Finally finished another video in the shop!

[aarongough]

Great video thanks for sharing. Picked up a few ideas for my little shop.

Awesome! Glad the video was helpful!

Great Vid Aaron. Thanks for giving back.

Thanks for watching mate!

Thoroughly enjoyable and informative. Great job and nice blade to boot! For what you used the hammer for a chunk of bar would have sufficed so I wouldn't worry about that.

Cheers man!

 

[aarongough]

This is one of the very best knifemaking videos out there. Every beginning knifemaker needs to watch this multiple times. I know I will! I don't have much experience with g-10 and micarta handles, and this helped alot. Thanks Aaron!

Thanks very much mate!

AAron, It was a pleasure to watch your video because it was well planned, filmed from a stable rest, not monotonous, and was informative even without speaking. I know it was a lot of work so thank you for sharing your video. I have one question though. Did you consider adding a few comments verbally while showing how you made your knife? The microphone seemed to pickup the equipment noise quite well and I thought you might speak along with process. It was fine with the subtitles but I wondered if you wanted to say a few things. I made my own amateur slide show with sign boards explaining the slides because I did not have video and barely knew how to add a music soundtrack. I'm sure others will want to see more of your videos...I sure do. Nice presentation.

Thanks Larry! I have found that it's very hard to talk on camera and then have all that speech come together to make something coherent in the final video, especially with so much footage being taken.

Doing a voice-over during the editing process is definitely an option, however I've found those to be very polarizing. If it's for an instructional video then they work great, but for a process documentary like this a lot of people seem to find the voiceover to be a bit intrusive, it distracts them from just watching the video. That's why I decided on the 'subtitles' in the end... Not sure that it's perfect, but I haven't yet had a better idea.

Very good video Aaron, thank you. I have a few questions.

Why do you have the tip of the blade angled downward in your bevel grinding jig?

What glue do you use for temporarily gluing together the handle scales?

What is your process for cleaning the abrasive grit out of the kydex after shaping it?

Thanks mate!

The downward angle on the blade is to control the angle of the plunge line.

The glue I used to tack the handles together was just superglue, it's fairly brittle so a hammer blow can shear it easily, be careful not to use too much though! A few dots is sufficient!

With the sheaths I leave the cleaning until all the shaping is done, and rely on a single layer of tape to protect the blade during the initial fittings. Then after the shaping is done I was wash the sheath out as well as I can. That seems to work pretty well. Even when I was totally disassembling the sheaths and cleaning them I found it still wasn't foolproof... Compressed air works pretty well too if you have it.

I'm guessing here - it's probably so he ends up with the angle he wants the line to run at the ricasso.

That's correct, it's to control the angle of the plunge line.

 

[gudspelr]

Really cool video. Thanks for taking the time to do all that work and share it. On the sheath, what thickness of kydex do you use? Does that depend on the knife or do you use one standard size for everything? Was looking at some of the stuff recently, along with foam. And they had different foams that apparently give different amounts of definition, too.... So many decisions...


Jeremy

 

[stereo.pete]

Simply fantastic, thanks for making the video! One thing I am confused about, when you are standing the flats of the blade, you sand into the area where the handle will be. I always thought that was a big issue since that area is no longer flat after sanding it. How do you maintain that your tang is flat after the rough and finish sanding that you did in the video?

Thanks,

Pete

 

[NickWheeler]

Very nicely done Aaron.

I'm definitely missing something on the video marketing end of things. I have videos posted a month ago that have about 1k views... you posted this two days ago and have over 10k!!! Very impressive.

 

[PT Doc]

Very nicely done Aaron.

I'm definitely missing something on the video marketing end of things. I have videos posted a month ago that have about 1k views... you posted this two days ago and have over 10k!!! Very impressive.

Ten times the amount of views and ten times the amount of subscribers.!

 

[tiguy7]

Yeah it's a little lame using a claw hammer in the shop eh! I actually bought a nice ball-peen hammer a while back, but the handle shrunk and now the head is loose... I didn't have any glycol to fix it so I just put it in a drawer.

Do you have a recommendation for a nice resin-handled ball-peen brand?

Just butter the wooden handle with some 24hr. Epoxy. No need to wipe up the excess glue. It's just a tool.

 

[PEU]

Just shared the video at our main knife forum here in Argentina, thanks!!

Can you tell me the brand of the anti scale compound? Im sure its not available locally, but with more info I may be able to source something similar here. Thanks!

A comment on your glueing technique, before glueing the scales I make many shallow 1/4" holes on the inside of the scales to help the whole assembly bond better.


Pablo

 

[aarongough]

Really cool video. Thanks for taking the time to do all that work and share it. On the sheath, what thickness of kydex do you use? Does that depend on the knife or do you use one standard size for everything? Was looking at some of the stuff recently, along with foam. And they had different foams that apparently give different amounts of definition, too.... So many decisions...


Jeremy

Hey Jeremy!
For the sheaths I use 0.080" kydex, I use one size for everything, seems to work ok! I forget which foam I bought, I think it was the standard stuff. Different temperatures on the kydex will also affect how much it forms. I've found it very useful to standardize my kydex process as much as possible, and infrared thermometer gun is a really handy tool for doing this!

-A

 

[aarongough]

double post...

 

[aarongough]

Simply fantastic, thanks for making the video! One thing I am confused about, when you are standing the flats of the blade, you sand into the area where the handle will be. I always thought that was a big issue since that area is no longer flat after sanding it. How do you maintain that your tang is flat after the rough and finish sanding that you did in the video?

Thanks,

Pete

Hey Pete!
I've actually never really thought about that, as it's never really caused me an issue except for one where I had to do a lot of rough sanding in that area. I guess it really depends on how much material you're removing there. If it's only like 0.001" then it's not going to be an issue, probably helps that I only use precision ground stock...

Definitely something I'll keep in mind going forward though!

 

[aarongough]

Very nicely done Aaron.

I'm definitely missing something on the video marketing end of things. I have videos posted a month ago that have about 1k views... you posted this two days ago and have over 10k!!! Very impressive.

Thanks Nick!
Well just so you know, I'm one of your subscribers, have been for a little while now!

I think part of what might account for the difference in viewership is that your videos are much more likely to appeal to other knifemakers, as they're often fairly in depth and covering specific techniques. That audience is definitely smaller than 'youtube in general'... I do some stuff that would be considered tutorials but they're much more basic and aimed at beginners with minimal tools.

I'm happy to chat about that stuff if you think it might be helpful!
-Aaron

 

[aarongough]

Ten times the amount of views and ten times the amount of subscribers.!

I've found the number of subscribers that actually watch the video in the first few days after it's released is actually surprisingly low! Something on the order of 10% if I'm lucky!

 

[aarongough]

Just butter the wooden handle with some 24hr. Epoxy. No need to wipe up the excess glue. It's just a tool.

I actually pulled that hammer out of the drawer the other day, low and behold the handle fitted properly. I checked the handle at the head and there were center-punch marks in the metal wedges... I guess I had fixed it and then promptly forgotten that I had done so!

Just shared the video at our main knife forum here in Argentina, thanks!!

Can you tell me the brand of the anti scale compound? Im sure its not available locally, but with more info I may be able to source something similar here. Thanks!

A comment on your glueing technique, before glueing the scales I make many shallow 1/4" holes on the inside of the scales to help the whole assembly bond better.


Pablo

Hey Pablo!
The anti-scale compound is called ATP-641, it's sold by Brownells. It's made by a company called 'Advanced Technical Products' in the US. They've been helpful for me in the past, my guess is they'd happily send you some in the mail if you can't order it from Brownells. One jar lasts a long time!

Thanks for the input on the glueing technique! I will have to try that out!
-Aaron

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Nothing to critique here, very well done. As far as the shop, also hard to critique but I would change:

Like Sam said, claw hammer gotta go.

You need sturdier table for the rivet press. Make it big enough for the hardness tester too while you are at it. Kneeling down is hard when you get old, trust me.

Your hand sanding support. That clamped board is just not cutting it compared to the level of thought you've put in the rest of the shop/tools/jigs.

Of course I am just suggesting these for fun cause I am sure they are all on your shop upgrade ToDo list already. Which, if you are like me, is about a mile long and not getting any shorter.

Oh and good looking knife of course. Thanks for sharing Aaron.

PS: I keep hearing the voice of the robot from "Lost in Space" when I see that Danger sign.

 

[Smithy]

Very well done and full of great information. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this vid. It has helped me a lot.

 

[Dynamik1]

Aaron you were my inspiration to try my hand at this thing of ours! The infantry knife video got me started

 

[aarongough]

Nothing to critique here, very well done. As far as the shop, also hard to critique but I would change:

Like Sam said, claw hammer gotta go.

You need sturdier table for the rivet press. Make it big enough for the hardness tester too while you are at it. Kneeling down is hard when you get old, trust me.

Your hand sanding support. That clamped board is just not cutting it compared to the level of thought you've put in the rest of the shop/tools/jigs.

Of course I am just suggesting these for fun cause I am sure they are all on your shop upgrade ToDo list already. Which, if you are like me, is about a mile long and not getting any shorter.

Oh and good looking knife of course. Thanks for sharing Aaron.

PS: I keep hearing the voice of the robot from "Lost in Space" when I see that Danger sign.

Hey Patrice!
I didn't even realize how much the arbor press was bending the table until I saw it on the footage! Will have to replace that soon! Putting the hardness tester on a table will be done at some point too, will be a little annoying to do though as it has to be perfectly level in order to read properly, had that issue in my last shop with the table it was mounted on!

 

[aarongough]

Very well done and full of great information. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this vid. It has helped me a lot.

Thanks Smithy! Glad it was helpful!

Aaron you were my inspiration to try my hand at this thing of ours! The infantry knife video got me started

Hey Dynamik! Awesome to hear mate, hope the hobby keeps you excited for many years to come!

 

[Kosa_PL]

I want this grinding Jig *_*