First Knife WIP

I got sick of waiting for my belts to ship, so I just used the stock belt that came with my 2x42 belt grinder...it did surprisingly well.

I squared off all the edges, and got my final shape in there. Put a half ass bevel on the spine to see if I liked it (I do), so I'm going to square that off Monday.


I also put a 1/4" pilot hole in the middle of the tang for what soon will be about a 1/2" weight balancing hole. The handle is still WAY heavier than I want it.

In the second pic you can see my plunge line goofs, it's about the same on both sides, so I'll just bevel up higher to meet those.

I sanded to 220 grit, noticed there were still mill scaling marks, so I went back to 100, then back to 220.

Now I'm off to Ace Hardware to hopefully pick up some hex shaft carbide bits.

You can see an attempt to make a rivet hole with those crappy HF bits, also there is a punch mark near the butt that my other rivet will go.


 
Nice, your bevel's nice and straight! I knew that took me a while on my first try with a grinder. Don't worry about the plunge line. It takes some practice, you'll get it in no time. If you want you can file in your plunge. I know Ernie Swanson did a nice video tutorial on that. What kinda 2x42" do you have? Mines the Craftsman.
 
BChou-E29 said:
Nice, your bevel's nice and straight! I knew that took me a while on my first try with a grinder. Don't worry about the plunge line. It takes some practice, you'll get it in no time. If you want you can file in your plunge. I know Ernie Swanson did a nice video tutorial on that. What kinda 2x42" do you have? Mines the Craftsman.
Click to expand...

Yah I have the craftsman. I'll take a look at that tutorial if I can find it. Thanks!
 
Okay, so I drilled at this thing with a carbide drill bit. The depth of the hole has not chanissue at all. Has anyone heard of hard spots in metal?

I measured and remeasured the same hole on the other side. I'm going to try going at it from that side and also try drilling my other rivet hole to see if I get the same issue, when I get more time.
 
Brent, with a carbide drill make sure to spin the bit very fast. If you got it very hot with the regular drill bit you may have hardened that spot. It is frustrating when that happens. You may have to keep the speed lower for drilling the rest of the holes.
Is the hole for your pins, or a lightening hole?

~Alden
 
Tiiiiiiiim said:
Looking pretty sweet and professional. What are YOU using for the handle?
Click to expand...

Thanks, the handle will be made from gaboon ebony and stabilized white holly.


Alden Sherrodd said:
Brent, with a carbide drill make sure to spin the bit very fast. If you got it very hot with the regular drill bit you may have hardened that spot. It is frustrating when that happens. You mayhave to keep the speed lower for drilling the rest of the holes.
Is the hole for your pins, or a lightening hole?

~Alden
Click to expand...

These first ones are for my pins. I tried the rear pin hole for about 5 minutes with a steady pressure at 1550 rpm and no metal moved. I'm stumped
 
I ended up going to a 1/8" bit, the back pin hole went right through. I had to drill through the other side on the ricasso end to get through. I'll still do 3/32" on the scales and just take extra care positioning the pins.
 
So here's the 1/8" rivet holes, a 1/2" lightening hole, and 2x 3/8" lightening holes. The handle is still a little heavy, so I'm going to make it 3x 1/2" and put a 3/8" above the lanyard hole.

You can also see where I filed the burrs off that drilling caused.

 
I was having a problem with imageshack last week, but it seems to be uploading my pics correctly now.

I tried to mix some glue with the white holly saw dust. As you can see, it didn't work out so great. If the color would have been right, I think it would have looked really good. Oh well, I counted on screwing it up, so I'm not bummed at all. It was fun trying. Definitely a design I might go back to, I really like the contrast in the two different woods (gabon ebony and stabilized white holly).




Here are my macassar ebony scales that will go on it.



I severely hurt my neck in the gym today, so it'll be a couple more days before I get anything else done.
 
Looks good so far. Bummer about the dual tone scales, that was some nice wood. But, I think the defined grain and the more "woody" look of the new scales will go well with the organic look you got going already. To me white holly seems a little too clean almost to look good unless its by itself. Regardless, good work so far.

Ouch, neck pain is always a bad thing. Hope you remembered to stretch out good before and after your workout

Edit: FYI, try using ambient light when taking pictures
 
Copy cat, im using macassar on my WIP! haha, yours looks quite a bit different to mine though. It'll be interestig to compare the two when they're sanded up. Which reminda me i should update mine (not that i've done much more, been giving a folder a go).

Bummer to hear about your neck. Must be pretty bad if it's keeping you from knife making!

Good luck.
Tim.
 
Ready for HT.

Sanded to 400 grit on the spine/edges, and 600 grit on the blade itself. I lost a lot of my bevel edges to the hand sanding, they're all rounded off as you can see. Oh well, I suppose it could look worse.

 
Looking really good, way better than my current (and first) WIP. I, too, lost my bevel lines completely to the hand sanding
 
polojeff said:
Looking really good, way better than my current (and first) WIP. I, too, lost my bevel lines completely to the hand sanding
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think I'm going to start saving up for a grizzly 2x72 w/ 10" wheel, or maybe that grinder in a box so I can start hollow grinding. Even though I plan on putting a hamon on this to help define the bevel, i still like to see bevel lines.
 
Brent, you need to use a backer like a stick or a piece of flat steel for your sandpaper so that you can sand the bevels in. I have an assortment of sanding sticks for doing that. Some have rubber or leather for a softer look. But to reestablish your bevels you need a firm backer. Also you must have a way to hold the knife.
~Alden
 
Alden Sherrodd said:
Brent, you need to use a backer like a stick or a piece of flat steel for your sandpaper so that you can sand the bevels in. I have an assortment of sanding sticks for doing that. Some have rubber or leather for a softer look. But to reestablish your bevels you need a firm backer. Also you must have a way to hold the knife.
~Alden
Click to expand...

I ended up putting the tang between two chunks of pine and using a vise grip to hold them together, then used a C clamp to hold it over the table. Near the end I started wrapping the sandpaper over a small 2x1 block of wood. I think my technique could use some work too, haha.
 
Emphasiski said:
Thanks. I think I'm going to start saving up for a grizzly 2x72 w/ 10" wheel, or maybe that grinder in a box so I can start hollow grinding. Even though I plan on putting a hamon on this to help define the bevel, i still like to see bevel lines.
Click to expand...

Grinder in a box all the way, it takes a little more money and a lot more work to get it set up but once you do, it is a fully capable grinder. The Grizzly falls well short IMO.

When hand-sanding I find it easier to put the paper on a large backing plate, fix it down to the bench, and sand by moving the blade over it. You have to clean debris off paper ocasionally but I find I have better control for keeping the flats flat and the bevel lines crisp this way, and as an added bonus, there isn't a blade sticking out from the side of my workbench for me to impale myself on.
 
Yesterday Alden was awesome and let me come over and gave me a hand heat treating my knife (he also pimped out my forge with a bunch of stuff I didn't even expect...Alden is awesome!). A clay hardened hamon was a first time for both of us (obviously for me). Here is the blade about to go in the forge.



The satanite made some strange scaling. It's almost as if it put a whole new mill scale on it. This is it, after Alden buzzed away at it with his powered wire brush dealio, and it had also been through one tempering cycle of 375 degrees for 1 hour.



After one more [same] tempering round, and 300 grit paper...as a side note, 150 grit took the scaling right off, super easy.

Ready to go up to 2000 grit.


2000 grit. I'm going to work on developing the hamon tomorrow. Vinegar etching, polish, etch, polish, etch...etc, according to Nick's hamon advice.




There are 'a couple' lines from the previous grit, maybe 2 previous grit paper, before the 2000. I didn't notice the lack of light in my garage until it was to late. When I walked outside with it to take the picture I noticed all the missed lines. So rather than spend another 2-3 hours going back and redoing all the sand paper work, I've decided to count it as a lesson learned, pick up some new light bulbs, and move on. Hopefully I can start on the handle on Tuesday or Wednesday.
 
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