Making of a three layer User

B

bullet101

Joined
Dec 1, 2003
Messages
267
This spring I went on a little two month trip to the other side of the world. One of the countries I visited was New Zealand. As my last name is quite rare and can be traced back to the 16th century to one town here in Germany, I have a few very distant relatives scatered around the globe. One of them is an older British Chap who served in the RAF in Singapore and emigrated to New Zealand in the 1960s.

As I didn't want to come empty handed I decided to make a little something for him. Since my studies kept me from making any knives this was the first one I did in over a year. Luckily knifemaking is like riding a bike (well, except when it comes to all the details ;).

Here you can see me drawing out the billet with my trusty old 110# airhammer. This is actually a damascus billet, but I didn't take any pictures while I was making the three layer pieces. (Please note the tiny ponytail was solely caused by the cap I was wearing ;) ).

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Materials used are CK45 (similar to 1045) and 1.2842 (0-2). I ground in a few nothces to avoid getting a boring straight transition line in the finished blade. For this knife I used the billet on top.

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Next step is to scribe the rough outline on the billet and go to town with bandsaw. I changed the profile quite I bit as I went along. That's just part of my creation process :).

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Sawing took too much time so I turned on my 2,5 hp KMG and made a lot of dust.

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Too get everything nice and flat, I used my newest toy, a Jung G60 Surface Grinder from the good old days. I took the blade down to 4,5 mm.

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Refined the blade shape a little more, marked the edge and started grinding .

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Slowly working my way up the blade leaves me with this.

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Ricasso transition is nice and symmetrical. I was actually quite surprised that I didn't mess it up after such a long brake ;).

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Me standing next to the trusty KMG ( was quite an endeavour to get the damn thing over here, but it was worth it :)).

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After grinding I annealed the blade once more and put it in a ceramic isolation blanket to cool overnight.

The rest of the pictures will follow soon.

I hope you enjoy watching other people make knives as I do :).

Looking forward to your comments.


Regards

Marcus
 
Ahhhh, my young German friend!!! I am so glad to see you putting this thread together! :thumbup: :cool:

I had forgotten how much I had to start hating you after you got that air hammer. Damn it! ;)

Not too often you see equipment of that grade in any maker's shop, let alone a fella so young as you Marcus... Air hammer, KMG, quality contour bandsaw, surface grinder.

I'm excited to see this play out Marcus... reminds me of how ecstatic I was the day a 17 year old kid from Germany emailed me with a couple questions about how I did things :)
 
Nick, I bet it is kind of like when a seventeen year old come up to your table at a knife show and asks the same kinds of questions ;)
 
That side view of the billet looks great. I can't wait to see the transition when it is done.

Bill, I know, because I am that 17 year old :D
 
Glad, you guys like it.

@Nick: You still are my knifemaking hero, so I'm glad you approve of my amateurish efforts :). As I still want a knife from you, I might have to get in contact with you again.

Regarding the tools, all I can say is:

Hello, my name is Marcus and I am a tool whore :D.

I guess I owe it all to my parents, as they chip in quite often, as well as numerous friends that let me know whenever there was an opportunity to buy a good machine for a low price.

Now here's some more pictures of the kiwi knife :).

After annealing the holes for the pins were drilled and the blade was hardened. No pics of that, as I was alone in the shop and wanted to concentrate on the job.

Here's my former "hot zone" setup, but since it wasn't ideal I made some major changes a while ago. The dedicated Durixol quench oil is in the old ammunition box.

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That's what the blade looked like right before tempering. You can get a pretty good idea of the three layer construction now.

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Just the right golden shine after two tempering cycles.

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And another ride on the surface grinder to get everything nice and clean. (Besides the airhammer it has to be the most fun tool of my machines ;)).

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We end up with something like this.

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I stoped at a 120 grit before HT, so now it's back to the grinder up to 240 grit. I'll do the rest up to 600 by hand.

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Selected the handle material and decided to finish up some messed up blades for myself, that were lying around for almost two years now.

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I flatten my scales on the mill with a modified tile cutting bit.

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And as you can see my mill really sucks (as it was a self build by a friend), so not all my machinery is quite that fancy. Every sane and reasonable person would probably buy a proper drillpress and milling machine first, but since I'm a sucker for "exotic" tools I go out and buy airhammers, surface grinders and pantograph mills ;).

More to come later on. If there are any questions feel free to ask.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
OMG... Dude... get a Fly Cutter :rolleyes:


Cool thread :thumbup:
Click to expand...

thats what i was going to say, you beat me to it.
when i saw the picture i was like o he is using a fly cutter to mill his scales down. but then i read the caption ant i was wondering if that can handle the forces from the milling.
 
I actually have several fly cutters (I can post pics to prove it :D ).

And I have to say that the tile cutter isn't any less sturdy.

For milling down scales nothing beats this thing with is reground carbide tip.

But I admit, thinking about it now, that using a tile cutter in a milling machine sounds pretty dangerous and wierd ;).
 
bullet101 said:
I actually have several fly cutters (I can post pics to prove it :D ).

And I have to say that the tile cutter isn't any less sturdy.

For milling down scales nothing beats this thing with is reground carbide tip.

But I admit, thinking about it now, that using a tile cutter in a milling machine sounds pretty dangerous and wierd ;).
Click to expand...

Weird is ok, heck most of what we do as knife makers looks weird to others. but i was just concerned about your safety
 
Bullet, great work, great tools, thaks for sharing and keep em coming :D!

NickWheeler said:
I'm excited to see this play out Marcus... reminds me of how ecstatic I was the day a 17 year old kid from Germany emailed me with a couple questions about how I did things :)
Click to expand...

Nick, what are you like 30 years old? Quit acting like you are 90 :D. "back in MY day...." ;) (just kiddin' yah)
 
Good looking knives, (Just can't imagine Burke at 17) The carbide tip tile cutter looks inviting, will have to get one.

Are you going to show the finished knife.
 
Don't want to keep you guys waiting, so here's the rest of the pictures.

After drilling the holes in the scales we can see where this is headed.

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Using the bandsaw to get the rough outline on the scales.

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Afterward the front of the scales is radiused and polished.

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Handles are ready, so now I have to finish handrubbing the blades. Takes quite a while, as well as lots of sanding paper and WD40.

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After a little while (and a few cusses ;)) it looks nice and uniform. Ended up at 600 grit.

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Etching my logo with a stencil and a battery charger.

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Afterwards a quick etch and a little scrubing with very fine steel wool to show the three layer construction. It's actually quite a bit bolder, than the pic suggests. Must have been the flash.

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Same for this pic, but you can just imagine it a little darker ;).

I think it looks pretty decent and in real life you can actually see an additional hardening line running through the blade.

Here's the part that almost sucks more than handrubbing. Epoxing the scales on the blade. Kept my camera hidden away for this part, but here's what the whole thing looks like after the epoxy set.

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Now we start grinding the scales to the tang and begin shaping and countouring the handle.

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Quick change to the wheel to get a nice ergonomical shape.

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Apparently I lost the rest (it were only three or four) of the pics in a recent memory card mishap. But I'll try to get my Kiwi "relative" to snap a picture or two of the finished knife.

I hope you liked it and I might post another making of pictorial of a Damascus San Mai blade.

Enjoy your Sunday :).

Marcus
 
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