First framelock and how it happened... pic heavy!

[colu41]

Pretty awesome watching this come to life! Looks like a fun 2 month job for me! lol

 

[Shannon Carter]

Okay, more pics… time to focus on the blade for a bit!

Remembered to upload a pic of the mill/drill from Grizzly. This is a model G0463. And much of the work on this knife was done right here.

I cut out a copy of the the blade from Draftsight and glued it to a piece of 1/8” CPM S35VN coated in Dykem. This steel came from Admiral Steel and is 1 1/2” wide. It is actually much thicker than 1/8” and I surface grind it later on. Once again, Draftsight is pretty cool.. I can print the knife drawings out actual size.

After I glued the drawing to the steel, I thought I would just cut off the piece for the blade..

..and got 1/2 way through the cut and decided against it. I figured I better leave enough material to drill the two large holes. The first hole is for the stop pin and the second hole is for the ricasso area/flipper tab. I also marked a third hole for the pivot pin. The holes were marked with a carbide scribe.

Here you can see the three holes that were marked.. I circled them with the scribe. I also drew around the cutout with the carbide scribe to give me an idea of the blade shape.

Over to the Grizzly for drilling.

I decided I would start with a 1/8” bit.

1/8” holes drilled…

…and opened up to 3/8”. I didn’t go any larger at this point, thinking that I would need to see how everything fit together.

I also spotted the pivot pin hole, but didn’t drill through. The reason is because the steel isn’t flat.. I need to surface grind the blade and get it flat before the pivot pin hole is drilled through.

Okay, now I’m ready to rough cut the blade profile on the band saw.

Blade profile roughed in from the band saw..

After the blade was roughed in on the band saw, I went back to the grinder and used a 60 grit belt to profile the blade. I didn’t profile all of the way to my guide lines because I needed to see how everything fit together in frame. This left me with a little room to play with.

Getting ready for surface grinding - my father converted our surface grinder to a belt system using a 1” wheel. In this picture, this tool from usaknifemaker.com is pretty handy… it has a blade in the center that splits 2” belts into (2) 1” belts.

Getting ready to surface grind the blade. I like to use a 120 grit belt during this stage.

Here you can see the blade wasn’t very flat.

But this side is now!

And flip it over to grind the other side.

Good picture of the blade size vs Urge knives.

All for now.. thanks again.. Shannon

 

[JPuri]

pretty cool work!!
i'm learning a lot, thanks for sharing!
hope to see how it finish!

 

[wolf5391]

I love threads like these, great work!

 

[gudspelr]

Thanks for putting all of this up I love getting to look over someone's shoulder on a project. Can't wait for more .


Jeremy

 

[Loulasher]

Great thread, makes me appreciate all my framelocks even more...what a process!

 

[harolddoevelaar]

Please get lost !!

 

[shovelhead69]

That was great thanks! Now I can show my ol' lady why the frame locks I love cost a little bit of $. Kidding aside great pics and I really like learning what goes into making knives. Excited to see the finished product.

 

[Shannon Carter]

Okay, sorry for the delay, but I'm back! Let's finish this up, and thanks for all of the comments!

Now that the blade is close to the final profile and has been surface ground, it's time to drill the pivot pin and stop pin holes.
I spotted the pivot pin hole before surface grinding, so here I am going to open it with a size #13 (.185) bit.

Once the hole was opened, I then opened it on up with a 3/16" (.1875) ream. Also used Tap Magic lube during this process.

Countersinking the pivot pin hole. Important.

Alright... time to eyeball where you want the blade position to open against the stop pin. In Allen Elishewitz video, he talks
about the blade position and that you don't want it to stop too soon and look like a boomerang or stop too late and look a dolphin
jumping out of the water. So here I am using vise grips to get the blade position in just the right spot.. always good to look at
it from different angles to see what looks best. Notice the blade is riding on the pivot pin.

With the knife and blade still clamped, I use a #31 drill bit to spot the stop pin hole on the blade.

Unclamp the blade from the frame and open the stop pin hole with the #31 bit. I then used a .125 ream to finish opening the hole,
but I couldn't find where I took a picture of that.

Again, countersinking the holes.

Okay, now that the open position was determined, it's time to set the closed position. Same process.

In this picture I can tell that I need grind a little off of the length of the blade. You never want to take your finger and rub
the outside of the frame and feel the edge of the knife.

Looks about right..

Okay, in my design I had thought that I could use a 3/8" inch bit and drill the big hole on the tang of the knife and use that as
the stop pin location in the closed position. I was off a little here as you can see.

Same view.. I'm going to need to open that up just a little.

View from the outside.. looks like I can catch just enough meat on the blade to mark a spot with a drill bit.

So I used the #31 bit and spotted the blade where the stop pin will hit it in the closed position.

I didn't get a picture in the mill, but I chucked the blade in a horizontal position and used a 3/16" end mill to make a spot for
the stop pin. This took me a couple of cuts before I was happy with the final position.

Here you can see the two stop pin (open and closed) holes and you can also see that I have plenty of tang left to grind for the
lockbar.. good shape!

Ready for next steps!

 

[VaultBoy]

This is an awesome thread and a good looking knife too!

 

[KUNTZI66]

I'm getting a much better idea how this works, very nice.

 

[Ken H>]

Shannon - you're doing a GREAT job, not only with knife, but photos are GREAT also. I really like you showing the uh-ohs and how to correct them. That is a great help in learning. I do plan to bookmark this for when I try a liner lock.

73 de Ken H>

 

[Justin Presson]

Like Ken said you are doing a great job.
Question that is the first I have seen on a wip/tutorial where someone has countersunk the holes unless I missed it on others and a noticed you said important....does it just make the fit up easier or better?

 

[Ken H>]

Countersinking holes is normal practice when you want a clean hole. It's not a big countersink, just enough to break the sharp edge. Makes threading and fitting close tolerance pieces together.

Ken H>

 

[Shannon Carter]

Like Ken said you are doing a great job.
Question that is the first I have seen on a wip/tutorial where someone has countersunk the holes unless I missed it on others and a noticed you said important....does it just make the fit up easier or better?

Thanks for the question.. and Ken is right in his answer.. it makes the whole mechanics of the knife work better.

 

[Shannon Carter]

Countersinking holes is normal practice when you want a clean hole. It's not a big countersink, just enough to break the sharp edge. Makes threading and fitting close tolerance pieces together.

Ken H>

:thumbup:
73
N4SKC

 

[Shannon Carter]

Time to check clearance and remove some meat from the tang for the stop pin track. First step is spraying the blade with Dykem layout fluid.

I put the bearing and pivot pin in the blade.. this gives me an idea of the clearance I need the stop pin to track around the tang of the blade. I used a carbide scribe to rough in where I thought the stop pin might travel.

I then used the bandsaw to start rough opening up the track for the stop pin.

I ran my belt tracking off to the side of my platen.. this gave me enough overhang of the belt to start smoothing out the track for the stop pin.

Getting there.. I used an old 60 grit belt for this part.

Okay, now you can see the blade in the open position resting on the stop pin.

Looks like I have plenty of clearance here as the blade begins to close.

But not here.. I need to take little off.

Same process as before.. the carbide scribe gives me an idea of how much I need to remove.

Just enough clearance for the blade to pass the stop pin onto the closed position.

 

[Varga Knives]

It's coming out awesome! I admire you taking the bull by the horns and you're really showing some skill but your lock geometry would be improved if you designed the tang to meet at the outermost edge of your lockbar. The force generated moves at at 90 degrees from a line connecting the center of the pivot and the lock contact. Ideally that force should run as much as possible down the lockbar. I don't know how much difference this actually makes in the real world but I'm just say'n.

I tried to make it two dimensional...

If you imagine the same lines where your lock is now you'll see the force is directed more towards the back of the handle.

Mark

 

[Shannon Carter]

It's coming out awesome! I admire you taking the bull by the horns and you're really showing some skill but your lock geometry would be improved if you designed the tang to meet at the outermost edge of your lockbar. The force generated moves at at 90 degrees from a line connecting the center of the pivot and the lock contact. Ideally that force should run as much as possible down the lockbar. I don't know how much difference this actually makes in the real world but I'm just say'n.

I tried to make it two dimensional...
If you imagine the same lines where your lock is now you'll see the force is directed more towards the back of the handle.

Mark

Does make sense, and thanks for the diagram! I am considering moving the stop pin location, and that will allow me to make the change you have suggested. This design was based off of a liner lock pattern that I made with .5 diameter nylon washers instead of bearings with a smaller diameter!
I appreciate the tip.. very helpful!

 

[Shannon Carter]

Alright, so the piece of carbon fiber I’m using was way thick, so I had to thin it down to the same thickness as the titanium. I figured the best way to go about this was to use the surface grinder. So I found some scrap pieces of steel that were thinner than the final thickness I wanted the carbon fiber to be and sandwiched them around the scale. This worked pretty slick and I used an old 50 grit belt to get it down to size. I was definitely wearing a respirator for this step. I checked the scale with calipers as I was taking it down. I can say that carbon fiber dust was over everything in the shop! I’ve since used a shop vac attached to the surface grinder.

Here you can see the CF scale is about the same thickness as the Ti.

With the CF down to the right thickness, the next step was to counterbore a pocket for the pivot screw. Again using a 19/64” counterbore with a 3/16” pilot.

Checking the screw for depth.

Length of the blade at this point is a little long.

So I took the carbide scribe and guessed where I would need to remove a little off of the blade length.

Getting there with the blade positioning.