Bought an unfinished custom from the gun show (Now a WIP thread)

Scurvy092

Scurvy092

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Jan 31, 2012
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Met Bruce Gillespie at The Nation's Gun Show today, very nice gentleman and very nice knives. He had this unfinished knife on his table that he was working on up until the show and didn't finish in time.

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I loved the shape and how it fit in my hand. It's D2 steel that he heat treated to 59-60HRC. I asked him if he was selling it and he said yeah if I wanted to finish it out myself.

I just needs an edge, handles and some finishing work. He drilled it out for bolsters. I'm really excited to give it a go. No clue what I am going to try for the handles. I may put and edge on it for now and try some paracord wrap until I decide.

Thanks for reading!
 
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Try posting this in shop talk. The guys there are extremely helpful. I would recommend either Hard Maple, or Black Walnut for the scales. They are easily obtained, easy to work with, and cheap. Hell, I'll send you some wood to prevent you from paracording it. PM me your address. I'll send some Maple, Walnut, and some Stainless for the bolsters. All you will need is some files, a drill, and sandpaper to finish it.

Warren
 
Willie71 said:
Try posting this in shop talk. The guys there are extremely helpful. I would recommend either Hard Maple, or Black Walnut for the scales. They are easily obtained, easy to work with, and cheap. Hell, I'll send you some wood to prevent you from paracording it. PM me your address. I'll send some Maple, Walnut, and some Stainless for the bolsters. All you will need is some files, a drill, and sandpaper to finish it.

Warren
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I don't WANT to paracord it, I just figured it would be a stop gap.

I would greatly appreciate the material but I see you're in Canada and I'm in the states.

I'll PM a mod to have this moved to shop talk. I wasn't sure where to post it.

Thanks!!
 
Frank, I like helping people. I'm not good at accepting it. :)

Scurvy, send me your address. I'll send you some material. Shipping costs cross border isn't expensive, just 2 or so weeks due to customs. Not a problem on my end :)
 
Willie71 said:
Frank, I like helping people. I'm not good at accepting it. :)

Scurvy, send me your address. I'll send you some material. Shipping costs cross border isn't expensive, just 2 or so weeks due to customs. Not a problem on my end :)
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Thanks! PM sent!
 
Ok, day one is in the books. After a lot of paracord youtube videos and literally HOURS on the spyderco sharpmaker this is where I'm at:

First I laid down a base of gutted paracord:

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Then the only wrap I could work well was this diamond pattern. It's UGLY AS SIN and chunky as hell but it is rather comfortable. Can't wait to get some real handles on it:

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Then came the sharpmaker. This knife literally had no edge, just the primary grind. I started with fresh medium stones, clotted up all three sides, cleaned them and clotted up all three sides again. It took literally hours for me to get it to something resembling and apex, then a long long time trying to even out the grind to a consistent apex. Finally I was able to get something close to a decent burr and then started going with the standard sharpmaker process. Got it to where it can kind of slice paper so it's at least sharper than some knives out there:

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Goal for tomorrow is to put the refine the edge as much as I can and put the 15 degree back bevel on it. I would like to have it somewhat able to shave by tomorrow night.

Not quite sure where to go after that. The blade has some grind marks on it I would like to try and get out somehow.
 
You take out the grind marks BEFORE you put on an edge. PLEASE don't try and sand out any marks after sharpening the edge. I don't care how careful you are, you will get cut...probably a bad cut. If you have to re-work the bevels, dull the blade completely first.
 
Thanks for the tips. After reading up on sanding and the advice here, I decided against it. It might be a little too much involved for my tiny 1 bedroom apartment.

The knife is currently sitting in my dryer getting a DIY stonewash. I got some extra fine 00 steel wool that I might hit it with once it is done. Then I'll redo the wrapping and resharpen.
 
So I ran it through 3 cycles in the stone wash. Small smooth river rocks, CLP for the lube in a Gatorade bottle and I buffed it with the 00 steel wool in between cycles. I'm not sure if the steel wool did anything but it definitely didn't hurt.

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I redid the para wrap just doing the base gutted wrap and tried to put the edge back on. It just highlights how badly I need a Wicked Edge...

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I'm open to suggestions on where to go from here. Not sure what else I can do until I get the materials Willie is so generously sending to me.

Thanks for looking.
 
Interesting idea for the DIY stonewash. I have not heard of that before.

It seems like it worked out nicely.
 
I've got your stuff packed up. Just have to go to the post tomorrow. BTW, I couldn't find my maple, (I have a whole bunch of it. I can't remember where I stored it LOL) so I substituted Brazilian Tigerwood. I also packed in some, Black Walnut, and a few goodies as a surprise. You should get the package in about 10 days to two weeks.
 
Bailey Knives said:
Interesting idea for the DIY stonewash. I have not heard of that before.

It seems like it worked out nicely.
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Agreed I may try that one day. So you just put it all in a Gatorade bottle and tossed it in your dryer? Also what is CLP?

You're kind of at a standstill as far as more work goes. What you can do is prep yourself for when the material gets there. Check out the "how to make a knife" sticky. There is a part that talks about putting the scales on. You can also get yourself some modeling clay or even cheaper Play-Dough and mold the scales on there to get an idea how you want them to be shaped and what feels good in your hand. Of course you'll probably have to take the paracord off :D. Most people when they make scales early on is they make them to boxy and clunky. Personally I think the handle should be like a good woman....smooth, curves in the right places and feels good in your hand ;)
 
Thats a pretty slick trick with the gatorade bottle in the dryer if i understood correctly. +1 on the CLP though^^^. Its coming out great!
 
Fletch Helical said:
Agreed I may try that one day. So you just put it all in a Gatorade bottle and tossed it in your dryer? Also what is CLP?

You're kind of at a standstill as far as more work goes. What you can do is prep yourself for when the material gets there. Check out the "how to make a knife" sticky. There is a part that talks about putting the scales on. You can also get yourself some modeling clay or even cheaper Play-Dough and mold the scales on there to get an idea how you want them to be shaped and what feels good in your hand. Of course you'll probably have to take the paracord off :D. Most people when they make scales early on is they make them to boxy and clunky. Personally I think the handle should be like a good woman....smooth, curves in the right places and feels good in your hand ;)
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Oh! I really like this idea, thanks!

As far as the stonewash idea, I didn't invent it, I just picked up on a bunch of stuff from here and youtube.

I went to Home Depot and bought a small 5lb bag of river rock. I grabbed a few handfuls out and picked out only the smooth, round ones and put any jagged or cracked ones to the side. Once I had about 2 inches of stone in the bottom I threw the knife in. I was never able to get a read on how much stone to use so what I did was just lay the bottle down, shake it and see how far the knife was buried. I kept adding stone until the knife was just covered when the bottle was on it's side.

The threads I read and vids I saw said to use WD40 as a lubricant. I didn't have any so I used CLP Break Free which is a really popular gun cleaner.

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I did a few long sprays of the stuff, sealed up the bottle, wrapped it in a towel, taped the towel closed and put it in the dryer along with a few other loose towels so I didn't beat up my dryer too much.

It ran for about an hour each cycle. I don't know if it helped at all but I did take the knife out, wash it out and rub it down for a few minutes with the 00 steel wool. After three cycles I was REALLY happy with the result. The stonewash didn't look very apparent after the first, it looked really nice after the second and the third cycle I don't think really added much more effect.

Good tips I learned the hard way:

When you drop the knife in, put it in tip up. It makes it harder to get out but the tip will poke the really thick bottle top instead of the softer bottom. I had it in tip up for the first two cycles but put it in tip down on the third and poked a bunch of holes in my bottle.

When you unwrap the bottle from the towel to check it, take it all the way out and re wrap it with all fresh new tape. Before the third cycle I got lazy and just pulled back enough tape to get the towel semi open to get the bottle out. When I put it back in and closed it up, I just retaped that corner instead of doing the whole thing. Of course the bottle fell out at some point during the third cycle.

I can post a picture of the size and shape rock I was using if you guys want.
 
Willie71 said:
I've got your stuff packed up. Just have to go to the post tomorrow. BTW, I couldn't find my maple, (I have a whole bunch of it. I can't remember where I stored it LOL) so I substituted Brazilian Tigerwood. I also packed in some, Black Walnut, and a few goodies as a surprise. You should get the package in about 10 days to two weeks.
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Awesome!!

I don't know how to thank you enough!

Fingers crossed it gets here before I go to my parent's in two weeks. An old friend of mine owns a kitchen cabinet business with his dad and they have a full workshop behind the showroom. It's probably the best shot I will have at getting something substantial done.
 
Thanks for the details on the stone washing! I would have thrown the bottle in there with no towels like a goof lol.
 
HAWC said:
Thanks for the details on the stone washing! I would have thrown the bottle in there with no towels like a goof lol.
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There are a few useful videos on youtube to give you a rough idea.

The more I look at the finish, the prouder I am of it. I have production and mid tech knives that don't have as good a stone wash on them!
 
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