It's a good day (to make knives for my JS test) Professional photos added

Mark Knapp

Mark Knapp

Joined
Dec 20, 2009
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It's a good day when I get to spend it in the forge. I'm forging knives for my ABS Journeyman performance test and knives for judging in June. Here are some that I made today, forged and normalized. Two choppers for the performance test, two Bowies ( I will submit the best one) and a smaller belt knife for submission at Blade in Atlanta. These are only about a third of the knives I have forged for testing. The soapstone marks are to keep track of normalizing cycles.

I have five choppers for the performance test, I will test and practice with them till I get the edge geometry right and then bend test four of them, to make sure my heat treat is right, before I take the fifth one to test before a master-smith in April.

I'm also building 9 knives for fit and finish, I will submit the best five.

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Thanks for looking, I will post more as I progress with them. Wish me luck.
 
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You will do great job, it's not only about good luck. It's about of doing with passion and brains.
 
Best of luck. I'm confident you'll do well.

It's always fun to see another's shop. Your forge & pyrometer look identical to mine. I don't have an air hammer though. If you tire of it, stick it in a priority box & send it my way. LOL

Gary
 
Wow, Mark. That is over the top. You are leaving nothing to chance. I have no doubts. I will be in line to congratulate you in June.
 
Great prep and game plan. That's a lot of work. I'm confident you will do well.
 
Best of luck to you, Mark, though it doesn't seem you're leaving too much to chance. As I tell my kids, for the most part you make your own luck.
 
sounds like a lot of fun! I've only ever destroyed knives by accident.
I'm thinkin you'll breeze on thru that test!
 
I have the utmost confidence that you will not only prevail but excel!

Hopefully I will be there to congratulate you!

Steve
-----------
Member, W.F. Moran Foundation
ABS Apprentice
 
Wow, thank you everybody for all the confidence. I hope I can live up to expectations. This stuff makes me nervous.

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I cleaned up the flats on the surface grinder and ground the contours to shape.

I have dyed the edges of the blades so I can mark them with the height gauge on my surface plate. It's not a real surface plate, it's an antique lapping plate that never got used for lapping so it's pretty flat. I silver soldered some carbide to the end of the stylus on the height gauge so I can use it to scribe lines. I will scribe the spines of the blades as well as the beveled side so that I can keep the distal tapers centered. I'll do the same thing when I grind in the false edges. I will scribe two parallel lines .040" apart, centered on the edges of the blades.
 
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A fine job you're doing and I have no doubt about the outcome.....[emoji106][emoji41]
 
Looks great so far Mark - I think you have a good plan going :thumbup:

I too am looking forward to congratulating you down the road

Bill Flynn
 
Looking good Mark. I'm sure you'll ace it all.
 
Thanks for the nice comments guys, appreciate it.

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The parallel center lines are scribed.

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Ready to grind the bevels. With the celebrated Bruce Bump file jig, what could possibly go wrong... well besides two-inch-itis, burnt thumbs and sanded off finger tips, what could go wrong.

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Some days I can grind pretty good, some days I can't grind anything. Today everything went really well. I got the bevels on six blades ground.

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These are ready for heat treat tomorrow, I'm giving myself the rest of the day off.

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Here's a quick peek at the handle material I am going to choose from for the submission knives. This material has been curing for over five years now so it should be OK.

Heat treat tomorrow.
 
I'm not one to believe in 'sure things', Mark, but you're an exception, no doubt. Those blade profiles look great!
 
Mark,
No doubt your five knives will have some top shelf handle material...this will be good.

Tad
 
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