First knife. FINALLY.

Strig, that is a cool looking little knife you made!!! I really like those warncliff/sheepsfoot style blades for edc type tasks. The tip design just works well for a variety of tasks. Good job bro!

Stuart
 
That turned out really nice. Well done. The burlap mycarta is really cool looking material. I saw it in your original post and was 50/50 on it, but it looks killer finished out.

Excellent job.

-Eric
 
Strigamort said:
Man this took waaay too long to finish. Big thanks to everyone for answering every silly question that I've posted.

Full disclosure- I consider this my first knife. I made a knife like object several years ago out of a file, and I ruined some perfectly innocent 1095 at the same time. None of that is worth mentioning imo, and if I learned anything by doing them, it could be summed up by calling it what NOT to do to make a knife. ;)

Tools-

1x30 grinder with 40 and 80 grit belts.

4x36 sander w/side disk grinder, unusable worn out belt, but fresh wood working psa's.

A piece of poplar 3"x4'. This was clamped to my old nightstand and served as my vise (more clamps) and hand sanding platform.

Lots and lots lots of sandpaper.

2 brick forge with 10 psi regulator and Atlas venturi burner (love that burner)

------------------

5/32 ground down to 1/8" 1084 ht'd twice.

Home made composite handle material, yellow jute burlap with green pigment/poly resin.

Home made burlap composite pins.

White liners

Tapered tang

OAL 8.25"

Blade 3.75"

Please forgive the terrible pics. I would have taken it outside, but there is an enormous storm going on out there. :eek:

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Please tell me what I should change on the next knife.

There are things that I like about this knife, and there are many errors and things I dislike. Excellent learning opportunity though.
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Strig,
Well the first thing I would like to say is that it came out a heck of a lot better than my first did!

I made my first by reading the book, How to make custom knives, by Tim Mc Creight. I still recommend that book to anyone that wants to get started.

I think your's came out fine and you did great with your home made Carta. The tang taper looks well executed too!

Now its time to make some more and sell each one for enough to make three more and put the money for every third knife in a coffee can until you can buy yourself a real 2 x 72" belt grinder.

That's what the late Mr. Bob Loveless and his crew told me when I started making knives. Oh by the way he said that the money for the first of the three went to buy more materials and the second knife money went to his wife!;)
 
Nice work Strigamort! Feels good to get the first one done and out of the way huh?! The green with the white liners looks great. You definitely pulled off a good and comfortable looking wharncliffe. Can't wait to see more!
 
Lethal289 said:
Looks great to me! Any tips on that tapered tang?! Wow!
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Um... no, not really. If you have a decent grinder it would probably be fairly easy. If you have a 1x30 only, it'll probably need some flattening by hand. After I thought I had it, I looked at it more and realized that one side had a more acute angle so I fixed that by hand. Then I noticed that if was off, thicker at the top than by the swell (the sow belly was thinner), so I had to take it back to the grinder, then hand sand again. It's really not bad if you're tenacious and have the time. Tenacity, it seems, is the most valuable tool in my garage. Not always fun, but it's just steel and abrasives I guess.

I'm glad I went with 1084 though. Ht was pretty easy. It was definitely too thin but a muffle on the second attempt (just a 1.5x6" black steel nipple) really helped to even out the temp. I had zero warping that time. The first time produced a little bowing toward the tip.

Eric, thanks for that. Where ya been? Good to see ya. :)

The ghost of Stacy is already telling me to get some curve in the top on the next one. :D I like the idea of getting angles to match the curve of the spine, but haven't really figured out how to do that yet. Some of the curve in the belly of the handle on this one achieves this, but there's probably no good way to do that on the top. We'll see.
 
Rhino, it usually turns out that the money from the first 30 goes to the wife if you're in my shoes. HRH (y'all know that one, right?) has a penchant for purses... bah. Ive had the same wallet for 10 years. Don't understand it.


Yes Strig, good to be back. Had work beating me senseless and the cub scouts' projects (see my pinewood derby post lol) and some teaching gigs wearing me out. Finally get to pick the project I've been working on starting tomorrow.

Again, really like the way that came out. Very clean and nice taper job.
Cheers!

-Eric
 
That is a great looking knife. The tapered tang is impressive, especially for a first knife. Also, I normally say that making your own phenolic handle material is not worth the effort because there is so much available and it's pretty cheap, but you have really come up with something unique here that just looks fantastic!
 
One thing that bugs me is that I couldn't really clock the pins so that the fibers flowed in the same direction. I guess it's not as bad as mosaic pins that aren't clocked, but still. Problem was that I wasn't working with a perfect dowel. Being hand finished the ends prevented seeing the flow well, but I know I can do better on the next one.

Btw, on the topic of selling... I won't sell one until I make a great one that I can get someone to trade a membership for. :)
 
Well done man!

The one thing that bugs me is the pin placement so far from the ends of the scales, but still... good job.
 
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