Cutting lock bar without a mill?

Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
1,043
Hey everyone,

Eventually I would like to try my hands at a liner lock or even frame lock. I don't have a mill, and I haven't really seen another method of cutting out the lock bar.

I guess I could try it with the drill press, but it just seems like a bad idea. I think I've seen someone use a dremel tool, but I just feel like I'd make a horribly sloppy cut with it.
 
I have seen pictures showing a dremel being used before.
 
could you post some pics of it done with a dremel? i have a foredom that works the same.
 
I use a flex shaft foredom type tool with the thin cut off wheels, the very thin ones. Around 1200 folders done this way.

Tried the mill 15 or so years ago and it was too slow for me.
 
I use a drill press with either a slitting saw (slow with lots of cutting fluid) or a cut off wheel (fastest speed) and take light passes while sliding my vice back and forth on the table.
 
If you have a big drill press and have a table vise just clamp the lock side in and put in a thin kerf cut off wheel from McMaster & Carr and be on your way just letting the wheel do the cutting while you guide it in. Many will caution you that you'll make the shaft wobble doing this and you just might. Still, I know makers that did this for many folders for years using a heavy duty floor standing press and it never gave them any issues doing it.

The short cut can be done first using a band saw and even a wood cutting band saw can make a quick cut that is short and fairly accurate if you plan and use a 14 to 18 tpi blade for metal cutting. You'll eventually burn up the blade but quite honestly I can get two years or more easily out of good blades cutting titanium like its butter the entire time. All I've ever had is a 14" Delta/Rockwell floor standing band saw.

If all you have is a hand held rotary tool you can mark your line and use a thin cut off wheel and actually cut the thinner stuff fairly well. Get into the slab stuff you are in for a long haul though. I know makers that did the drill press technique to double duty their machine making it a mill when needed just as pictured. You use what you have and roll your own in this biz! ;) If you want to see just how fast a wood cutting band saw can zip through sheet titanium for short cuts and do so repeatedly using the same blade for years just watch here. This band saw has cut more metal and titanium in it's life than wood although I have used it for wood too. I read an article years ago about Stan Fujisaka and in that article he expressed how he preferred cutting sheet titanium with the higher speed saw. After doing it both ways I fully agree. I am currently approaching year three for use on the blade being used in this video and it has cut a lot of titanium! I sold about 600 of those pry bars last year alone that doesn't include all the sheet cutting for cutting custom lock sides and liners and pocket clips. Even using a waterjet service for a lot of the work this saw still sees a lot of action and it goes through ti like a hot knife through butter all the way up to .160. If you can start the line where you want to enter with your thin kerf disc, even if it is just one used in a handpiece you can zip the saw through in a controlled cut pretty good by drilling your spot hole at the corner where the long cut and short cut meet. Just follow the line in nice and quick. The trick to cutting ti or even thin up to maybe 1/8" aluminum before it heats so much it starts bonding to the blade, is to keep the piece moving. Letting the blade sit in one spot too long is going to heat up and anodize that spot so much that it will wipe the teeth right off the blade if you are not careful.

[video=youtube;b0vFkyDuAUY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0vFkyDuAUY[/video]
 

Attachments

  • Drill press frame lock cutting two.jpg
    Drill press frame lock cutting two.jpg
    43.3 KB · Views: 128
  • drill press frame lock cutting.jpg
    drill press frame lock cutting.jpg
    46.4 KB · Views: 156
I do mine with a jeweler's frame saw, liberally rubbing the blade with beeswax. Takes about five minutes each and I can do it at the workbench or at the dining table (when my wife isn't home) and listen to cuban music online. What's not to like about that? Much less tedious than blade sanding.

I've never been able to keep those thin Dremel disks from spinning when I try this- what am I doing wrong? I'm cutting 410 stainless, .032 to .050.

Andy
 
Last edited:
If you have a big drill press and have a table vise just clamp the lock side in and put in a thin kerf cut off wheel from McMaster & Carr and be on your way just letting the wheel do the cutting while you guide it in. Many will caution you that you'll make the shaft wobble doing this and you just might. Still, I know makers that did this for many folders for years using a heavy duty floor standing press and it never gave them any issues doing it.

The short cut can be done first using a band saw and even a wood cutting band saw can make a quick cut that is short and fairly accurate if you plan and use a 14 to 18 tpi blade for metal cutting. You'll eventually burn up the blade but quite honestly I can get two years or more easily out of good blades cutting titanium like its butter the entire time. All I've ever had is a 14" Delta/Rockwell floor standing band saw.

If all you have is a hand held rotary tool you can mark your line and use a thin cut off wheel and actually cut the thinner stuff fairly well. Get into the slab stuff you are in for a long haul though. I know makers that did the drill press technique to double duty their machine making it a mill when needed just as pictured. You use what you have and roll your own in this biz! ;) If you want to see just how fast a wood cutting band saw can zip through sheet titanium for short cuts and do so repeatedly using the same blade for years just watch here. This band saw has cut more metal and titanium in it's life than wood although I have used it for wood too. I read an article years ago about Stan Fujisaka and in that article he expressed how he preferred cutting sheet titanium with the higher speed saw. After doing it both ways I fully agree. I am currently approaching year three for use on the blade being used in this video and it has cut a lot of titanium! I sold about 600 of those pry bars last year alone that doesn't include all the sheet cutting for cutting custom lock sides and liners and pocket clips. Even using a waterjet service for a lot of the work this saw still sees a lot of action and it goes through ti like a hot knife through butter all the way up to .160. If you can start the line where you want to enter with your thin kerf disc, even if it is just one used in a handpiece you can zip the saw through in a controlled cut pretty good by drilling your spot hole at the corner where the long cut and short cut meet. Just follow the line in nice and quick. The trick to cutting ti or even thin up to maybe 1/8" aluminum before it heats so much it starts bonding to the blade, is to keep the piece moving. Letting the blade sit in one spot too long is going to heat up and anodize that spot so much that it will wipe the teeth right off the blade if you are not careful.

[video=youtube;b0vFkyDuAUY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0vFkyDuAUY[/video]

Absolutely brilliant! I wouldn't have guessed that it would cut at that saw speed without destroying teeth. Looking like I need to invest in another wood bandsaw dedicated to cut titanium.
 
Im with Don H. on this one. Jerry Mclure should me this way. I use the thinest and second thinest ones disks from RioGrand. The cut take's maybe a minute. I was say I mostly make liner lock dress knive's.
 
You don't want to use a mill anyway. Use a drill press with a thin cut off disk as mentioned above. Put your liner on a vice and slide back and forth. If done right it will come out perfect.
 
What Raylaconico said, I used to do liner locks using a mill and a slitting blade. After I saw a video of a maker using a dremel cut off wheel, I believe it was a #420 wheel, and a small machinist vise to make the cut that's what I went with. Since I use my mill more for a precision drill press it saves a lot of set up time switching back and forth, and does a rite neat job of it too. I use the vise and drill press to cut the short lock face cut as well.

Here's a pic of a tutorial I did on how I do folders. Real simple set up, a cheap harbor freight drill press, dremel cut off wheel, and cheap machinist vise. The drill press pulley's are set up for max speed, spindle locked in position, cut off wheel centered over hole in table so I can change disk without moving the hight of the spindle. It normally takes me 3-4 disk to make the long cut.

Here's the link to the thread, this was a prototype and my EDC. Next one of this pattern will have a slightly shorter lock bar. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/897205-Folder-WIP

Do a search, there's a ton of info on different ways of doing folders here. The first few I did were with nothing more than a flex shaft dremel, and while the lock bar cut wasn't perfect, it worked and wasn't that bad, especially with a little clean up from a needle file. The drill press just makes it easier to keep everything straight.
 

Attachments

  • DSCF00441.jpg
    DSCF00441.jpg
    54 KB · Views: 149
Last edited:
What no love for waterjet or laser? You old fogies crack me up! :)

Kidding! Kidding! In all seriousness with the right vice a good drill press is a VERY versatile tool.
 
Last edited:
A die grinder cut off wheel in a drill press will cut faster and last way way longer than dremel wheels
jxWGLVm.jpg
 
True, and I've done a few that way and it works well. The reason I use the 420 dremel wheels is there thinner than anything else out there. Of course being thin they break easy, everything is a trade off. Just the way I like to do them, my personal favorite way of cutting the slot is a slitting saw, but I broke the last one and haven't gotten another one yet, and don't like having to swap the mill back and forth from mill to drill. Maybe one day I'll get a good mill and can keep the Smithy as a drill.
 
Thanks everyone!

I'm slightly confused how the cutting works with a drill press though. Do you take really light passes several times, or go slow and cut the whole thing out?
 
Thanks everyone!

I'm slightly confused how the cutting works with a drill press though. Do you take really light passes several times, or go slow and cut the whole thing out?

You kinda feel it knowing when you are going in trying to take off more than the disc can chew. If the side is titanium you don't want to burn it up and heat anodize it during the process anyways so let the disc do the work. I think you'll get the hang of it if you just clamp a couple test pieces in and jump in. Nothing like hands on to get the feel for it.

STR
 
@William Wood....................

you no likey EDM?

Seriously if I could do abrasive waterjet in my garage using something no bigger then a Sanford surface grinder I'd be all over that.

Just sayin................

Syn
 
Patrice Lemée;11934057 said:
Don, I was just looking at at WIP on a French knife forum that should help you.

http://forum.neoczen.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=23630&start=15

Pictures pretty much says it all but let me know if you want me to translate something.

There is a part where the maker puts a torch to the liner, he gets it cherry hot and i assume he is heat treating it. can anyone go over the process of heat treating the liners?
 
Back
Top