Handle broach...thanks Nick and Terry

D

DHackney

Joined
Jul 12, 2004
Messages
178
Thanks to input from Nick Wheeler and Terry Primos, as well as Jeff Higgins, I
coughed up some money ($80 - inlcudes priorty mail charge) and ordered a handle
broach from John Perry last night.

I was in a quandry on how to open up the slot through a curved piece of sambar
stag material and ran this buy you folks on the forum. What a great resource for this
oldie (56 :( ) newbie knife maker! Thanks a ton Nick, Terry and Jeff!

I found John Perry a really helpful and accomodating guy. From what John mentioned
the handle broach (both 1/8" and 3/16") business started out when he decided to fabricate
a few of them for some fellow knifemakers. Well, word spread and now he's making quite a
few of them. Terry posted a picture of Johns's work in yesterday's thread. You can tell
that these are high quality pieces. They're made from D2 and hardened and make for
some really agressive material removal - much better and faster than files.

Anyhow, I just wanted to say thanks to you guys for all the help. Now I've gained
some confidence to tackle my problem.

Best regards,
Dana Hackney
Monument, CO
 
I was going to reply in that thread, but this is good a place as any. Dana, you are a lucky guy. Those broachs look fantastic! I'll bet it is very high quality. How can you get any better of a cuttnig tool like that than D2? Its pretty much the industry standard in the paper-cutting business. I have seen D2 blades shear over 2 million sheets of paper without so much as a scratch. Good stuff, and by golly now I will have to spend another $160! :D
 
Yeah, I agree, these are some really high quality pieces. I just bought the 1/8"
broach and will use if for both knives (1/8 and 3/16 tangs) for now until I can afford the
3/16" version.

John turns these out in pretty short order. He's supposed to have mine shipped by early
next week. It sounds like he's got quite a few orders,and more coming.

Thanks, again, Jeff for educating the "old" man. As I said yesterday, the only broaches I
new of were the kind that the lady folks wear.

Dana
 
You're welcome Dana :)

I made mine after seeing a pic of John's. I'm definitely going to buy a couple from John as soon as I have the funds.

You can cut a rectangular hole in your handle material, which is hard to do with files and saw. I used to use a sheet-rock saw that I ground down so that it's narrow. It's aggressive, but flexes way too much, and wants to cut into one side or the other of the hole.

A broach just cuts whatever is in front of it.

I sharpenend mine up with EDM stones when I made them. I may have to resharpen them. But I bet with John's being made from D2, they won't need that :)

Show us your knife when you get it done! :D
-Nick-
 
I think your broaches look pretty darn good, Nick. :) What did you make yours from?
 
Jeff,

For the little one I cut a narrow strip of 1080/1084 off of a bar, the bigger one was ground down from 5/16" O1 square stock :)

-Nick-
 
as mentioned, I was pretty worried about trying to come up with a method for
channeling out the antler material. I would have probably botched the job and
wasted my hard-earned $ I spent on the sambar and red deer pieces. Now I'm
anxious to try out the broaches.

I've got few small narrow pieces of both 1/8" and 3/16" O-1 that I might try filing and
then heat treating, just for grins. I don't have my propane forge set up yet and
am wondering if I could get to non-magnetic on these small pieces with a plummer's
hand torch (butane I think). I can always hollow out one of the fire bricks I got from
Darren and do the one-brick forge thing.

Anyhow, once I get through the process, I'll need to get signed up so I can post.

Thanks, again, Nick and gang.

Dana
 
Dana, no problem. :)

My post above was just ribbing the other fellas for fun. I'm really not a complete A-hole. Well, not EVERY day of the week anyway ;)

The torch should harden the thin cross sections just fine. You really only need the teeth hard anyway. I actually got the 1084 broach TOO hard, and broke it.

I welded it back together, then re-heat-treated it.

Oh, just for s's & g's, this is a set of knives that I did the handles like I described. :)

Thanks Dana :)
-Nick-

fatherandson.jpg
 
Nick.

I've visited your website before (several times, in fact) and saw this pair. I've also seen the
other knives you've done and I have to say you've got some really fine pieces there.
Fantastic fit and finish, and I'm sure their performance matches their beauty. Did you take classes or is this all natural talent?

As for the O-1, I'll give it a go. No big loss if I don't get it right anyhow.

best regards,
dana
 
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