Feedback and harsh criticism (WIP-done)

S

Sandeggo

Joined
Nov 17, 2014
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254
Thursday afternoon I found some ground and annealed O1 tool steel locally. This is my 7th knife, but my first that didn't have a prior life as a bastard file. I drew a design that is a hunter type drop point with a fairly short blade. I got some scrap brass and leftover walnut from my previous projects. With each knife I try my hand at a new technique. Last week I saw beveled scales and guards. So with this knife I decided to try it out.
Roughed out
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Ground the bevel, heat treated and quenched, sanded and polished. Too bad I forgot to temper before polishing lol
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There goes the polish.... 2, 1-hour cycles through the toaster oven at 450ish
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Mocking up the scales
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Glue up
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I had read on here the repeated advice of taking your time. I adhered to that and I am fairly happy with the out come, now with that said, let me have it. There's still more coats of Danish to do and a final detail/once over.
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Difficult to see but there's a 3rd pin in the brass chunks
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I shit you not, if I hadn't already bought 9 other knives this week I'd definitely make you an offer... Might practice sculpting the handles a bit more ergonomicaly. But other than that it's gorgeous...
 
sales comments removed

Please do not offer to buy or sell in Shop Talk.
 
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Yeah not much to say about this one. Only thing I'd say is the handle is a bit "blocky" for my taste. Looking at your mock up it just looks like you rounded the edges slightly, not necessarily a bad thing I just prefer more "round" handles. So rounding off the bolster and handles would be the only critique I can offer but we're splitting hairs here it's a fantastic piece. Well done.
 
That's a really nice one. Overall it looks really good. I like the scales you put on it. Keep up the good work man.
 
Looks really good.

It appears you decided against the dovetail bolsters and changed to a lap joint for the scales. The dovetails would have been better.
 
Not a bad looking little cutter! Looks like you decided to flip your bolsters from your first pic (I think that's what Stacy was referring to?). I think I would have left them as well, just to show a little more brass bolster.

Lastly, I wonder if that tight radius between the top of the handle and the ricasso would cause a hot spot on somebody with larger hands? Maybe not, but I'd just keep that in the back of my mind and make sure to soften the corners on the bottom of the ricasso area as much as I could.

Definitely a great job all around though.
 
Thank you for all the positive comments. The handles are a little slabby because I have gigantic hands so a simple knock the corner off worked for me. Thank you all. Yes Stacy I was going for the dovetail pattern but decided against it because the tip of the brass was really close to the pin. I thought it would look weird having it so close together. In all actuality when I started this knife I had no intention on putting bolsters on it but when I roughed out the grips I found a void in the wood right where it meets the ricasso.
Here's a couple close ups of the handle shape while I was sanding through the higher grits. I swear I wouldn't be able to do any of this without my pana-vise.
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Preview of this weeks adventure. Might be the "big brother" to this knife, as I still have walnut, filler rod, and brass tubing left.
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Would it be out of line to turn this into a WIP?
I brought some varying dia filler home from work.. I mean the welding supply to try my hand at mosaic pins. Well that's very tedious work without a vacuum pump and money is tight. Anyways I got 2 different styles done with slow cure epoxy so those will have to wait until tomorrow. Then I had read earlier about putting a chamfer on the inside holes of guards so I did just that. Also drilled the holes for my pins and the thong. Then I squared up and filed the spine. My plan for this DPH is to use mosaic pins, maybe a liner, and a little filework on the spine. I do not plan to file the whole spine, just about an inch in front of the guards to the center of the thong hole. And of course, walnut scales. I am hoping to have an etcher put together to finish this one off, but we will see how the thing turns out.
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Looks like you are doing some nice, clean work.
Other than the blocky handle shape I am liking what I am seeing.
 
are the blade colors after tempering true to life or reflections off something? If true, it looks like you may have exceeded your target 450 by a fair amount. Appears a little uneven as well so you may have ended up with a soft cutting edge? Should be a nice uniform color after tempering. If reflections just disregard! Nice looking knife!
 
StuNY said:
are the blade colors after tempering true to life or reflections off something? If true, it looks like you may have exceeded your target 450 by a fair amount. Appears a little uneven as well so you may have ended up with a soft cutting edge? Should be a nice uniform color after tempering. If reflections just disregard! Nice looking knife!
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I think the color was cause by a few things but mostly in part to polishing it prior to tempering. I'm sure there were some contaminants that burned off. I haven't put a true edge on it yet, but I did attack it with a file a little bit and it seemed to perform well. For this new project I will be going to my buddys' shop as he just got a HT oven for making tools and dies.
 
Re: mosaic pins, the left one looks really good. The right one is a little funky but in the right setting could be really cool.

I'm impressed with how clean the blade on the short knife turned out.

I can't read tempering by color but an O-1 blade I did last week was very bluish after temper, and I think that's generally expected. One of these days I'm going to add a PID controller to a toaster oven to make it a temperature controlled tempering oven. Maybe I can help you do the same since we're in the same area.

Where did you find the O-1?
 
zhyla said:
Re: mosaic pins, the left one looks really good. The right one is a little funky but in the right setting could be really cool.

I'm impressed with how clean the blade on the short knife turned out.

I can't read tempering by color but an O-1 blade I did last week was very bluish after temper, and I think that's generally expected. One of these days I'm going to add a PID controller to a toaster oven to make it a temperature controlled tempering oven. Maybe I can help you do the same since we're in the same area.

Where did you find the O-1?
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I bought the O-1 at Marshall's industrial hardware in Mira Mesa. Be careful if you go there as you could easily spend a whole months pay there. They have 139 different types of files in stock and posted on the wall. They have precision O-1, all sorts of brass and stainless stuff. Some of the prices aren't the best but I like buying locally when I can. I got the big chunks of brass for the bolsters from escondido metal supply. Where are you located?
 
That knife might wind up using something other than walnut for the scales. What length is the handle? I'll see if I have anything a little prettier you can use. Left mosaic pin looks nicer btw
 
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