- Joined
- Dec 5, 2009
- Messages
- 1,528
Hello all! First off I would like to say that I know that doing a knife kit does not make me a full "knife maker" per-say but I think it gave me the courage to get started in this wonderful hobby!
I purchased this kit from Texas Knife Supply and showed it to everyone for probably several weeks before I got up the guts to dive into it. I'm the kind of person that it's hard to undertake something new without looking up EVERYTHING there is to know about it...or try to at least.
Well, Thursday evening after hearing about the 6"+ of snow that was headed our way, I drew out the handle design and went to the band saw figuring this would give me something to do during the storm. I got the rough size/shape cut within probably 1/8" of the tang, and glued up the scales using gorilla glue and clamped them up.
Yesterday about noon as the snow began I started in on the knife. I had to run back to my cousin's shop to run the bandsaw and cut down the thickness of the slabs since I was going to do this kit with a dremel and hand sanding...I didn't want alot of material to remove that way.
Using a dremel to shape and hand sanding I finished up the knife today and attempted to put a good shine on in using what I had available: a Meguire's professional automotive buffer and 3M buffing polish in 3 stages finishing with Meguire's high-end tech wax. Along with hand polishing with a microfiber towel I got it to a pretty good luster...it could definitely go further though. I'm going to try to get a buffing wheel for my bench grinder and buff it with white diamond compound (as was recommended from different sites).
Here she is: Texas Skinner blade, mirror polished 6A high carbon stainless, w/ cryo treat. 7 5/8" overall, 3" blade, 1 1/4" wide and 5/32" thick. Black Cherry Dymondwood; Stainless pins.
After polishing I put the knife in my Lansky Deluxe Diamond setup and put a strong 25 degree edge on the knife...and finally I got this:
I learned alot in this assembly that will hopefully carry over into my next one.
-Get better sand paper in more grit choices. I used 80 for rough shaping, then 120, then 360 (or 3** something, can't remember right off), finishing with 800 wet/dry and wetsanding till ultra smooth.
-Glue up pins before shaping begins...that way if there's a chip out in the hole drilling, there's extra material available to fix it. I didn't do this and had a chip out on 2 holes...one bad enough I had to nix the original flow of the red and black and sand off the outer layer of red to fix the chip.
-Use a drill press!!!
....just a few of the things I learned hehe.
Anyway, I had a blast working on it. It most certainly passed the time by quickly during the snow storm. I can't wait to get the next one and start on it. And sometime in all of this I need to take up sheath making. I figure after I get the hang of working with handle materials and shapes I'll do my own blade grinding (and after I get the money to get proper tools for that).
Thanks for looking!
BTW, I really need to learn how to picture knives! LOL
I purchased this kit from Texas Knife Supply and showed it to everyone for probably several weeks before I got up the guts to dive into it. I'm the kind of person that it's hard to undertake something new without looking up EVERYTHING there is to know about it...or try to at least.
Well, Thursday evening after hearing about the 6"+ of snow that was headed our way, I drew out the handle design and went to the band saw figuring this would give me something to do during the storm. I got the rough size/shape cut within probably 1/8" of the tang, and glued up the scales using gorilla glue and clamped them up.
Yesterday about noon as the snow began I started in on the knife. I had to run back to my cousin's shop to run the bandsaw and cut down the thickness of the slabs since I was going to do this kit with a dremel and hand sanding...I didn't want alot of material to remove that way.
Using a dremel to shape and hand sanding I finished up the knife today and attempted to put a good shine on in using what I had available: a Meguire's professional automotive buffer and 3M buffing polish in 3 stages finishing with Meguire's high-end tech wax. Along with hand polishing with a microfiber towel I got it to a pretty good luster...it could definitely go further though. I'm going to try to get a buffing wheel for my bench grinder and buff it with white diamond compound (as was recommended from different sites).
Here she is: Texas Skinner blade, mirror polished 6A high carbon stainless, w/ cryo treat. 7 5/8" overall, 3" blade, 1 1/4" wide and 5/32" thick. Black Cherry Dymondwood; Stainless pins.
After polishing I put the knife in my Lansky Deluxe Diamond setup and put a strong 25 degree edge on the knife...and finally I got this:
I learned alot in this assembly that will hopefully carry over into my next one.
-Get better sand paper in more grit choices. I used 80 for rough shaping, then 120, then 360 (or 3** something, can't remember right off), finishing with 800 wet/dry and wetsanding till ultra smooth.
-Glue up pins before shaping begins...that way if there's a chip out in the hole drilling, there's extra material available to fix it. I didn't do this and had a chip out on 2 holes...one bad enough I had to nix the original flow of the red and black and sand off the outer layer of red to fix the chip.
-Use a drill press!!!
....just a few of the things I learned hehe.
Anyway, I had a blast working on it. It most certainly passed the time by quickly during the snow storm. I can't wait to get the next one and start on it. And sometime in all of this I need to take up sheath making. I figure after I get the hang of working with handle materials and shapes I'll do my own blade grinding (and after I get the money to get proper tools for that).
Thanks for looking!
BTW, I really need to learn how to picture knives! LOL
