- Joined
- Nov 16, 2012
- Messages
- 994
Awesome, awesome job and WIP! I'm about to try my luck at a frame lock as well and this WIP has been indispensable!
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
First framelock and how it happened... pic heavy!
- Thread starter Shannon Carter
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2012
- Messages
- 473
I go into the Print Configuration Manager in Draftsight and look under Print Scale. You may have to experiment based on the printer and driver you are using, but I start with 1:1 scale.. and that gets me really close.
Josh Mason
Tombstone hand. Graveyard mind.
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2011
- Messages
- 1,512
This is amazing! Intimidating as hell, but amazing!
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2012
- Messages
- 473
Haha, thanks!
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2012
- Messages
- 473
Time to grind the blade and spot the detent hole..
Using a height gauge sitting on the granite plate, I set the height and scribe a line on the blade.. flip the blade over and repeat the process. I don't think the correct height is shown in this picture.. I like to leave about .015 - .020 thick on the edge.
This makes parallel lines in the center of the blade which provides a guide to grind to.
I have used this jig since I started making knives. I have tried freehand grinding and I'm not consistent... I'm just not. And for me, knifemaking is about being able to repeat a process with consistent results. This jig helps a lot!
I loosen the lock nuts on the three adjustment bolts on the back of the jig.. then using an angle finder, I adjust my center bolt to the appropriate height (about 6 degrees) and lock it in. I then adjust and set the other two bolts to keep the jig from rocking. All I can say is that it works for me!
Also for consistency, I square the tool rest to the platen using a 1-2-3 block.
Starting with a 60 grit belt here.
From the 60 grit belt, I move up to a 120 grit, then finish with an A65 Gator belt.
Once I'm satisfied with one side of the knife blade, I use a set of calipers and measure the height of the grind.
Then I scribe a height line on the opposite side of the blade.. this serves as a guide line.
I usually have to reverse the blade a few times until I'm satisfied with the grinds.
Opposite side finished.
I setup this tool rest to grind the swedge. I start with a 120 grit belt and finish with an A65 gator belt - pictured in this photo.
Swedge shot.
I wanted to create a bit of a diamond pattern on the front of the blade.
Getting there.
Another shot.
I will come back after heat treat and cleanup the spine with a gator belt.
Another shot.
Last step before heat treat is to spot the detent hole on the blade. I clamped the blade in the frame using vise grips and squeezed the blade closed as hard as I could then spot the detent hole using a #55 size bit. My understanding is that this aids with the closing action when the detent ball and blade approaches its final closed position.
Detent hole spotted on the blade.
Now we are ready to heat treat the blade..
Using a height gauge sitting on the granite plate, I set the height and scribe a line on the blade.. flip the blade over and repeat the process. I don't think the correct height is shown in this picture.. I like to leave about .015 - .020 thick on the edge.
This makes parallel lines in the center of the blade which provides a guide to grind to.
I have used this jig since I started making knives. I have tried freehand grinding and I'm not consistent... I'm just not. And for me, knifemaking is about being able to repeat a process with consistent results. This jig helps a lot!
I loosen the lock nuts on the three adjustment bolts on the back of the jig.. then using an angle finder, I adjust my center bolt to the appropriate height (about 6 degrees) and lock it in. I then adjust and set the other two bolts to keep the jig from rocking. All I can say is that it works for me!
Also for consistency, I square the tool rest to the platen using a 1-2-3 block.
Starting with a 60 grit belt here.
From the 60 grit belt, I move up to a 120 grit, then finish with an A65 Gator belt.
Once I'm satisfied with one side of the knife blade, I use a set of calipers and measure the height of the grind.
Then I scribe a height line on the opposite side of the blade.. this serves as a guide line.
I usually have to reverse the blade a few times until I'm satisfied with the grinds.
Opposite side finished.
I setup this tool rest to grind the swedge. I start with a 120 grit belt and finish with an A65 gator belt - pictured in this photo.
Swedge shot.
I wanted to create a bit of a diamond pattern on the front of the blade.
Getting there.
Another shot.
I will come back after heat treat and cleanup the spine with a gator belt.
Another shot.
Last step before heat treat is to spot the detent hole on the blade. I clamped the blade in the frame using vise grips and squeezed the blade closed as hard as I could then spot the detent hole using a #55 size bit. My understanding is that this aids with the closing action when the detent ball and blade approaches its final closed position.
Detent hole spotted on the blade.
Now we are ready to heat treat the blade..
Last edited:
shovelhead69
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2015
- Messages
- 372
You are doing a great job thanks for all the info and the step by step with pics and explanations. Its gonna be a beautifu
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2015
- Messages
- 2
This is awesome! You're doing an amazing job with this.
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2012
- Messages
- 473
Okay, sorry for the delay
been a bit busy in the shop. Thanks for all of the comments!
Time to heat treat the blade. We do all of our own heat treating. When we first started making knives in 2012, everything went to Peters Heat Treating, and that was great.. but Im guessing a lot of knife makers feel the same way, and you want to eventually have full control over each step of the process. Anyway, in this pic I am going to heat treat the folder blade with some Urge knives - all CPM S35VN
Air hardened steel, so they each get wrapped in foil.
Ready to go in the oven.
We use Evenheat ovens with the Rampmaster controller. After I have wrapped the knives, the oven gets turned on and begins the program. I typically put the knives in the oven around 400-500 degrees.. the oven then makes its way up to 1575 degrees and held there for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the oven then ramps up to 1950 degrees. After at least 20 minutes the knives are removed from the oven
and right between two 1 thick plates of aluminum. I place a heavy weight on the top aluminum plate to hold pressure on the knife blade.. I prefer air hardened steels over oil quenched as it seems to have a better chance to prevent warping. The knife blade stays in the plates for 2 minutes.
After the knife is removed from the plates, it goes into a 3 liter dewar of liquid nitrogen for 4 hours. We use wire to suspend the knives in the liquid nitrogen. After the knives are removed from the liquid nitrogen, they are set out and warmed up to room temperature. Then they go into a tempering oven (not shown) for 2 x 2hour each tempers at 400 degrees.
They are then check with our hardness checker.. and that will almost always get us right at 60HRC.
Alright, so after all of that, its time to move forward with the finish of the blade. I know I want to blast/stonewash the bevels of the blade, so its back in the sand blast cabinet.
I rolled up some masking tape and stuffed it inside the pivot hole to protect it from the grit. Again, using 220 grit media.
After blasting.
Another pic.
After blasting the knife, I spray a little WD-40 on it and into the tumbler for 45 minutes.
The tumbler is crazy loud, so it is out in the barn away from inside the shop.
Model of the tumbler.. my father found this on Craigslist, I believe.
Blade post blasting and tumbling in ceramic media.
More to come.. Ill speed it up.
Thanks again Shannon
Time to heat treat the blade. We do all of our own heat treating. When we first started making knives in 2012, everything went to Peters Heat Treating, and that was great.. but Im guessing a lot of knife makers feel the same way, and you want to eventually have full control over each step of the process. Anyway, in this pic I am going to heat treat the folder blade with some Urge knives - all CPM S35VN
Air hardened steel, so they each get wrapped in foil.
Ready to go in the oven.
We use Evenheat ovens with the Rampmaster controller. After I have wrapped the knives, the oven gets turned on and begins the program. I typically put the knives in the oven around 400-500 degrees.. the oven then makes its way up to 1575 degrees and held there for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the oven then ramps up to 1950 degrees. After at least 20 minutes the knives are removed from the oven
and right between two 1 thick plates of aluminum. I place a heavy weight on the top aluminum plate to hold pressure on the knife blade.. I prefer air hardened steels over oil quenched as it seems to have a better chance to prevent warping. The knife blade stays in the plates for 2 minutes.
After the knife is removed from the plates, it goes into a 3 liter dewar of liquid nitrogen for 4 hours. We use wire to suspend the knives in the liquid nitrogen. After the knives are removed from the liquid nitrogen, they are set out and warmed up to room temperature. Then they go into a tempering oven (not shown) for 2 x 2hour each tempers at 400 degrees.
They are then check with our hardness checker.. and that will almost always get us right at 60HRC.
Alright, so after all of that, its time to move forward with the finish of the blade. I know I want to blast/stonewash the bevels of the blade, so its back in the sand blast cabinet.
I rolled up some masking tape and stuffed it inside the pivot hole to protect it from the grit. Again, using 220 grit media.
After blasting.
Another pic.
After blasting the knife, I spray a little WD-40 on it and into the tumbler for 45 minutes.
The tumbler is crazy loud, so it is out in the barn away from inside the shop.
Model of the tumbler.. my father found this on Craigslist, I believe.
Blade post blasting and tumbling in ceramic media.
More to come.. Ill speed it up.
Thanks again Shannon
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2012
- Messages
- 473
Time for more pictures.. thanks again for all of the comments!
With the blade profiled, heat treated and blasted/stonewashed, it is now time to focus on the frames. In this picture I am getting an idea of how much room for the backspacer I can allow.. the blade folds a little further down in the frame than this picture shows.. I just pulled it back so you can see where I used a pencil to give me an idea of the backspacer size.
This is all new to me, so I guessed where I would drill and tap the holes for the backspacer screws. I knew that I wanted to leave enough for the screw heads on the outside of the frame to be far enough from the edge that it didnt look weird.
Im using the ruler in these pics to give you an idea of where I placed the screw holes.
Used a pencil again to mark the holes.
Okay, time to make some more holes. So the titanium lock side is going to be tapped for the screws and the carbon fiber show side holes will be big enough for clearance. In this picture I am using a 5/64 drill bit. This is the preferred size for a 2-56 roll form tap.
Once the frame side was drilled out, I put the pivot pin and stop pin in and added the carbon fiber side.
Using vise grips I clamped the two sides together where I felt they needed to be and transferred the holes from the frame side to the show side.
With the holes transferred to the carbon fiber show side, it is now time to open the holes up enough for a 2-56 screw to have clearance. I used a number 43 drill bit to make them large enough.
Looks like I will have plenty of material between the screw heads and the top of the frame.
Time to tap the frame! I used a Tapmatic 30x (I cant begin to explain how this magical thing works..) and a 2-56 roll form tap. Only seconds for each hole and a little Tap Magic fluid to help the process.
I should have used the countersink on these holes before I tapped them.. again, another step where I wanted to point out one of my mistakes. They still worked, but you will have a little better luck tapping the hole once you use the countersink on them. Just knocks off the sharp edge of the hole and provides a better guide for the tap!
I used a drill bit slightly bigger than the head of my screws and the countersink bit to open the holes enough for the screw heads to sit in.
And I used the countersink on the inside of the frame to clean up the holes a bit.
Thanks again!
With the blade profiled, heat treated and blasted/stonewashed, it is now time to focus on the frames. In this picture I am getting an idea of how much room for the backspacer I can allow.. the blade folds a little further down in the frame than this picture shows.. I just pulled it back so you can see where I used a pencil to give me an idea of the backspacer size.
This is all new to me, so I guessed where I would drill and tap the holes for the backspacer screws. I knew that I wanted to leave enough for the screw heads on the outside of the frame to be far enough from the edge that it didnt look weird.
Im using the ruler in these pics to give you an idea of where I placed the screw holes.
Used a pencil again to mark the holes.
Okay, time to make some more holes. So the titanium lock side is going to be tapped for the screws and the carbon fiber show side holes will be big enough for clearance. In this picture I am using a 5/64 drill bit. This is the preferred size for a 2-56 roll form tap.
Once the frame side was drilled out, I put the pivot pin and stop pin in and added the carbon fiber side.
Using vise grips I clamped the two sides together where I felt they needed to be and transferred the holes from the frame side to the show side.
With the holes transferred to the carbon fiber show side, it is now time to open the holes up enough for a 2-56 screw to have clearance. I used a number 43 drill bit to make them large enough.
Looks like I will have plenty of material between the screw heads and the top of the frame.
Time to tap the frame! I used a Tapmatic 30x (I cant begin to explain how this magical thing works..) and a 2-56 roll form tap. Only seconds for each hole and a little Tap Magic fluid to help the process.
I should have used the countersink on these holes before I tapped them.. again, another step where I wanted to point out one of my mistakes. They still worked, but you will have a little better luck tapping the hole once you use the countersink on them. Just knocks off the sharp edge of the hole and provides a better guide for the tap!
I used a drill bit slightly bigger than the head of my screws and the countersink bit to open the holes enough for the screw heads to sit in.
And I used the countersink on the inside of the frame to clean up the holes a bit.
Thanks again!
- Joined
- May 2, 2013
- Messages
- 1,711
Nice WIP. Nice design. I really like the blade profile.
-Eric
-Eric
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2014
- Messages
- 16
Looks like you've made great progress, and one hell of a knife too. I've been considering tumbling some of my blades, if you don't mind my asking, what medium are you using?