First blade from me & the KMG

[Josh Dabney]

This is where I'm at with my first knife after re-profiling it into a paring knife for my wife. I'm really happy with my second day progress and have a full heigth flat grind and a tapered tang and pin holes drilled. I've still got to smooth out the profile, drill some weight reduction holes in the tang, and do some file work so it's not quite ready for heat treat yet. The bevels aren't a perfect match but they are fairly good so I'm leaving it as is till my mentor has a chance to look at it. I did lightly bump the blade on the platen wheel while tapering the tang but don't want to get it too thin before HT. Im trying to decide if I should taper the tang some more or go as is. Currently I'm 1/8" at the ricasso and 1/16" at the end of the tang but it still looks fairly chubby to me due to it's small size in relation to thickness of the barstock. OAL is 6 1/4" with a 2 3/4" cutting edge.

All comments and suggestions are WELCOMED and WANTED thanks for looking - Josh

 

[go mike]

Looks pretty nice!

 

[DC KNIVES]

Sure glad to see you up and running brother.That looks pretty good.I am looking forward to seeing it.Dave

 

[Josh Dabney]

Hmmmm, Aint being a rookie grand .
I drilled my extra holes in the tang and went to the grinder to smooth out the rough edges left from the drill bit without realizing that I put a pretty good bend in the tang while drilling. (Blade clamped flat in drill press vice). Due to the bend, while the platen was smoothing out the tang the top wheel was eating a beautiful chunk out of the side of the blade so back to the grinder later for some thinning out of the entire blade to see what I have left. I may end up with 1/16th at the spine instead of 1/8 and no tapered tang which is a bummer but probably better geometry for a parer anyway.