cut my finger already! lol... WIP (first knife, pic heavy!)

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gotmike said:
took your suggestion bladesmith... the counterboreing didn't turn out as clean as i had hoped but the sanding down of the bolts worked great...

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If you are still seeing scratches at the higher grits, then you haven't completely removed them at the lower grits. Scratches are pesky. You think they are gone, then they magically re-appear as you get to the higher grits and the fine dust from sanding fills them in and they become more visible. One thing you can do is get better light on the blade--even natural light--and look hard for the scratches.

One thing it looks like you might be doing is short-stroking, or "scrubbing" your blade with the sandpaper. Basically, you aren't running your sandpaper in the same direction for the entire length of the blade. This can happen a couple of different ways--either you are not running the sandpaper the full length, or you are shifting the direction slightly mid-stroke, or you are not keeping the sandpaper backing in full contact with the bevel during the entire stroke. The result is a bunch of fine lines (scratches) that are short, running in different directions along the blades, and even fishhooks. You can see it along your blade--the longer scratches in front of the ricasso suggest you spent more time there (that's a tough spot). There are more lines running roughly parrallel to the top grind line, but they vary 5-10 degrees and don't go the full length of the blade.

Overall, it's a good first effort. The scratches are a picky thing. While TV adds 10 pounds to a person, a large photo online adds about 4 grits to the depths of the scratches on a blade. :)
 
Thanks for the tips... I'm re-organizing my garage now to make it more work friendly... Most of the sanding was done in my living room, much to the chagrin of my wife... Lol... The edges on the handle scales are rounded out to a 1/8" radius... It's that leading edge that I left fairly square... and for the final fit I did use the heavy duty epoxy... the superglue was a temp hold while aligning the scales... The tang is drilled several times to help lighten the knife and I did bevel the edges of those holes...
 
gotmike said:
time i've got... i knew going into it that it won't be a top of the line knife... may not ever get used for anything... but it's something that i can set aside and say "there it is... my first knife" won't ever make another knife out of this material... but for what it is (not a top of the line knife but an excercise in form/ability) i'm happy with it... this way when i get my 1084 in, and possibly a belt sander, then i know what i can and cannot do and know if i should dive into the knives i really want to make... i'm happy with it.. it's only been 3 days working on it... and i still have a bit of a ways to go... and on top of it i learned a few things along the way... so it wasn't a fruitless effort... had i bought a piece of cheap steel and gone about it, then i understand the idea that it would be a waste... but it was free... the guy i got the steel from builds blades out of it (still trying to figure that one out... lol) so i wanted to build one, just to show him that i wasn't throwing away something he gave me, and make him hesitant to help me out in the future... it was worth it...
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Good job Mike! I think you did fine and you'll do even "finer" the next time.:)
 
the more i keep running this thing over in my hand the more i keep noticing imperfections that i'm not happy with... trying to decide if i should re-work some of it and re-sand the blade to try to get the rest of these scratches out, or just throw it in my drawer and wait for my steel to show up... i know re-working it will give me more experience... but at what cost... at this point i'm using an insufficiently hard blade material to really hold up to any use anyways... so if i do use it then i'll get scratches and other issues with it from that anyways... i had thought of using some brazing rod to fill in the little grooves around the bolts from where my countersinking wasn't working so well for me... my vise wasn't clamped down well enough so the bit was bouncing around in the hole causing an uneven drilling action... i know now that it's considered a scandinavian grind, so i was thinking of touching up the blade a little bit with my new belt sander to get a feel for beveling and see if i can clean up the bevel edge itself... get a sharper bevel and be more careful of sanding over it when i re-sand the blade... then spend more time under better lighting to work out the sanding marks... what do you guys think??? should i do it, or just learn from it and move on???
 
One of the hardest things about any project is knowing when to say "I'm done". You'll have to learn that eventually... might as well start now. Nobody can make that decision for you. Only you know the calculus associated with the value of your time versus the value of the education, versus the final value of the piece being made.
 
oh great! knifemaking involves calculus??? nobody said anything about having to remember calculus... lol...

my problem is that i'm sooo much of a perfectionest... most of my projects are never finished because i'll keep fiddling with them... my friend from work warned me that if i don't do it and just call it done then i'll end up ruining the blade from fiddling with it for too long... and that was the last thing i wanted to do... so when i built the knife i really had to force myself to put it down at the end of each step... and i'm now thinking that i called each step finished prematurely... and i'm just not completely happy with the fit and finish... i think i'll fiddle with it a bit more and see how it turns out...
 
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Yeah, and then you get to start fiddling with the sheath... then the gift box... then the owner's manual and certificate of authenticity... and the web site...

Life is too short for perfection, especially when you know it is unattainable on a given project. That's not to say we should slack off. Just know when it's worth investing time and when to move along.
 
started re-working the blade tonight...
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immediately i could tell that the original bevel was a bit convex... but in hindsight... i really like that belt sander... lol...

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still going to do some more work... but i'm already liking it alot more... any suggestions on sanding it to keep it a nice clean beveled edge??? want to leave a bit of these sanding marks on the blade... might try the scotchbrite belt... got more research to do in the meantime...
 
soooo... i was working on re-sanding my blade... since i got my bevels cleaned up more like i wanted them... and my hand was getting kindof tired... i started just looking at the knife and got to thinking about a comment a friend of mine made... he suggested that i jewel the handle... but i haven't ever tried jeweling something before... so i took a piece of scrap and started experimenting... decided that i could do it to the handle of my knife and went at it... this is just one side finished... but i'm rather liking the look... hopefully tomorrow i can finish sanding it and do some final touchup work and call it good...

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i got it all nice and polished up... but it just seemed too much crome... it needed some texture, something to give it some highlights... so i took the scotchbrite pad, taped off the polished parts i wanted to keep nice and shiney... and gave the blade a much nicer finish... i'm now really happy to hang it on my wall... lol...

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