Custom chopper WIP

[Phillip Patton]

Some more pics:

Here I've drilled the bolt and lanyard holes in the tang. Next step is to flatten the tang on the disc grinder.

Cutting out the handle slabs of lignum vitae. I bought a large chunk of it on ebay, which is my preferred way of buying wood, because then I can cut whatever sizes I need. The standard sizes that the knifmaking suppliers sell are often too small for my handles.

Lignum vitae tends to turn green after awhile:

 

[eygen]

Looks neat so far. Now I want to see the rest

 

[Phillip Patton]

Well, it's been such great "forging weather" lately that I haven't got much done on this knife. But I do have it almost ready for heat treating. Just have to stamp it and wrap it in foil.


It's really important to get the tang perfectly flat and straight before heat treating. other wise you'll go through lot's of discs getting it flat....

 

[Big Rick]

Phillip, I'me really enjoying this!!

 

[Phillip Patton]

More pics:

The stampings:

Steel type:

Makers mark:

Foil wrapping. The last couple times I've heat treated a knife in foil, the envelope somehow got some pin holes in it. So this time I'm going to double wrap it. I'm using a used envelope for the inner one. It saves a little money, and because the foil is already oxidized, it reduces the risk of having the foil stick to the blade, which does happen sometimes and is a real pain...

 

[Phillip Patton]

While the oven is heating up, I'm going to glue the scales to their liners. In the past I've used epoxy to do this, but I recently discovered that good old fashioned wood glue works much better. Using epoxy, you can peel the liners right off, but wood glue is permanent....

Since lignum vitae is an oily wood, I degreased the gluing surfaces, first with acetone, then alcohol.

First, flattening the scales on a sanding board:

All the pieces:

The wood glue is applied:

All clamped together. I used a sheet of wax paper between the liners just in case some glue got in between.

 

[Le Seb]

I can't wait to see the final picture Philip !

 

[mostho]

yeah man. NIce work!
Please continue cos it's worth to see how much work theere is to build a knife. and it's never enough!
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

 

[mohd]

Looks great Phillip :thumbup: I really enjoy reading this sort of WIP thread and I really appreciate all your efforts in taking shots, uploading them and explaining details of your works here

Makers mark:

This is one very stupid question of mine to Phillip and other knifemakers as well .. why most of the knifemakers put the maker's mark on the left hand side of the blade? Is it just an old tradition? Any reasoning that justifies it to be put on the left hand side of the blade?

IMVHO very few of knifemakers who deviated from this practice since the very beginning of their knifemaking career and keep on putting their maker's mark on the right hand side of the blade

Mohd.

 

[Phillip Patton]

Looks great Phillip :thumbup: I really enjoy reading this sort of WIP thread and I really appreciate all your efforts in taking shots, uploading them and explaining details of your works here


This is one very stupid question of mine to Phillip and other knifemakers as well .. why most of the knifemakers put the maker's mark on the left hand side of the blade? Is it just an old tradition? Any reasoning that justifies it to be put on the left hand side of the blade?

IMVHO very few of knifemakers who deviated from this practice since the very beginning of their knifemaking career and keep on putting their maker's mark on the right hand side of the blade

Mohd.

Hi Mohd,
It's not a stupid question.
I think it's because most people are right handed, and if you hold the knife in your right hand, the mark is visible. I've never heard it explained, but that makes sense to me.

 

[Phillip Patton]

Here's some more pics:

The blade after hardening:

In this shot you can see a little bit of the alloy banding which is a result of the forging:

 

[mohd]

I think it's because most people are right handed, and if you hold the knife in your right hand, the mark is visible. I've never heard it explained, but that makes sense to me.

In a way yes! It makes sense to me as well! Thanks Phillip

Anyhow there might be some other explanations by some other knifemakers and I'll appreciate their different views if any of course

BTW Phillip, I'm not a knifemaker and those different colorings on the hardened blade surely confused me a lot. Is the different colors on that hardened blade means different hardness? Is the blade shows hamon if etched?

I read somewhere that D2 is actually air hardening steel. Is that means that you don't have to dip the blade in oil or water at all to hardened it?

I know .. I know .. these are lots of questions! Hope you don't mind about it

BTW, I'm very curious .. are you making a guitar

Mohd.

 

[PARK]

I have two of Phillip's knives both are recurves and cut like no other knife I have used.The 5 inch blade is made of D2 I have batoned,chopped and have yet had to touch the edge.Both knives came scary sharp and hold a great edge due to excellent heat treating.Whoever gets the knife will not be disappointed.I would not hesitate to buy knives from Phillip in the future.
Thanks,
Michael

 

[Phillip Patton]

In a way yes! It makes sense to me as well! Thanks Phillip

Anyhow there might be some other explanations by some other knifemakers and I'll appreciate their different views if any of course

BTW Phillip, I'm not a knifemaker and those different colorings on the hardened blade surely confused me a lot. Is the different colors on that hardened blade means different hardness? Is the blade shows hamon if etched?

I read somewhere that D2 is actually air hardening steel. Is that means that you don't have to dip the blade in oil or water at all to hardened it?

I know .. I know .. these are lots of questions! Hope you don't mind about it

BTW, I'm very curious .. are you making a guitar

Mohd.

Hi Mohd,
The colors you see there are from oxidation. It's impossible to get every last bit of oxygen out of the envelope ( unless you add some carbon to burn it up, but I don't like to do that because it makes a coating on the blade which is hard to grind off) so during the soak, it de-carbs the steel very slightly, giving you those colors. The small amount of decarb comes off when I re-grind the blade.


Yes, D2 is air hardening, though in very thick sections (like inches thick) you might want to oil quench.

Rather than simply air quenching, I use a plate quenching setup, which is basically two thick aluminum plates that the blade is clamped between, and suck the heat out the blade. It extracts the heat faster than air, and also keeps the blade straight, though in this case, since the tang and blade are both tapered, that last benefit is pretty much negated....
I remove the blade from the plate quencher and the envelope after a minute or so, and make sure it is straight, then let it air cool until hand warm, then it goes into a tempering cycle.

Yes, I am building a guitar. Do you play?

More pics in the next post....

 

[Phillip Patton]

Here it is after re-grinding with a sharp 80 grit belt:

After finishing on the machine to 240 grit:

After this, it's all hand work. I'm going to take it to 400 grit, and leave it there. D2 is a pain to hand sand.


Here I've traced the outline of the tang on the handle scales:

and cut them out on the band saw:

Getting ready to drill the bolt holes:

I usually save the hand polishing until after the scales are fitted, but since I'm actually out of handle bolts right now, I'll be hand sanding the blade while I wait for the bolts to arrive.

 

[mohd]

Yes, I am building a guitar. Do you play?

It was a long time ago when I was young

IMHO your blade has a strong and sturdy look
Going to be a handsome chopper

mohd.

 

[Phillip Patton]

After a break, I'm back at it. First, I finished prepping the scales:

then, I drill the holes that the skinny part of the bolt goes through:

next I mark the front end of the scales how much to trim off so the scales will be flush with the finger guard:

Then use a step drill...

and the drill press with the depth stop...

to drill out where the heads of the bolts go:

 

[Phillip Patton]

Then I temporarily bolt together the two scales so they'll be trimmed the same:

Then trim down to just past the lines I made earlier using the belt grinder:

Polish to 240 grit on the grinder then buff:

 

[Phillip Patton]

Now that the scales are ready, I'll get to work hand polishing the blade.

I clamp a small machinists vise in my bench vice, and then clamp the blade in it. I use a cork covered angle iron to give support to the blade:

The final grit used on the grinder was 240. Now I use 180 grit silicon carbide to remove those scratches.

If the knife were for me, I probably would have stopped there. 180 grit on D2 looks like 400 grit on W2. But I decided to go to 320 grit for this one:

 

[Phillip Patton]

Now I cover the blade with tape to protect it from scratches, and then sand blast the tang to improve adhesion:

Now I coat part of the scales and part of the tang with epoxy:

and coat the inside of the bolt holes and insert the bolts:

Then tighten down the bolts and add a couple spring clamps to make sure there's no gap at the finger guard, where gaps are wont to happen.

Next, I have to quickly remove the epoxy that squeezes out onto the ricasso. I do this by squirting some oil on it, and wiping clean with tissues:

Now we wait for the epoxy to cure. I'll probably pick this up in the morning.