Knives on the bench

Kevin McGovern

Kevin McGovern

Joined
Jul 31, 2015
Messages
3,118
I remember taking a month to finish one knife. Now I have seven on the bench at once. Never thought I would see that. Thanks everybody who answers my greenhorn questions. This is a great community.
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looking good ! i remember taking 40 hours to make a knife, now its down to about 26. thanks to this site.
 
Looking good Kevin. I've got one on my bench almost like the bottom on in the picture. The handle has a slightly different shape and the spine is slightly different.
 
That looks good. One tip and this might just be me, doing batches seams to take the "fun" out of it. I mean it's still fun and I love it but I really enjoy creating different things and doing a bunch of the same thing makes it seem like work. I have a few knives I make in batches, one being my 2nd Amendment.

Hollow ground 2nd Amendment
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Flat ground 2nd Amendment
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Some times I do kitchen knives in batches or sets as well
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I hear you JT. I just seem to have people order multiples of the same knife usually as gifts. The other knives are either orders or me just keeping things interesting
 
pleasanthill said:
Looking good Kevin. I've got one on my bench almost like the bottom on in the picture. The handle has a slightly different shape and the spine is slightly different.
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That one has proved to be fairly popular. It's really handy and something that a lot of people haven't seen before. It's one of the first Styles I ever made. it's my take on a Murray Carter, before I even knew who Murray Carter was. I just found a random picture of a "wharnecliffe brute Kata-Ha" and thought it looked like the perfect EDC for me. This one is the 5th one I've made and the first in AEB-L and you know I STILL don't have an EDC that I have made!
 
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When I first saw those, I thought they were folders. Are they really thin? I need to make some super light knives for the other adult leaders in my son's Boy Scout troop for backpacking, and what you have there is along the lines of what I was thinking. Especially since I have a sheet of thin textured G-10 like you have there.
 
And speaking again to the batch mentality that JT brought up. I did find it kind of neat to make these as close to identical as possible. I even clamped them together to do the very final profiling of the blanks. I have gotten in the habit, when i can, of making 2 of the same knife at a time. Several reasons for this:
1. most important to me, is It tells me how consistent I am and if I have techniques to work on.
2. If I really screw something up, I have a backup
3. I would like to have a knife or two of my own, though that seams to be a losing battle.
 
kdogmcg said:
That one has proved to be fairly popular. It's really handy and something that a lot of people haven't seen before. It's one of the first Styles I ever made. it's my take on a Murray Carter, before I even knew who Murray Carter was. I just found a random picture of a "wharnecliffe brute Kata-Ha" and thought it looked like the perfect EDC for me. This one is the 5th one I've made and the first in AEB-L and you know I STILL don't have an EDC that I have made!
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I don't have an image of it ground, but I actually have it profiled and one side of the blade flat ground, but a bearing went out on one of my platen wheels, and waiting on a replacement from OregonBladeMaker. I scaled my pattern a little too big so it's goes over the edge of the material so I ground it right to the line then scribed another line just inside of the edge and marked out the rest of the profile to get the exact shape I wanted and ground to that line. If I had a little more patience, would have waited till i went to work the next day I would have rescaled the pattern to the right side and saved a little work.

 
kdogmcg said:
Mine is a chisel grind.
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Ah ha.. :thumbup: Hard to tell from the image. I am going to try may hand at a chisel grind on a Karambit I have planned for my brother. Only problem I'm running into, I can't drill the 7/8" finger hole. My drill press won't handle a bit that large. I have one I started, but I'm not happy with it. I took it as large as I could on the drill press and ground the rest finger hole out, and it's not so good. So I told him I wasn't going to embellish it like I wanted to and he can still have it but I'm going to make him a nicer one. I'm just going to put some simple micarta handles and plain brass pins on this one. When I grind the next one I'll get a machine shop to drill the hole for me cause I promised him the knife for his birthday, but missed the mark, and want to make good on it. I did get good practice in on the first one grinding the curved edge though, and what a chore that was. after that, I'll wait till I have the equipment to do it myself before making knives like this with large holes in the design.
 
I know they are popular, but i never understood the appeal of a knife that is only really effective if you practice a specific martial art. and even then, it's pretty much only good for making knees cease to function. They do look cool though.
 
Yeah, I'm not that much on them either as far as carry, but they do look sick.. But that's what he wanted so that's what I'm going to try and get him..
 
I went that route with my brother in law. he wanted a really exaggerated Persian style blade. Way too curved for any real use, and he said he wanted it for general carry. I got him to settle for the kwaiken ( second blade from the top, in my original post).
 
pleasanthill said:
Ah ha.. :thumbup: Hard to tell from the image. I am going to try may hand at a chisel grind on a Karambit I have planned for my brother. Only problem I'm running into, I can't drill the 7/8" finger hole. My drill press won't handle a bit that large. I have one I started, but I'm not happy with it. I took it as large as I could on the drill press and ground the rest finger hole out, and it's not so good. So I told him I wasn't going to embellish it like I wanted to and he can still have it but I'm going to make him a nicer one. I'm just going to put some simple micarta handles and plain brass pins on this one. When I grind the next one I'll get a machine shop to drill the hole for me cause I promised him the knife for his birthday, but missed the mark, and want to make good on it. I did get good practice in on the first one grinding the curved edge though, and what a chore that was. after that, I'll wait till I have the equipment to do it myself before making knives like this with large holes in the design.
Click to expand...

A bi-metal hole saw will do the job.
 
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