How to mill fullers in a dagger blade- sort of.

Salem Straub

Salem Straub

Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
5,547
Well, I finally got a full size vertical knee mill the other day. This, coupled with the fact that I love daggers, meant I had to make a dagger with milled fullers.

I forged an integral quillon dagger with a 12" blade length from W2 round stock, and did a lot of preliminary shaping of the fittings, then ground the blade close to its final profile and maximum thickness before taper. (Within .005.)

I searched around a bit to found out how people have done it. There's really not a lot, at least for very informative stuff, about doing this. So, I thought I'd post my adventures with it in the interests of adding to the body of knowledge out there.

Here's vid #1, in which I've already begun the milling process and am talking about it while cutting.
[video=youtube;htgR-1ZgN9c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=htgR-1ZgN9c[/video]

Here's vid #2, in which I further talk about the cutter, clamping, and feed.
[video=youtube;jW2g3d0ay1s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jW2g3d0ay1s[/video]

Here's how the first side turned out:
DSC06531.JPG


Here's the second side:
DSC06532.JPG


And here's a different angle on the thing, in which you can see the fittings better.
DSC06530.JPG


Hope y'all got something out of the post, and if you have suggestions or info to add, please do it. Let's make this the best thread about it on the webz yet. I don't claim this is the best way, or even a really good way necessarily, but it worked well. I made use of what tools I had for the job, for instance I had no ball end mill of the right size, but I did have the big round-corner mill...

I will be hollow grinding the blade tomorrow on a 2" contact wheel I made. The plan is for the fuller to taper in width toward the tip, as the blade tapers, and for the hollow grinds to maintain an even width from plunges to the end of the fuller. I'll post pics of that too.
 
Great looking old mill, You should have taken the old girl in for a soda blast and a sexy new paint job ;0) looks like another cool knife, thanks for the vid ;0)
 
Last edited:
Salem, i can't wait to see the developement. You are a grinding magician, that's going to be a stunning piece!!!
I wish you showed the earlier stages of that amazing integral dagger :eek:
Very good using the tilting head to cut the fuller...is it so difficult (PITA) as they use to say to reset to the vertical position?
 
Last edited:
I had the same issue as you when I did a fuller on a mill. There was no real information that i could find on this. I messed the first one up real bad. I tried to mill it after the blade was tapered. I'll pull it out of the junk drawer and post that to show what happens when you have no machining knowledge like me. I did the second one while the blade was profiled, but full thickness, like you did, Salem. This resulted in a subtle tapered fuller after I ground the bevels. I wish I had a better pic of it. I just have a lousy cell phone pic. I'll see if I can sharpen the image and I'll post it here.
 
Last edited:
Sounds pretty cool, like to see those pics Willie.

Stezann, not a huge PITA to tram the mill again after resetting the head. There's a lot about it on youtube, just gotta put a dial indicator in the chuck or a collet and tap the head around until the needle doesn't travel while the table is traversing. Or you can caveman it with a bend rod in the chuck, adjusting until the rod just barely contacts it's whole swing on the table.

This morning I ground the bevels in rough, with an 8" wheel. Here in a bit I'm going back to grind the 2" hollows in, to pre ht thickness. Pics later.
 
Did you take the fuller through the point on purpose, Salem? Looks, to me at least, like you took it too far down the blade. Still, I'm envious.
 
Ok, just got done with the 2" hollows roughed in to 60 grit.

Some shots of the grinds:
DSC06541.JPG

DSC06540.JPG

DSC06539.JPG

DSC06538.JPG


The grinds narrow a little toward the tip, as does the fuller, due to the distal taper. So, the three part ratio of grind/fuller/grind is maintained for most of the blade length. I like the look of it, anyway...

I ran the plunges just a little short of the marked out lines, I'll save the rest for j flex after heat treat.
DSC06537.JPG

DSC06536.JPG

DSC06535.JPG


By the way, that's my puppy Bowser in the background, trying to eat the knife while I'm snapping pics of it...
DSC06534.JPG


Next step is to hand sand the fuller to 220 with little micarta block. Then clean up the tool marks on the ricasso, and HT.
 
Looks great so far. Curious to see what you do with the handle.

I was experimenting with fullers last weekend, and tried grinding them in with a small wheel since I don't have a mill. It actually worked extremely well.
 
This is another super piece from your shop !!!! Great work and I sure love the precision you produce. Frank
 
Looks darn good! :eek:
Like David, I was concerned about taking the fuller all the way through the point but I should have known better than to question your process. :o Looks perfect to me!
Thanks for taking the time to share.
 
incredible!! i still get nervous when approaching my sloppy grinding lines, go figure the stroke i would get working on a piece like that :)
 
Patrice, I was kind of winging it- thought it would work out, but it easily could have not. Heck, it still might not! Haven't gone through HT yet.
I'm glad you guys are enjoying the thread.
J. Mitchell, you're right, a small wheel can make some nice fullers for sure- I considered using my 2" wheel to grind the fuller (Phillip Patton did at least one nice dagger that way) but I wanted a deeper look here, and my smaller wheels than that are set up on a yoke that would get in the way of that type of grinding. (Bearings on the ends of the wheel, not inside.)
 
Very nice looking dagger Salem.

I like the proportions of it all. The deep fuller and overall appearance look nice and light, but well balanced.

I'm looking forward to the finished product!

-Eric
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top