First full flat grind, little-hunter, maple candy

[daizee]

Hi again,

Here are a few pix of the latest. This is another small (75% scale of my original hunter drawing) knife out of 1/8" 1095. This is my first full flat grind, and I LOVE how the spine tapers to the tip, ooh yeah. I definitely want to try more of these little 'uns.

The handles are the same curly maple as the utility knife I posted a few days ago, but they were cut and shaped with a little more care. Unfortunately there's a small crack, but everything is epoxy'd down hard, so hopefully it will be ok. These pix are BEFORE Tru-Oil, the first coat of which is drying now. I'll post an oiled & edged pic or two when it's complete to show how the grain really pops out with the oil. The handles leave the tip of the butt exposed on purpose for tapping on things.

The last little knife got me all fired up about the small ones, and this one is the a sweet shape in the hand.

The blade is again about 2-3/8", a nice carry size. It's a 3-fingered handle unless you're very petite.

Thanks for looking,

-Daizee

 

[fast14riot]

I like that! Nice little utility, and a very handy size as well. I can picture this in a pocket clip sheath for edc.


-Xander

 

[Hellbilly72]

Very nice !

 

[daizee]

I realized after reading the mini-KITH thread that this isn't really a 'mini' by local vocabulary. Perhaps "Little hunter" would be a better description. Anyway, here are the oiled, edged, and sheath pix. The edge took an hour to put on because I left it a bit too thick while grinding the bevels. :-/
This one has turned out super nice by my amateur standards. It's now on my belt, replacing the earlier maple-handled little rigging knife.

-Daizee

 

[TCurry]

Very nice!!

 

[silver_pilate]

daizee,

Very handy looking little knife you have there. And great job on your first full flat grind! I carried my grinds up too far when I first started, and you look to have done a great job avoiding that.

Leaving the edge too thick is a very common thing, especially with newer makers. Heck, I've been doing this for somewhere near 6 or 7 years, and I STILL have a tendancy to leave too much meat. It is especially evident when you're not as confident in your grinding skills. You get to a point and say, "good enough...I don't want to screw this one up." I will tell you that when you get the hang of taking the edge closer to final thickness before sharpening, you'll see your edge keeness and cutting performance really perk up. It will also tell you if you have problems in your heat treatment as chipping or rolling will become more evident if the heat treatment is off.

One other thing (and I hope you don't mind my comments...it's just constructive criticism), and it's hard to see from the pictures, but it looks like you have some epoxy squeeze-out at the front of the scales. This is something that is very hard to clean up once the epoxy is set up. Here's what I do: after gluing up and *lightly* clamping your scales, let it sit for just a bit so the epoxy is not as runny, and then take a folded up paper towel or cloth and gently remove the excess bead. Once it's gone, take a clean towel/cloth with just a touch of WD-40 or rubbing alcohol on it, and gently clean up the epoxy residue. Then set it aside and let it cure. That way, you'll have clean seams where your scale/ricasso meet.

Keep up that great work!

--nathan

 

[daizee]

Thanks, Nathan, I really appreciate the feedback and pointers.

You're exactly right about the epoxy at the front of the scales.
On an earlier knife I cleaned it up by hand after the fact, which is tricky. On this one the squeeze was minor and relatively symmetrical, and since there's what I THINK is a crack at the front of the right scale, I elected to use caution as an excuse to be lazy... I've been using a couple weak spring A-clamps for my scales. Is that... normal? On another unit I ground/drilled little divots on the inside of the scales to give the epoxy some place to pool btw the scale and steel. Not on this one, tho. Not enough data to determine if that was effective or not.

Gaining confidence with those big grinds really takes time... I did this one on my 1x42, and by the time I was "done" it was either put on a fresh aggressive belt while at that thinnest point, or decide to do more work later on the edge. I really do look forward to nailing that technique. But these little knives are GREAT practice, fast, and rewarding. And I can get 50% more knives out of a single piece of steel, so they should be a really good way to get my bevel-grinding practice in. The last two little experiments convinced me its worth committing some O1 or A2 to the little guys.

-Daizee