Do you Practice?

U

unky_gumbi

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Aug 28, 2009
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I was just wondering if anyone else here practices. I often find myself taking a piece of scrap steel or wood and practice certain aspects of knife making. Things like file work, bevel and swedge grinding, handle shaping, leather carving and tooling, and the list goes on and on. A few times these practice sessions have actually turned into a complete practice knife that gets snapped up by my brother. He likes my knives and even though they are imperfect practice pieces he likes to show them off to his friends. The latest one that turned into a knife was my first attempt at a hollow grind, and some file work. The grind was OK, a little off to one side and I didn't quite stay in the groove so the hollow is far from perfect. The file work was some of my best to date and that is the part he really liked.

Being that he is family and the piece was destine for the scrap pile any how I told him he could have it, then he spied a set of scale I had sitting on the counter and wanted them on the practice knife and gave me the price I paid for them.

This is the latest practice piece, sorry about the blurry pictures:o, but it is just a practice knife

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So if you practice your knife making, what and how do you practice?
 
When I make practice knives, I tend to make small knives out of 1/8x1x6-7" 1084, and then try something new on them. I can always use more practice filing, sanding, shaping the handle, or HTing, so they are great. in addition, I will try something new like a swedge or filework or a new blade shape just to get the feel for it. they usually turn into shop knives.
 
Every knife I make is practice for the next one I will make. I don't waste material throwing things away because they are imperfect. I do my best to make them perfect, or recycle the material into something else. Very little is wasted. Even the smallest cut-off pieces are saved with the thought that some day they may become miniature knifes or welded into something else altogether.
 
I don't know if you'd call it practice, but I'm a big fan of making two of everything. I often end up with a catastrophic mistake at some point, or I'm trying something new and need to do a "trial run" on a particular process or technique. Usually I end up with one piece that turns out OK.
 
I buy mild steel at home depot and practice grinds that I need help with and filing. Can pick up like 3 feet for 6$ so why not.
 
I still make at least two similar knives each time, once I finish the first I use what I learned on the first to improve the second. Every knife is a practice for the next, but I do set out to practice a particular aspect once or twice a week.
 
cbr900son said:
I buy mild steel at home depot and practice grinds that I need help with and filing. Can pick up like 3 feet for 6$ so why not.
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I always practice with a steel that can be made into a workable knife, 1084 is very affordable and forgiving for a home HT. By using 1084 if I make something good I can finish it. I probably have about 30" of it sitting here just for that purpose
 
I do tons of practice knives, I almost never start the day with something important. I like to warm up and enjoy myself making something fun. I am always trying out new concepts or trying to get better at old ones. I have always liked chisel grinds but when I first started knifemaking I looked at them as a way to improve my weak hand grinding and made lots of tantos and kiridashis trying to get all the lines dead straight. I also went through a mirror polishing phase where I mirror polished everything just to get good at it. I go through times where I try to let myself really relax and not think too much about what I am doing and times of tremendous concentration, I think it all helps. I like to have fun with my knifemaking and trying new techniques until I get better at them is often very enjoyable.
 
Unless you are capable of absolute perfection, everything is practice. As a mortal, everything I do is practice.
 
Patrice Lemée;10226008 said:
You sure practiced your grinds a lot on this one. Looks like you almost ran out of blade to grind. ;)
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Hey, he started out with a 1/4"X1-1/2"X18" bar,I don't think he did so bad.:D:D
 
SBuzek said:
Hey, he started out with a 1/4"X1-1/2"X18" bar,I don't think he did so bad.:D:D
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you are giving me too much credit there, it was 1/8"x2"x20" when I started:eek: Luckily I was able to get a full sized knife from the cut off, or was that the other way around and this practice knife was from the cut off:confused:
 
I tend to practice in the areas that I'm not good at yet, like grinding! I have some 1075/1080 from Admiral that is great for playing around with new knife designs and grinds. I also have some of Aldo's 1084 that I use. I'm learning that the more I take off of my 2x42 Craftsman, the better I get. It's been heavily modified and I took the tool rest off two days ago and my grinds have improved greatly!

Love your filework! That's another area I really need to improve in.

@ Count

What's wrong with his pin alignment? It looks good to me. I see some from "professional" knifemakers that are all over the place. I prefer my thong tubes lower like his if I'll be using a lanyard.
 
Mudbug007 said:
@ Count

What's wrong with his pin alignment? It looks good to me. I see some from "professional" knifemakers that are all over the place.
I prefer my thong tubes lower like his if I'll be using a lanyard.
Click to expand...

I don't really know, but something looks "off" to me- the "flow" everyone keeps talking about.

If you call it "front pin", "middle pin", "rear thong hole"


I have no problem with the thong hole being lower.
but when it is, the middle pin seems to be high in relation.

I try to use either a straight line, slightly high of centreline
or
have them all in a consistent curved arc radius that passes through all pins and makes sense with the blade.

If you eyeball an arc that passes through the blade centreline to the tip, front pin and thong hole, then the middle pin is not on that line.


I fiddled with the ellipse function in paint.
It's not doing what I want, but I hope it shows what I mean.

ugarc1.jpg
 
Pin alignment looks good to me... typical bushcrafter with the lanyard hole dropped. The spacing is even. Perhaps the wood grain is throwing you off, Count.

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Huh

Now that Rick's arc ties into the point, it seems all in line,

but when I just look at the knife - the middle pin seems out of line to me.
 
The pin alignment looks good. The constant curve of the handle and pin alignment are obviously not consistent with the changing curvature of an ellipse.
 
Maybe not, but you should have seen the raggaty line I did freehand.


I do better with a pencil.

I think my eye just wants all three pins aligned somehow
 
There isn't much use in pick this one apart, all it was, was practice of a couple of things I wanted to try. Keep in mind that it came from a cut off, and the actual grind is really bad:o, that could be what is throwing your eye off count. There are a number of things on this that are not right that you may or may not see.

  1. grind is off center by about 1/64"
  2. right side swedge is shorter than the left
  3. pot marks in the epoxy on the file work
  4. neither of the sides have a nice even hollow grind
and the list goes on, I just wanted to show what a typical practice knife for me looks. I had also tried to do a hammon on it. I got a little bit, but it was very low and would have never shown once it was sharpened, so I just annealed it and redid the HT. Yes I do fool around with home HT on 1084 and so far have been getting reasonable results, no warps and only one piece has cracked, but so far anything that has passed on to a shop knife is holding a good edge. Most of my practice knives look really bad because I don't put any effort into the finish:o That is the main reason you don't see a makers mark on it, it is something that was never intended to leave my possession.
 
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