Finished the first one.... or not

[From Tennessee]

One thing for sure there is a lot more to learn. This one was made on a whim after finding the forum who could ever resist and I will just say many of the things I have seen in this forum makes my brain hurt (too much to imagine almost). I used an old saw blade which I'm thinking wasn't in bad shape. A generous member has since played me forward to pieces of 1x9x3/16 1084 and some really nice maple slabs and I really appreciate it.
This one I grabbed the saw blade wacked it out with my dremel and I used some copper sheet for the liners, a broken brass cleaning rod for my pins turned them on a little harbor freight lathe. The scales I used some red cedar which I cut down a long time ago (years). I propaned torched the tang and drilled my holes but left the rest of the blade as is. It sharpen up good but the bevel is 20degs and when I figure out how to jig it Id like to make another with a full taper grind. I used a sharpening jig and stoned it to the 20 degress and I may put it back in a take it to 17 degrees. My first attempt at any leather craft was assisted my a friend who loaned me the tooling. That was fun. I'll probably leave this one as is and make it my garden knife. I dig a lot. The epoxy part pushed my patients to the limit. I had 3 minutes but I had it all laid out and did a couple practice assemblies then went for it. Stressed me out

I got plans for the next one and thanks Steve. I'm thinking.

 

[lonepine]

Congratulations! Sometimes the hardest part is just starting. All things considered you did a respectable job, and even left a "little" room for improvement. ;-)

As a general rule the slower setting epoxy is stronger. I think I would use the slower epoxy regardless because I don't like to rush when I'm trying to do something good. I make way too many mistakes as it is when I'm not rushing.

What is your next knife going to be like?

- Paul Meske

 

[quint]

Looks great IMHO. I think you could spend some time working on your sheaths but for a first one that looks darn good. Check out leatherworker.net for leather working info. Ive been on there for the last 4 years or so. I like that cedar you used, really looks good.

 

[thegeek574]

It turned out good. The cedar is nicer than I was expecting. it finishes very nicely. BTW, the steel is 1/8 inch thick.

Good luck on the next one. I am looking forward to it.

 

[From Tennessee]

The epoxy allowed at the most 5 minutes and the other stuff I had had a 20 minute pot life and a 24 hour cure time which would have been a much better choice. Clean-up after I had my clamps on got a little squirrely Had to stay at it with acetone as the epoxy seeped out. All in all I was pleased with it. The cedar is a little more durable than the western types of cedar. Ive made walking stick from it and it gets real hard given enough time. I use it a lot for some Antarsia Ive done which is a scroll saw type of project. Copper liners were from some .020 thick sheet and I think something a tad thicker would finish better. Next time.
The stitching was trickier than I realized keeping the stitches straight I didnt notice till it was sew and I looked at the work in the whole. Boy your can mess up some leather fast with those fun little embossing stamps! It was fun and I check out the leatherworker.com site thanks for the point. I could really enjoy it.

Im thinking something like a Tanto style blade for the next one. Im doing some sketches now. I pretty good at autocad R2000 from my working days and its great for drawing profiles and making templates.

Thanks for the critique its important. It seems like some things didn't show up until I started to take pictures (ouch) and now having the opportunity for other to point out things to work on.