CBM's - Customized Benchmade's

Just finished some Snakewood scales for my 707 over the weekend. Very happy with how they turned out. Not professional grade, but definitely user grade.






 
You should be quite pleased, they are beautiful.
How did it go?
What would you do differently?
Was thickness/thinness an issue?
707's factory scale is pretty thin .090".
 
Keyman said:
You should be quite pleased, they are beautiful.
How did it go?
What would you do differently?
Was thickness/thinness an issue?
707's factory scale is pretty thin .090".
Click to expand...

Thank you Keyman for the compliment. I always enjoy your pics.
Those are great questions as well. Thank you for your interest.

I think it went very well. I took my time and went much slower than I do on most other projects, which helped remove careless errors from the process. I paid attention and didn't rush the drilling or sanding.
One thing I would do differently is leave a little extra material around the edges, which I normally do, but this time I took off a little too much around some edges and didn't get flush around the entire liners. The difference is small, but present, and is really the only major thing that bugs me. That's the "If only I would have done that, they'd be perfect" even though they wouldn't be perfect, but closer.

Thickness was not much of an issue because I added the black G10 liners to help with strength. The plank I started with was already about 0.15-0.2" thick maybe (guessing), which is why it was cheap. Too thin for fixed blade knives. After I added the liners, I took the thickness down on the belt sander SLOWLY in order to watch my progress. Then I started to add some contour to the scales toward the liners. The end result swells slightly to the middle in order to help with grip, but thins towards the top/bottom edges to slightly thinner than stock.

Overall: contouring went well, drilling went well, countersinks went well, milling the inside went well, Axis cut out went well, pocket clip went well, just not 100% flush all the way around. Like I said, user grade lol. Most importantly, no loss in functionality with the knife, and the lockup is solid in all directions and the axis lock works fine. Big relief when it was assembled and worked perfectly.

Here is a pick of the butt end showing the contour. It is subtle, but they still needed to be thin in order to keep with the overall slim nature of the knife. And the pocket clip screws still barely make it.

A keen eye will notice a proud corner on the butt, which is easily fixable, I just haven't bothered with it yet.
 
Wish I had better light for these. There's a lot of pearl and metallic in them... not to mention more colors you can't see.









And as always, some CF and ironwood
 
DOAT wrote:

"...The inlay is "fadeone" from beyondwoodproducts.It was a limited/special pour they did of 12 different colors combined. I'm not sure if there's ever going to be more of it, so I was happy to get the piece I did. There might be enough left for one more."

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Finally have a pic to show, even though its not finished just yet. Still waiting on the deep carry clip...
But here it is; 710-2 in M390 blade tested at Rc62, reground by Josh (Razor edge) to as fine an edge as he could do with the 60 grit belt, and then finished with a 15dps edge, which is so fine as to barely be visible. Keyman Holey scales in Ivory Snake Juma, with a matte finish for better grip. Feels wonderful, almost like natural bone. The new grind makes this one an effortless slicer, boxboard cuts like printer paper.
Benchmade is sending me the deep carry stainless clip to finish this one off...

20160204_085531 by rapt_up, on Flickr
 
Rapt_up said:
Finally have a pic to show, even though its not finished just yet. Still waiting on the deep carry clip...
But here it is; 710-2 in M390 blade tested at Rc62, reground by Josh (Razor edge) to as fine an edge as he could do with the 60 grit belt, and then finished with a 15dps edge, which is so fine as to barely be visible. Keyman Holey scales in Ivory Snake Juma, with a matte finish for better grip. Feels wonderful, almost like natural bone. The new grind makes this one an effortless slicer, boxboard cuts like printer paper.
Benchmade is sending me the deep carry stainless clip to finish this one off...

20160204_085531 by rapt_up, on Flickr
Click to expand...

That 710 is awesome!
 
Elite_KG said:
DOAT wrote:

"...The inlay is "fadeone" from beyondwoodproducts.It was a limited/special pour they did of 12 different colors combined. I'm not sure if there's ever going to be more of it, so I was happy to get the piece I did. There might be enough left for one more."

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Click to expand...

Thanks for the info
 
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