First knife designs using 1084 (Slow but lots of pics)

Schleifstein said:
For the chatter, clamp as close as possible to the section you are filing. For the squeaking, put a soft-jaw or spring clamp on the blade to dampen the vibrations. C-clamps will just rattle. For the waves, reduce your pressure or change your filing angle to rub them out. The waves are actually a sign that you are using steady consistent file strokes. :) I think these ripples are a similar phenomena to the ripples you see on sand dunes and are caused by the repeated shifting and cutting of material in a uniform direction.
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thanks man. gave me a nice warm and fuzzy that i am doing it correctly.

i've got a couple other clamps i can use for the chattering and whining. i guess its because there really isnt anything holding the blade against the 2x4 now that i have take so much material off. i am thinking maybe one more week of work and i might have something to start sanding. then probably 2 weeks of sanding. i really want to make sure i put a lot of work down on the sanding. after all a knife should look as good as it cuts.
 
its been a long time, just got busy with my other hobby, but now that the weather is changing its time to get back into this beast. (really wish i didnt start with .25" for my first knife, making it with a file.)

got the edges down to about .07-.1 what do i take it down to? .05 at the biggest?

i also had to correct the choil a bit. it was way off on one side, but its looking better now. the next step is making sure its all symmetrical and stuff. that shouldn't be too hard. just lots of minute corrections.

here are some pics.







 
wow. been a while. just busy with life i guess. but i really want to get this ready to start the sanding so i did a lot of work on it today. i did quite a lot of draw filing on the blade to even it out. it was a little wavy from the normal filing motions.

I also took the plunge on the clip on the spine. its a bit tricky up near the tip. i am not sure i did it correctly because the angle of the grind has to change toward the end of the tip so that i can keep the line where the two angles meet perfectly straight. not sure if you guys understand what i am saying about that, but i think i can make it work on this knife. its also a good lesson.

here are some pics of the progress. still have work to do, but should have it ready for wet sanding in a week or two.









 
hey guys, got this ready for heat treating, unless one of you spot something i should change...

I started at 120 and went down/up to 800 taking the advice from Stacy on so many of his how to posts. i am pleased with the results and now just need to either ship it off for HT, and make a couple more and ship a couple at a time.

here are some pics of the sanding at its conclusion.

also just ordered some .156 1095 from NJstealbaron. so i won't be working so long on this 1/4 stuff.















 
question...

would you experts suggest rounding the spine some? right now it is a pretty sharp 90 corner, and i can see that being something to bite my thump in the future.

and looking for any other criticism you all might have :)
 
Man you started big for your first knife but you stuck to it, good job. Get that badboy sent out to be Heat treated!
 
thanks dude. took me a while, and actually just didnt work on it at all for a couple months. but the last couple weeks saw lots of progress.

can't wait for the new steel to arrive so i can start working on a more usable blade.

i was gonna give the guys at Paul Bos HT a call and see what they can do for this huge chopper.
 
mjderstine said:
suggest rounding the spine some?
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Yes, yes, yes!
It'll be a huge pain to do it later, and unless you want a flat spot for a fire steel, round that spine.
You can always leave some area flat for a fire steel if you want, just not where your thumb will be at. :)
 
thanks. gonna put a slight curve on it tonight. and no, i don't think i'll need a fire starting spot on this one. i want to keep the accessories to a minimum

another thing, and i am sure the real makers spotted these. circled in red these are small dents. the little black dots are actually tiny dents too. the biggest dent is right by the choil. i think i can cover the smaller black ones in the middle of the ricasso with the scales, but that one on the bottom is going to bother me. being so close to my plunge line really makes it difficult to get out of there. i dont want to sand it too much and take away the nice sharp precise plunge cut.

would it be out of the question to remove some of the material there in order to make the dent vanish some? it would give the choil a bit of a grind angle, but i am not sure if it would look good. i was thinking of kind-of rounding that whole choil part out some. but that dent is in such a hard spot. if i remove too much material it will make my plunge line look really funny.

anyone have ideas? and next time i will be more careful clamping the thing in the vice.

 
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mjderstine said:
its been a long time, just got busy with my other hobby, but now that the weather is changing its time to get back into this beast. (really wish i didnt start with .25" for my first knife, making it with a file.)

got the edges down to about .07-.1 what do i take it down to? .05 at the biggest?

i also had to correct the choil a bit. it was way off on one side, but its looking better now. the next step is making sure its all symmetrical and stuff. that shouldn't be too hard. just lots of minute corrections.

here are some pics.







Click to expand...

You want to go down to .030".
 
i'll have to check my measurements again, but i think these are old. i am following Stacey's "How to" About the thickness of a nickel in the filing stage (.050-.060), and the thickness of a dime after sanding before HT (.030-.040).

gonna have to check tonight. might be down to .05... if not, at least i got to practice the sanding part once... might have to file some more, and sand again.


editand the results... everything is .05-.03 already. phew!!!
 
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Great work man. 1/4" sucks. I bought a bar of it and I won't do it again. Far too much thickness for anything short of a knife you plan to heavily abuse. For me personally, I won't be buying anything thicker than 1/8".

I wish I could help with the dings. If it were my knife I'd leave them and improve the next, but I understand wanting to fix them. I have a problem not knowing when to quit. More than once I've looked back on a pic before the "fix" and realized I was better off before. Actually in that position now.

How did the dings happen?

As for the spine, yeah, I'd round it. I round spines on a lot of knives that I buy. Makes it more comfortable. I tend to do a lot of push cutting and at the very least prefer the sharp corners broken. Please keep me posted on how it goes. I find it fairly easy with "shoe shining" using sandpaper, but still have trouble keeping a transition line if that makes sense. I love how Chris Reeve does it but haven't been able to get anything as nice as his. Then again I'm not an automated machine.

Looking forward to seeing your finished work.
 
thanks strig.

got the spine rounded out. and fixed a couple things by the upper spine plunges. i can't really fix the ones down by the choil. the is a file mark. its tiny but i can see it. other ones are just marks from the vice i think.

and, Canyon approves of the rounded spine.


 
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