First knife attempt in progress.

C

cs900

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Dec 2, 2016
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first let me say I am NOT a knife maker by any means so go easy on me, haha. After seeing a few of the custom knives around, specifically this one, I decided to try my hand at it knowing full well my results may be less than impressive. So I'd like to use this thread as a build log to document my mistakes, and the occasional success. ;) I should also point out that while I may not be a knife maker, i do run a small prototyping shop from my house so I do have some cool tools. So if you're expecting to see a knife blank made on a belt sander you may want to look away, because this isn't going to be one of those threads.

Naturally I decided to start with difficult materials and attempt to make a frame lock folder. So the blade will be a 1095 based damascus steel with titanium scales. Throw a few ball bearings in the mix and I should have a knife. So lets jump in with almost no for though or planning!

Starting with a damascus blillet that's, uhh, a bit twisted to start with.


no worries, a bit of mill time and we are flat and parallel within .002"



Moving right along, I made a custom fixture to hold everything while machining the actual blade.



there she be right off the mill. Needs a LOT of clean up work.


After Many hours of sanding, it's starting to look like a real blade.


the blade is quite soft at the moment (26-28 HRC) so i'll need to heat treat it as well which means I needed an oven. Lucky break for me I found a little one locally that "worked". Well, turns out 1 of the 4 heating elements is shot, so I'll be fixing the oven as well. I have everything on order to fix it, so hopefully I'll have more news on that in a bit, but here is the oven as it sits:
 
So while I wait for the oven parts, I guess I can get started on the scales. My apologies for not taking more pictures along the way, but sometimes you just gt in the zone. Backside of the scales are machined already. Here is the left scale on the fixture. I've already added a counterbore for the pivot screw so use your imagination for the time being.


And finishing up the outside profile:


And almost immediately after this picture I made my first semi-large mistake. After machining the outside profile I went back and was going to add a nice .025 radius all around the outside. Well I set my tool compensation wrong on the mill and proceeded to make a very nice set about .030 x .030 all around the scale. Not the end of the world, but now i'll need to make the same error on the right scale.

Any way, that's all I have for now. Hope you guys enjoy the progress so far!
 
thanks John. I'm hoping it turns out really good, but really it's a learning experience more than anything, so either way I'll be happy with the outcome.
 
First time I have heard of anyone making a frame lock flipper as a first knife! Looks like it's coming along nicely, you certainly have a lot of skill!
 
thanks. Yeah, it's a bit ambitious but i'll learn something along the way, so i'm willing to risk it. :)
 
not tons of progress done as lots of other projects are getting in the way, but I did start making a second set of scales for it out of 304 stainless.


should be starting on fixing the oven very shortly.
 
So got lots of progress made over the weekend. There may be hope yet for this project. My brother can to visit from Seattle so we had some "bro time" and decided to make him a knife as well. So the scope of the project has doubled, but I got an extra set of hands too. So for anyone counting, I now have 2 damascus blades, a set of titanium scales, and a set of 304 stainless scales:


I know everyone uses a slitting saw for making the lockbar, but I've never been one to follow the crowd. I ended up using a .04 diameter end mill to cut the slot. Took about an hour in the stainless scale and an hour and a half in the Ti one, but i got both done without breaking the tool:



that's .125 deep at .04 wide:


Here we are mocked up. Should give you a good idea of what they will look like when done.


Next Up was the backspacer. I decided to just go with Aluminum as I didn't have any Ti or SS on hand that was thick enough. got pretty lucky and machined them to the perfect thickness within .0005".



Fitment of all the parts is pretty good right off the mill, but will need a small amount of touch up.


I also decided to machine a custom pivot pin from Ti. Also made a little installation tool


fixturing on the mill was a bit ghetto, but it worked like a charm



so here's how they sit right now:
 
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Great job on your first two folders....I'm thinkin' you've made a couple of laps around a mill before. [emoji6][emoji106]


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thanks guys. My brother and I started fitting the lockbars last night. I won't do the final fitting until after heat treat, but any pointers out there for setting the lockface to tang fit? I know i'm shooting for around an 8* taper on the blade, but i'm reading mixed things about having the lock face parallel along the entire face or just having a point contact in the corner. Thoughts?
 
thanks guys. While I don't consider myself a knife maker, or even a machinist, I certainly do take a lot of pride in what I do. It's always reassuring to that other people appreciate the time and effort that goes into these kinds of things. Even if the mill does all the hard work, haha.
 
More progress. I got the blades heat treated...kind of...
So I've been too lazy to fix my oven, so I tried a few different things to get it up to temperature. My friend has a little induction heater intended for heating up rusty bolt heads which I tired. It lacked the oomph to get a full blade up to temperature within it's rated duty cycle. So I went with the tried and true method of torches.



Heated up as uniformly as I could until it was non-magnetic and quenched in brine. I know, I know, Ishould have used oil, but I had salt and I had water....I justify it with this being a learning experience, even if it's learning what NOT to do :D


The pattern comes out very well immediately after heat treat. Here' a before and after comparison.


and the second blade:


both blades skated a file very nicely. I then proceeded to temper at 400*F for an hour. The blades turned a dark gold color and are noticeably softer. I had a few scrap pieces that I tested the heat treating process on and tempered with the blades. I took one to work and measured the harness and it looks like I'm running an average of 56HRC. A bit softer than I would have liked, but I can always try again.
 
Time for etching. Besides putting the final edge on the blade, this should be the last of the work on the blades. I started out with sanding to a 1000 grit and polishing with a generic metal polishing compound. After cleaning with acetone I masked the bearing pocket and surrounding areas with nail polish. cleaned very vigorously with acetone again and into the ferric chloride it went.


I let it sit for 10 minuets intervals after which I took it out and cleaned off the "smut" that builds up. Looking good about 20 min in.


After 3 soaks I too them both out and completely cleaned again, including a sanding with the 1000 grit again and polish. not too shabby:
Here they are right out of the acid. you can see the nail polish is working great albeit a bit sloppy.

And cleaned up a bit:


they looked good, but i noticed during sanding that i was still hitting the etched areas a tiny bit. So I repeated the whole process giving a total soak time in the acid to 1 hour. After that they sanded much better. Here they are in their current state:


still to do:
- press in ceramic detent
- make thumb pins
- make pocket clip
- add color and finishing touches to scales
 
this is the best "first knife" i have ever seen. i am having a problem believing you are telling the truth but i will take your word for it :) i can't wait to see what #25 will look like !
 
Great job and nothing wrong with brine....I heat the water and super saturate with the salt....no ice water for me! [emoji15]


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haha, John I assure you this is my first knife attempt. but like i said in my first post I do run a small prototyping shop which means I need to be good and making 1 off things. I also did a LOT of research before even starting the CAD model for the design. Most if it is fairly intuitive, but small things like the lock face angle and offsetting the detent hole in the blade are things I never would have though about. This knife would look much different without all the great resources out there. As for the #25, I'm sure i'll ever get that far, but I have really enjoyed this build so far and i'm already kicking around the idea of an assist open with a recurve blade of some sort (sorry if my terminology is incorrect). I also may make a few more of this style with a few design changes. At very least my 3rd brother and father would probably love one as well.

Dawkind, that's exactly what i did. I took a lesson from my elementary days of making home made rock candy! I tried to preheat the brine a bit before quench by dunking a bit of hot steel in it, but ultimately have no idea what temperature it was. Any ways my worst fear of the damascus delaminating didn't happen, so I'm very happy with the results given it's my first time heat treating anything as well, haha.
 
More progress over the weekend. As the result of a small design oversight, I needed to add a little pad to the lockbar in order to give the thumb something to grip when releasing the blade. Without it, the grips are so close together it's awkward to get your thumb on the lock bar as both scales are cut exactly with the same profile. So in an attempt to hide my mistake, I machined a pocket into the lockbar and a corresponding piece to attach to it. Trying to make the best of the situation I decided that this piece could also be used as a stop to make sure the lockbar is not overextended. Cool, now I can tell people that was the plan all along, haha. The next challenge came when I went to attach it o the lockbar. It's a bit thin there and even a #2 screw head would be a tight fit. So the logical plan of action was to make some custom rivets. So here's the pice and you can see the cute little rivet right next to it.


Next came the task of bucking the rivet. It's not pretty, but it worked like a charm.



You may have noticed there's a bit of color on the scales as well. I heat tinted them both as well. the stainless didn't get as much blue and purple as I would have liked, but I like it all the same. The Ti tinted great!

You may also notice there's a black marble like pattern on it. That was a complete mistake but i LOVE it. I had done the heat tinging outside and was impatient (and cold) and wasnted to bring the scales inside to cool off. Bringing the second scale in, I accidentally dropped it on a ratty old rug. The heat from the hinting process scored a big mark in the carpet, but the singed cotton fibers left that cool black pattern. so natrally I had to do the same for the opposite side. Sometimes life throws you a bone!
 
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