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- Feb 28, 2002
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Fair warning - another long in-progress post. It does arrive at a completed knife, so do feel free to scroll to the end.
Also, for the bandwidth-impaired, a link to the pics can be found here:
http://www.fototime.com/inv/7F166C2354AF4A5
This story is more about the journey than the destination, however. So for those that like sort of thing, do read on.
As some of you will know, I've been in the process of making a knife for Karl Andersen's knife game, the gory details of which can be found here:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=562021
From the outset, I thought it prudent to forge and finish TWO blades, in the event that Murphy's Law came into play. You see, me and Murph, we go way back. Since the 1" square bar of 5160 that Karl provided could have easily provided steel for about a half-dozen bowies, at least I didn't have to worry about materials.
Now with the first blade, everything went quite smoothly. It seemed to forge out real easy and the grinding was relatively drama-free. It is easily my best grinding job to date and was a no-brainer choice to take to completion as the project knife.
Which brings us to the subject-matter of this thread - that bright shiny blade's evil twin.
Here we see it skulking behind its prima-donna sibling. Even at that early stage, it shunned the light, preferring shadow and solitude to plot its mischief.
Though made from the very same steel, it seemed utterly recalcitrant - just didn't want to move on the hammer. After forging to shape, it seemed to refuse to let me get the edge centered on the spine. Sure enough, when the time came to scribe the center line, that sucker was off - leading to much twisting and shoving and pulling and pleading to coax it into position.
Grinding seemed to expose every kind of mistake there is to make. I didn't get a real even edge thickness - about two inches forward from the ricasso, it was too thin. Then, very near the end of final grinding, I managed to put a shallow divot in the flat grind about two inches from the tip.
Go to any kifemaker's shop and you will find an assembly of reject blades that were not taken to completion for defects less egregious than these. But I don't have a shop. Through Dan Farr's generosity and friendship, I have some discreet opportunities to make a occasional knife-like object, so I try to make the best of each chance for the learning experience alone.
I decided I was going to find some way to finish out that puppy and at least get a usable knife out of it. And since there was already a pretty big question mark hanging over its future, I thought I might was well try as many new methods as I could on this piece, while staying more comfortably within my wheelhouse on the project knife.
The most serious problem was the too-thin spot on the edge. Grinding the whole edge down to eliminate it would have resulted in a pretty narrow blade. But in shading out the problem area with a majic marker, the answer immediately presented itself: grind away the thin section only, bring down the point slightly and make my first recurve!
Note to self - inside every big knife is a smaller knife waiting to be set free. This blade shape seemed to call for a swedge - another first for yours truly - but it gave the blade some added visual tension and dimension.
Having spent hours putting a hand-rubbed satin finish on the project knife, I wasn't inclined to follow the same path on this blade - even though the tip-divot ground out pretty clean. Hmmm... what to do. Then I remembered some of Dan's knives from Blade and a little D2 beauty that Matt Gregory made at my last visit and the answer presented itself again. So off I went to.....
... the sand-blasting box!
Why am I smiling? 1) I'm a guy, and therefore anything containing the description "blasting" has just got to be fun. 2) This is so easy not even I could screw it up.
But why sand-blast? Because' like Dan and Matt's knives, I was going to black powder coat this beast.
The handle materials would also be something new, as I decided to try for a bi-metal guard of bronze and nickel silver. An ebony spacer would set off the English walnut handle and compliment the black blade.
Here we are with all that junk attached, ready for my favourite part of the whole knifemakeing process (after forging, which is ridiculously fun) - shaping the handle and guard.
A little further along.
Now, I should pause here to point out that while shaping the handle with the blade already attached has its definite benefits, there is one downside: you have to be real careful to KEEP THE BLADE AWAY FROM THE BELT - PARTICULARLY WHEN IT IS POWDER COATED AND YOU CAN'T JUST SLAP SOME MORE ON AFTER THE FACT TO HIDE YOUR SILLY BOO-BOO!
AaaaRGH!
Three guesses as to when and where good old Murph decided to make a return visit? :grumpy:
Part 1 of 2
Also, for the bandwidth-impaired, a link to the pics can be found here:
http://www.fototime.com/inv/7F166C2354AF4A5
This story is more about the journey than the destination, however. So for those that like sort of thing, do read on.
As some of you will know, I've been in the process of making a knife for Karl Andersen's knife game, the gory details of which can be found here:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=562021
From the outset, I thought it prudent to forge and finish TWO blades, in the event that Murphy's Law came into play. You see, me and Murph, we go way back. Since the 1" square bar of 5160 that Karl provided could have easily provided steel for about a half-dozen bowies, at least I didn't have to worry about materials.
Now with the first blade, everything went quite smoothly. It seemed to forge out real easy and the grinding was relatively drama-free. It is easily my best grinding job to date and was a no-brainer choice to take to completion as the project knife.
Which brings us to the subject-matter of this thread - that bright shiny blade's evil twin.
Here we see it skulking behind its prima-donna sibling. Even at that early stage, it shunned the light, preferring shadow and solitude to plot its mischief.
Though made from the very same steel, it seemed utterly recalcitrant - just didn't want to move on the hammer. After forging to shape, it seemed to refuse to let me get the edge centered on the spine. Sure enough, when the time came to scribe the center line, that sucker was off - leading to much twisting and shoving and pulling and pleading to coax it into position.
Grinding seemed to expose every kind of mistake there is to make. I didn't get a real even edge thickness - about two inches forward from the ricasso, it was too thin. Then, very near the end of final grinding, I managed to put a shallow divot in the flat grind about two inches from the tip.
Go to any kifemaker's shop and you will find an assembly of reject blades that were not taken to completion for defects less egregious than these. But I don't have a shop. Through Dan Farr's generosity and friendship, I have some discreet opportunities to make a occasional knife-like object, so I try to make the best of each chance for the learning experience alone.
I decided I was going to find some way to finish out that puppy and at least get a usable knife out of it. And since there was already a pretty big question mark hanging over its future, I thought I might was well try as many new methods as I could on this piece, while staying more comfortably within my wheelhouse on the project knife.
The most serious problem was the too-thin spot on the edge. Grinding the whole edge down to eliminate it would have resulted in a pretty narrow blade. But in shading out the problem area with a majic marker, the answer immediately presented itself: grind away the thin section only, bring down the point slightly and make my first recurve!
Note to self - inside every big knife is a smaller knife waiting to be set free. This blade shape seemed to call for a swedge - another first for yours truly - but it gave the blade some added visual tension and dimension.
Having spent hours putting a hand-rubbed satin finish on the project knife, I wasn't inclined to follow the same path on this blade - even though the tip-divot ground out pretty clean. Hmmm... what to do. Then I remembered some of Dan's knives from Blade and a little D2 beauty that Matt Gregory made at my last visit and the answer presented itself again. So off I went to.....
... the sand-blasting box!
Why am I smiling? 1) I'm a guy, and therefore anything containing the description "blasting" has just got to be fun. 2) This is so easy not even I could screw it up.
But why sand-blast? Because' like Dan and Matt's knives, I was going to black powder coat this beast.
The handle materials would also be something new, as I decided to try for a bi-metal guard of bronze and nickel silver. An ebony spacer would set off the English walnut handle and compliment the black blade.
Here we are with all that junk attached, ready for my favourite part of the whole knifemakeing process (after forging, which is ridiculously fun) - shaping the handle and guard.
A little further along.
Now, I should pause here to point out that while shaping the handle with the blade already attached has its definite benefits, there is one downside: you have to be real careful to KEEP THE BLADE AWAY FROM THE BELT - PARTICULARLY WHEN IT IS POWDER COATED AND YOU CAN'T JUST SLAP SOME MORE ON AFTER THE FACT TO HIDE YOUR SILLY BOO-BOO!
AaaaRGH!
Three guesses as to when and where good old Murph decided to make a return visit? :grumpy:
Part 1 of 2
Last edited:
