MagnaCut Customs, BOOKS CLOSED

David Mary

David Mary

pass the mustard - after you cut it
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Jul 23, 2015
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Okay friends. Announcing my second run of MagnaCut. The steel is paid for and on its way to Leading Edge Fabrication for laser cutting, and from there it will go to Jarod Todd for heat treatment. The sheet is 23" x 6" and .104" thick, so right between 3/32" and 1/8", making this a great thickness for EDC knives and kitchen cutlery. Estimated completion and shipping date for these knives, based on my experience with Jarod's lead times, is between March and May 2022. His heat treatment is very much worth waiting for.

As usual, get in touch via email or PM if you have a MagnaCut fixed blade project in mind you'd like me to make, and we'll hammer out the details re: materials and pricing. My guess is you have a week at most to get with me on this, before I submit the final CAD files to Mark at Leading Edge.
 
Update: I think Monday will be the deadline to get in on this, but there is limited space left, and I already have couple people who are on the fence.
 
This is now closed.
 
David Mary said:
Closing in on a final set of instructions.

View attachment 1710891
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How much room do you need for the curf? (if that is the right word?) I'm not sure how clean the edge is, or if there is any burn out?

I know I was a little concerned when I saw how close my future AEB-L knife was to it' s edge...... These look a lot closer :O
haha
 
Haha, no worries, laser it super tight. .008". Mark didn't say there were any issues with the spacing. However, he did tell me that my files had too many end points, even after I converted splines to poly lines. So because I have no clue how to fix that, I contacted a guy on Fiverrr who actually knows what he is doing with the program, and he "fixed" one knife as a test for me to send Mark. I am awaiting a reply back from him as to whether he can cut it, and if he can I am going to have the gentleman on Fiverrr fix the whole shebang. But JTknives JTknives has never had a problem cutting my files out, at least once he gave me a crash course in how to use the program. Yes, over a year ago now, Jarod actually took the time to record a nearly forty minute video tutorial on the program for me. It was a crash course, and got me up and running enough to make files he can cut.

The waterjet guys were able to do one batch for me, my first run of 15N20, but they told me when I asked them to do a second batch of blanks in AEB-L that they couldn't use splines, so I redrew all the blanks manually using lines. They cut those no problem.

Then eventually I knew I had to start redrawing other designs I had made using splines, but I found an add-on/plugin called "splines to poly-lines" which works for quickly converting spline based .dxfs to arc and line based .dxfs, but now as stated above those have too many end points for the laser to cut.

Contingency plan: I emailed Ryan at HAI waterjets here in Ontario to ask him if he could cut the files as I have drawn them. If Mark tells me the revised file won't work, AND if Ryan says yes, then I will have Mark ship the MagnaCut to Ryan, and waterjet them here. And in the end, if that doesn't work, I will ask Jarod if he can cut the files, but first I will likely have to revise the jimping on each design to make it less fine so the plasma will actually cut it.

Mark was able to cut the batch of Khukuris and Prevails I sent him, and so this monkey wrench feels like it's out of left field, but we'll get it sorted somehow.
 
Well from the pushback I was getting from Mark, I didn't realize he was willing to do this, but today he offered to have his colleague Steve fix the file to work with their laser cutter. So I said please go ahead, and sent the updated file.
 
Steve, Mark's business partner, called me this morning, and asked me if I would mind if they just cut the file as is, rather than taking the time to smooth it out in CAD. He said smoothing it out would take a few hours. He warned that the blanks would come out faceted. You can see from the file above, if you look closely, that I did not use arcs to draw the blanks, but lines. I told him that would be fine, as I always clean up the profiles on the grinder anyway. So the blanks have been cut, using the file exactly as I prepared it.

Here is what Mark had to say in an email after they were cut (emphasis mine):

Mark from Leading Edge said:
David,

I have your blanks cut. They turned out OK and the dross wasn’t as bad on the end points as anticipated because the material was Blanchard ground. The laser cuts better on ground stock or cold rolled finish than CPM alloys with the recast on the surface. The recast surfaces leave heavier dross at all the end points. In turn more of a job cleaning them up before shipping.

Our standards on the files we cut are a lot higher than most shops. I’ve seen to many issues related to other peoples files to let my guard down. You will be happy with this batch.

I’ll forward an invoice once have time to move onto that task.

Take care,

Mark
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Needless to say I am happy with this outcome.
 
David do you have an that may not be claimed yet, looking for a short wharncliff blade similar to the one you made for Murph?
 
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