Kukri WIP - The Bone Collector

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks again for the good words guys.

Joe, I will probably make another thread since working on this one it is obvious to me now that I want one for myself.

Jonny, I am sorry to disappoint but I went with the more traditional pommel. I liked the other pommel but still can't quite see how to make it work visually and I want to keep the momentum going on this one.

Back to work.

Started on the threaded end. Shaped it roughly on the grinder and then finish rounding it out as best as I could with files. I will be using 1/4-28 for this.

Using a die and Rapid Tap I did an ok job of threading it. It is not quite as clean as I would like it so I may end up welding a threaded rod on instead but for now it will do.

Next we cut a a round recess for the retaining nut with a 3/8th endmill.

Don't know if you can see it but I left a little lip so that the retaining nut tightens against that.

Now it needs a temporary nut. Facing some scrap mild steel rod.

Center drilling. Always a good idea to use a center drill first.

And drilling the correct sized hole for 1/4-28 thread which is a no.3 drill

Now I use the lathe to align and engage the tap a little. *WARNING* Please note that the chuck is not turning. I am not doing this under power but turning by hand. All I want to do is get the tap started as straight as possible.

Remove the whole thing and finish it by hand in the vise.

Finally it all holds together. Just need to shorten the nut a bit.

More to come...

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Anyone knows if they make Kevlar versions of the nitrile gloves. Sure would be useful.
That's what you get for getting complaisant with the disk grinder.

Now the fun part starts, getting all the separate parts to their final finish while making sure it all fits together. It is one of the most creative part of the process which makes it fun. But it can also be the most stressful because, not like on paper, you can't go back if you mess something up. That's why I go back and forth between the different parts, making small changes to each. It's also why we need take it apart 3145 time.

To give you an idea of how slow this process is, you probably don't see much difference between the last pic and this one but there is almost an hour of work there.

Thanks for watching.

 

[Dixieblade57]

Pat, it's never complete till you bleed over it somewhere! Besides that little bobo hardly qualifies for much of a medal but , I will bet it got your attention!

 

[Redsnake1997]

Great thread... and I'm w/Joe... I love Kukuri posts!!

 

[Patrice Lemée]

I agree that it was just a scratch but like you said it got my attention. Nitrile gloves are nice but they sometimes create a false sense of security by not letting you see your skin close to the belt or disk.
It is the second time this one demanded blood. It's my first Khukuri, are they bloodthirstier?

Glad you like it Redsnake, thanks.

 

[tryppyr]

I saw some "Extreme Heavy Duty" Nitrile gloves at HF yesterday. I tried them out... they seem to be 2x to 3x the thickness.

 

[Frank Niro]

Hi Pat.
So why the stop on this one? What sort of problem did you encounter, or did you just not feel good with what you were doing? Frank

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Frank, while removing the guard I cracked the wooden part of the handle.

If it was just a little crack I could just shorten it and work off that but it is too big and means I have to make another one. Not that big a deal I know but just breaks the flow of things, if that makes sense. I'll keep working on other stuff and get back to it next week. Thanks for your concern.

Greg, I'll look into those gloves, thanks.
I apologize for the delay.

 

[Frank Niro]

Yes, that can be a great time to stop but only on that one like you are doing. I have it happen to me off and on, and I stop and go to another that I hope will give me a boost and make me feel like getting back to that original one. It just shows that no matter how good a craftsman a person is bad stuff can still happen . Frank

 

[Dixieblade57]

So what is the word on the crack, is it going to cause a redo? That is going to be a bummer if you have to redo the whole handle!

Just poking fun about the bobo. I have never stuck my finger into a grinder that it didn't get my immediate attention! I once was using a 4x12 belt sander bottom side up and hand feeding a piece too it. It got my finger and sucked in between the belt and the body of the sander, it is surprising how fast you can get too the switch, ( but it is never fast enough). Anyway I learned a valuable lesson with that one. But I still occasionally have to nick my self to remind me, how quickly you can get into trouble!

 

[Patrice Lemée]

You know Frank, sometimes when it is an honest mistake it is easier to chalk it up to the learning process but in this case I just rushed things. It could easily have been avoided. I guess it is still a learning opportunity...slow down Patrice.

Cliff, no salvaging this one. Gotta redo it.

Here are a couple of pics of what I did before deciding to take a break.

Adjusting the parallels on the guard.

And getting the fit right.

Sorry again for the delay.

 

[JCoutts]

Patrice, even though this is a setback, don't let it get you down too much man. Since you said you aren't going to be able to salvage this one, I'm sure your next one will be even better!

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks for the encouragement J. I will get back to it this week.

 

[9blades]

I can't wait!!

 

[Tin.Man]

subscribed AMAZING WORK so far man

 

[Salem Straub]

Sorry about that, man. Happens to all of us. Your second attempt will be better yet.

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. :thumbup:

Ok, let's get back to it.
I decided to use some 30 minutes epoxy instead of the 5 minutes kind. I still haven't figured out a way to make it thinner so it takes quite a bit of work and time to get it past the bend in the tang.

Another nice thing about the duct tape thing is I just peel it off and stick it to my glove so I can bring it to the clamped knife.

One last tip. I am cheap and I hate to waste the excess epoxy I mix. Since I often change things around in the shop, trying to optimize everything, I end up with a few holes in my benches. A small piece of duct tape underneath and I pour the leftover epoxy in. Sand a bit if it overflows ans voila, hole is gone. If I get enough of them in a small area, I am thinking about adding a floodlight underneath. I think it should make a nice light show...I wonder how I could integrate that into a knife...maybe a guard...but I digress...where was I again? Oh yeah, hole picture.

So after all that work we are back with a blocky wooden handle. I'll do my best not to mess this one up.

A little work on the sheath. I decided to go with the 3 piece method for now. So I cut out the 2 outer layers and the contoured spacer. All I had was this thick plywood (good grade though) so I have some thinning to do.

With trial and error I thinned down the spacer until I got a nice tight fit for the Khukuri. Added a few aluminum locating pins to keep it in place while I work on the overall shape.

I holds up the knife very well. I still have a little room to play around with the profile but not much so it will be pretty much the final shape. Kind of large and shapeless but I have a few ideas to give it some “character”.

Thanks for following.

 

[JCoutts]

Awesome Patrice! I'm happy to see you back on this, I am very excited to see how it finishes!

 

[G. Shahan]

Very cool Patrice,

Can't wait to see this finished.

You've inspired me to try a kukri soon.

Good work my friend.

Greg

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks again for the good words.

I sure would like to see what you come up with Greg. I bet you will have it finished before me.

I was able to squeeze in a couple of shop time today so I started shaping the wood part of the handle...again. A tip here: I do most of the filing with a coarse half round file but from time to time, a quick pass all over with some 220 grit paper will let you see the shape better. A good thing when working with a file that removes material pretty quickly.

And you probably saw the lovely surprise I got. A void thingy in wood. Not too bad I thought at first until I ran compressed air over it. Remind me how knifemaking is suppose to be fun.

What to do now? If this was going to a collector it would be a no brainer, find another piece of wood and redo it. But this is going to a friend so I am thinking of keeping it. But then again not sure about putting a knife out there that is not the best I can do regardless of the recipient. Don't now if you can see it from the pic but another thing seems amiss. This is stabilized but contrary to the surface where everything was rock hard, the further down the block I go, the softer part (lighter colored) is not so hard. Don't know enough about stabilization to know if it's normal or a defect that could also explain the void. What I am inclined to do is to fill the hole with CA, finish the handle and do a CA finish on it. Never done it before so it would be good practice. With instructions from Bruce Bump I think I can do a good job of it. That would take care of the stabilization problem. And if I don't like it or the void is too much of an eyesore then I simply find another piece of wood and start over. Started filling the void so it is done if I decide to go that way.

What do you think?