it as a sanding backer, raid my wife's cabinets for something close to the size, and countless more ideas trying to come up with something so I didn't have to simply grind it out and come up with something different or just give up on the deadline.

Then suddenly the thought hit me as I was sipping my morning cup of coffee to go out back and look at some old half running push mowers my moms new husband had just given me (he basically didn't want to load them up and bring them to the dump and gave them to me). And there is was, the solution to my problem. There sat on the back of one of the completely non running lawnmowers, an approximate 2" wide 8" diameter wheel with a bronze or some kind of metal bushing that fit almost perfect on the shaft of a 1/2" bolt. I spent the next 45 mins digging out washers and spacers trying to get it lined up and setting the tension so it didn't wobble and didn't drag too much as it's just a wheel off of a lawn mower. Luckily I only need to use it just slightly faster than the slowest speed of my grinder.

So here is what I came up with.





I still need to do some more shaping, but that is down hill work now that I have the smooth shape I desire. I think it worked pretty well.






****Note: I would NOT attempt this if you do not have a variable speed grinder and can use it at a VERY SLOW speed. It's a lawnmower wheel. USE COMMON SENSE and PPE****

PS: I did wash the dried dog poop off the wheel before I ran this on my grinder.

 

[kuraki]

Tag and place holder to post my first belt sander if I can dig it out of the snow. It's a doozy for this thread.

 

[ERRN]

I built a horizontal disk/flat grinder out of a 1hp junk motor, scooter wheel, and some MDF when I was like 16. It was a pretty sketchy death machine that eventually got so out of balance it flung the MDF table like a frisbee and dented my dads garage door.

 

[Hengelo_77]

Well I've made a very small chisel and rounded two nails to texture the back ground of some carving I've done in blackwood

 

[john april]

very inventive pleasanthill !

 

[Craig Daniel]

The lawn mower wheel takes the prize hands down!

 

[Kevin McGovern]

To clamp my blade and WA handle for glue up. Wrapped a leather strap around handle and clamped the excess in a vise. So that acted as a strap clamp. Then used an old bike inner tube and clamp to clamp down the blade. It didn't require a high pressure hold, so this worked well. For bonus points, you can see one of the two angle brackets from my kids old playset that I used to clamp my portaband to the bench. A bolt running from one bracket, between the handle and body of saw and through the other bracket completes the ensemble.

 

[Kevin McGovern]

Stacy really needs to show off his sanding station he made from an old exercise machine. At least he uses his for more than hanging cloths on.

 

[KnuckleDownKnives]

Harry your image links seem to be broke, I'd love to see what you have posted. I can only see the last image. The carving looks great.

Kevin the tire tube is great. I used one to layer the top and bottom plates in my knife vise. And the old brackets look like they work very well. I always keep stuff like that and never throw it away. ever know when it will come in hand when trying to make something. I have about 3 or 4 sets of metal bed frames from the dump and are a great source of light weight angle iron.

I'm definitely interested in seeing this exercise sanding station of Stacy's you're speaking of.

 

[Natlek]

Some not bizarre tools you can make wheels / rims / from bike are good source ..................... these are 32 , 19 and 12 centimeters Dia.

 

[john april]

a wooden tool rest so i can use my 4x36 flipped on its side. not bizarre but i have never seen another one !