David Wesner - modified "Gus" model camp knife - WIP- Coop pics added!

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Shaping the handle should be real fun too! (My personal fave part of the whole process) Plus I'm dying to see that Koa take shape.

It's moving along real nice my man.

Roger
 
RogerP said:
Shaping the handle should be real fun too! (My personal fave part of the whole process) Plus I'm dying to see that Koa take shape.

It's moving along real nice my man.

Roger
Click to expand...

I've already started knocking the block size down a little.

I can't wait to get to the actual finishing....... the knife as one unit.

Thats what I'm looking forward to :thumbup:
 
You ever have one of those days where it feels like you're doing nothing more than spinning your wheels ???

Yesterday was one of those days for me. Everytime I started to do something, a gremlin would step in and stifle my plans :grumpy:

I was able to get a little work done though.

I've got the finial nut roughed in quite well.

Here's a pic of where I started .....

Center drilling for my tap drill................

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Before I could drill my tap drill hole I needed to know how deep and how much full thread depth I would need to fully take advantage of the 1/4-28 screw strength.

A general rulle of thumb is to have at least 1-1/2 times the length of the pitch diameter of the screw size being used

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So taking into consideration how far my tang sits inside the handle, where the finial nut is going to sit on the handle butt I figured my tap drill depth and drilled my hole....

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After drilling I tapped the finial nut .......

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Next I needed to make a square peg fit in a round hole ;) :D


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After I had my finial main shaft milled I needed to mill a flange .......

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After milling was complete I saw cut the bar off leaving a little meat to finish.

Next I'll flip this over, punch a few drive holes, and turn the flange down to it's finished diameter


RogerWez88.jpg



So, I'm gettin' my Butt back out to the shop.

Ya see I've got this guy I'm making this knife for, and he's got another one being made by, dare I say, one of the most famous Mastersmiths in the WORLD :eek:

I've got to get busy guys ;) The pressure is on !!! :onthego: :onthego: :onthego: :onthego:





:topsy_turvy:
 
Dave - the machinist in you is definitely showing in this build - and I'd say that's definitely a good thing.

Roger
 
I've made good, no, I mean excellent progress on the GUS Take-Down :cool:

This knife has come together in such rock solid fashion I think this one could be the "proto-type" for something I'm going to do again, and again ;)

Here's where I'm at since we spoke last .....

After milling the finial nut there was a bit of turning that needed to be done, specifically taking the major diameter of the flange down to 1/2"

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After finishing that operation I set-up to drill a 4 hole bolt circle for a finial nut drive tool I'll be making


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I'm down to mostly finish work on this part now :thumbup:
 
You must be awfully coordinated to move the X and Y handles in order to make something perfectly round on that vertical mill!!!! :eek:

;) :D :p

Love'n it David and Roger!!! :thumbup: :cool:
 
Next I set-up to cut a pocket for the finial nut back-up plate, pommell nut kind of thing.

Initially I had something a little different in mind but, IMHO, this was the most solid, sensible method.

When Roger and I were discussing this knife, he specifically mentioned to me that, although he might never use a knife he has built, be it from me or another maker, it's extremely important to know that he could use it for it's intended purpose if he wanted to.

I told him I had no desire to ever make a knife that couldn't be used for it's intended purpose ;)

That being said I came up with this no spin finial nut back-up plate.

Here's a shot milling the pocket in the handle

RogerWez100.jpg
 
That last pic is most intriguing... can't wait to see how that evolves.

Roger
 
Next I set-up to make the insert for the pocket.

Before I could separate the insert from my main body of stock I first drilled and bored a nice tight tolerance hole for the finial nut body.
After that I milled a counterbore for the finial nut flange to sit in .........

Here I'm checking the counterbore size with a neat little tool known as a telescope gauge. Some old school guys call them snap gauges.

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After pushing them through the hole or counterbore once and only once ;) you can mike over the top of the guage to get an amazingly accurate hole size :thumbup: :thumbup:


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So I finished the countebore, milled my little insert and walla ........

Next thing you know I'm grinding the rough profile on the guard .......


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:cool:
 
So now I have all of my components fit and rough finished.

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Everything fits together, just like it's supposed too ;) and I'm working on getting the handle profile roughed in.

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Things are starting to take shape now :thumbup:

I'm really, really excited about getting all of this Damascus etched along with a brilliant finish on this fine block of Koa.

I've got what my daughter would call "a fun fact" related to this project ;) :D

This entire project is built of only 3 components, 1084 steel, 15N20 steel and Koa.

Nothing more ............ :thumbup: :thumbup:


Thanks again for checking this thread out guys ;)
 
RogerP said:
That last pic is most intriguing... can't wait to see how that evolves.

Roger
Click to expand...


I sure hope you like what you see :o

RogerWez107.jpg



As you can see, I have some furniture clean-up, some handle and guard contouring and a few other things to do yet. All in all, I'm happy with where it's at.

And I can't overstate how solid this thing locks up Roger :thumbup:

I think you're going to like it :)
 
mattbrook said:
Love your approach to the Gaurd and Spacer with the boss. It will look very clean with no chance of a pesky pin showing up!

Thanks for taking the time to show us how you go about your knives David!

Matt
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Thanks for taking notice of that feature Matt ;)

This is only the 2nd take-down I've made, so I still have a lot to learn.

In regards to the boss/pocket feature. My hope was to come up with a simple yet secure design. I also wanted to keep the number of parts to a minimum while still keeping it interesting.

So far, so good, 6 parts for the knife, and 3 different materials to make it ;) :)

And Matt, Thank you for taking the time to follow along and make a post. It is very, very much appreciated :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
NickWheeler said:
You must be awfully coordinated to move the X and Y handles in order to make something perfectly round on that vertical mill!!!! :eek:

;) :D :p

Love'n it David and Roger!!! :thumbup: :cool:
Click to expand...

Coordinated ?? Me ?? Ha ! :D

It's all about the new knifemaking mill I picked up last week.

No special skills required ......... you just put a vague facsimile/sketch into a little slot on the RH side of the machine.
Just above that slot there's a little larger window where you put in the materials you want to use.

That is of course, a basic description of the set-up ;)

After the sketch and material is loaded you just hit the green "Go" button and out pops a nearly finished knife :eek:
Just a little polishing and you're done :rolleyes:

It's awesome !

Anybody can do it :D

All you need is the machine ........ ;)


All joking aside ........... Thanks for following along and posting Nick :thumbup: :thumbup:

I really appreciate your support. You've been such a good friend over the many years we've been hang'in out here on BladeForums. Always supportive.

I could be wrong, but I think both you and I have been here, nearly since day one.
Before I changed my BF presence to my real name, I was known as trapperwez, with a join date of 1999 too.

On second thought ??, maybe a more appropriate way of phrasing that would be to say, "I was unknown as trapperwez" ......... "with a join date of 1999" ;) :D ROTFLMAO :D

And ~!* %$&^&# .......... I'm still unknown as David Wesner :grumpy: :grumpy: :D



Thanks again Nick ;) :thumbup:




:cool:
 
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xaman said:
Oh yeah, looking good now David!
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Thanks Eli :)

You're another BladeForums member I've called friend for many, many years now :thumbup: :thumbup:

Oh how time flies !

I've always appreciated and respected both your input and support ;)


:cool:
 
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billf said:
looks tremendous!!!

Bill
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Thank you very, very much Bill :)

I can't deny the fact, when someone uses the word tremendous to describe what they see in my work, it makes my day !! ;)

Thank you again for your support and for your post Bill. I appreciate it more than you could ever imagine :thumbup:



:)
 
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