My General WIP Thread

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HallHandmade

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Jun 5, 2012
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Edit: I finished up my first knives(that I originally made this thread for), so I changed the title and figured I could post a few pictures of my knife, and knifemaking tooling projects as I learn more about the craft.


Well, I've been putting off starting my first few knives, using my 2x72 grinder build as an excuse not to take the plunge. I've been going over designs and sketching for weeks now, and finally decided that I just needed to make something and see how it goes. I picked up a couple sticks of 1.5"x.125" 1084 from Aldo, as well as a 1.5"x.152" of S35VN. I'm gonna wait on the pricy stuff until I know my limits, so I think it will be strictly 1084 for the moment.

My only good hacksaw blade snapped about 1" into the first cut on my blade blank, so I ended up being stuck working on handles until tomorrow. I only intended to rough prep the handle blanks for the knives I'm starting, but once I started roughing the first handle I just couldn't stop, and several hours later I had a pretty much finished piece :p

I had some wenge left over from a project, and it was enough for two nice sized handle blanks. I plan on making WIP knife #2 with some Black Limba and Macassar Ebony I have on hand. I may try to sneak a scrap or two of birdseye maple on, but not sure yet. I think I'm gonna do a brass bolster, but I might do S.S., just can't decide. I have some 416 pin stock already, so maybe I should just go with that for the bolster.
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I basically took the handle blank to my 6x48 belt sander and went to town freehand, removing a bit here and a bit there until I felt like the shape had some promise. Then I moved to the bench and imitation pana-vise for a couple hours of hand sanding. It's kinda funny, just built this fancy new 2x72 grinder and didn't even touch it yet. Definitely not gonna tell the wife that. "Yep, couldn't have done it without this new grinder I built, honey." :D
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Still having trouble deciding on the liners, though:
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Hopefully I'll have the blades blanked out tomorrow. If I'm lucky, maybe I can get a few blades out for HT and have them back first thing next week. I'm really excited to get these first couple done, once I finally started working and got over my "writer's block", I feel much more comfortable forging ahead.
 
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I know you are eager to get started, but you should fit the handle to the blade, not the other way around.

Rushing to "get them out" and hurrying to "get them done" will only lead to half-way quality knives. Take the time to do each step fully, and go over each step until you are sure it is right before moving on to the next one. When someone asks how long it takes me to make a knife, I often answer, "It takes as long as it takes."

Filling out your profile will be a good thing to do, too.
 
bladsmth said:
I know you are eager to get started, but you should fit the handle to the blade, not the other way around.

Rushing to "get them out" and hurrying to "get them done" will only lead to half-way quality knives. Take the time to do each step fully, and go over each step until you are sure it is right before moving on to the next one. When someone asks how long it takes me to make a knife, I often answer, "It takes as long as it takes."

Filling out your profile will be a good thing to do, too.
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I'm only eager because I've been prepping for about a month now to start these knives. I'm excited to finally be working on something in my shop. I'm looking at switching to knifemaking for my hobby, since I am having trouble with larger pieces these days. I'm pretty OCD, so even when I'm rushing my OCD takes over and won't let me overlook small details. My fiancé asked me last night, "How long will it take you to make a knife?" and I answered, "I don't know, haven't made one yet." :)

I know that usually you at least drill out the handle before profiling it, but once I get going sometimes it is hard to stop. I won't go backwards again, but in this case I might have actually lucked out. Because this is the first handle I've made, and I decided to freehand it for comfort, the tang socket angle ended up being slightly different on the finished knife than it would have been on the unfinished blank.

So, translated, that means "I almost screwed up, but I didn't screw up because I did screw up." :D



I also went ahead and filled out my profile, please let me know if you have a moment, whether I missed anything. Thanks for your reply.
 
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So I might have to change this to Knife 1, 2 & 3 WIP, since I decided to tack on a full tang hunter/utility. It actually ended up being the first knife I ground, so perhaps if you go by the blade comes before the knife, this one is actually knife #1.

Here I am doing a final rough on the profile with a half round file. FYI I lapped the tops of the teeth on my vise so that it doesn't mark things unless you really crank it.
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Marking centerline with the height gage/scribe, after layout fluid application.
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First few stages of grinding
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Ready for HT.
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It isn't perfect, but I was very happy for my first knife grind ever. I had a bit of trouble with exiting at the tip, and the plunges aren't perfect, but I think they're within reason. I just took my time, ran my grinder on slow, and checked my work a lot.
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This is the blade that was intended for the handle I showed earlier; I also made a shorter version of this same pattern.
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Hopefully this gives a bit of context to the handle I (stupidly) already finished. I found a piece of killer buckeye at tru-grit this morning, so I may end up remaking this same handle. The buckeye piece is gunship grey with very little blonde, and it has some neat curly figure with shimmer, but not so much burl. I had it set aside for me down there for when I pick up the blades from HT.
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Gotta love mom&pop shop service... I dropped these off at Tru-Grit this morning and they said I could pick them up tomorrow if I like. I can't wait to start doing some finish work on these puppies. I'm really happy with how they came out overall. The hardest part was figuring out just the right way to slide the belly without grinding too much off the tip. The smaller partial tang lost nearly an inch of its length due to repeated mishaps exiting the grind pass. It is now a stubby 3" EDC instead of a 4" Utility. I'm hoping I don't repeat that on my finishing step, or I will have succeeded in making a boxcutter blade. :D

The longer hidden tang has a shorter grind on one side, but I was at the "don't mess with it any more or you will ruin it" point, so I am going to go low and slow once I get it back, and hope that I can finish it in evenly.
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gixxer1237 said:
Sooo.... These are your first knives ever on a belt grinder?....
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They're my first knives ever period, besides some very bad KSO's and Arrow points I made when I was young and still trying to find new and different ways to kill hay bales.

I have lots of time on a 6x48+9 traditional belt/disc sander in a fab shop setting, as well as close to as many hours hand grinding/sharpening lathe bits and drills on either a toolroom or bench style grinder.

The knife shown is my very first knife grind. I did not do any practice pieces or test grinds other than testing my newly built belt grinder's tracking by hogging on a scrap of tooling arm material. I just went slow and watched what happened with each change I made in my technique.

I followed bladsmth's advice on the first blade, but began to rush and lose confidence on the second two. I feel that I could have done better on them.
 
Wow, way to go.You my friend will go far with this kind of skill.I am amazed at the control of your grind.
Eddie
 
I'm impressed. I'm just a hobbiest but like you I have tons of time sharpening bits for lathes and fabricating as a steel worker. I hope that my first knives on a belt grinder look as good as yours.
 
Thank you both for the encouraging compliments.

gixxer1237 said:
I'm impressed. I'm just a hobbiest but like you I have tons of time sharpening bits for lathes and fabricating as a steel worker. I hope that my first knives on a belt grinder look as good as yours.
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Things were shaky at first, but I found a few things that work for me, that I feel helped lead me to my results. I was having a lot of trouble judging what was happening as I swept out of the grind at the tip, but once I started using my sense of hearing as well as touch and sight, I had better luck. I also found that you need to hold the blade securely enough to be safe, but lightly enough to find its own path. The smallest blade took me repeated tries to get an acceptable result in the tip area.
 
vintagefan said:
Hopefully this gives a bit of context to the handle I (stupidly) already finished. I found a piece of killer buckeye at tru-grit this morning, so I may end up remaking this same handle. The buckeye piece is gunship grey with very little blonde, and it has some neat curly figure with shimmer, but not so much burl. I had it set aside for me down there for when I pick up the blades from HT.


Gotta love mom&pop shop service... I dropped these off at Tru-Grit this morning and they said I could pick them up tomorrow if I like. I can't wait to start doing some finish work on these puppies. I'm really happy with how they came out overall. The hardest part was figuring out just the right way to slide the belly without grinding too much off the tip. The smaller partial tang lost nearly an inch of its length due to repeated mishaps exiting the grind pass. It is now a stubby 3" EDC instead of a 4" Utility. I'm hoping I don't repeat that on my finishing step, or I will have succeeded in making a boxcutter blade. :D
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I was just at Tru Grit picking up some materials. You must be a neighbor :)
 
Those are comin out nice! I stop by tru grit about once a month. Those guys are the best.
 
Thanks for the comments!

I went down to Tru-Grit and got my knives this morning, I got the hunter/utility finish ground, but I couldn't get enough courage to start on either of the other two. The Tru-grit team are pretty awesome guys. The owner's son was kind enough to offer me a soda after I had spent half the morning walking laps around the wood display table, then I returned the favor by leaving my opened soda on the table when I left. They did get me for nearly $100 I really didn't need to be spending on stabilized woods, so maybe that makes us even. :D


Lesson learned: Unless you want that "rugged" look, grind the stock clean before you do anything else. I was able to clean up most of the original marks, but there are still a couple of tiny pits and I really can't do any more distal taper or else I'll start really messing with my tip geometry and grind line. I now fully understand why folks buy pre-ground stock.

Method used: I ground a slight distal taper + cleanup on the 6x48 with a 220 grit belt, then switched to the 2x72 with a new 320 grit belt (I found the 400 grit a bit too grabby for my taste). I put the grinder on the lowest speed and took my time, like SLOW. Then I did some light touchups with fine scotchbrite to unify the scratch pattern and smooth the blade a bit.

After that, I spent nearly as much time trying to take a picture of the darn thing as I did doing the finish grinding.

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This knife will be getting a two-tone birdseye maple bolster/macassar ebony treatment. I may start tonight but now that I didn't screw this blade up, I'm afraid to do any other work and ruin the excitement by messing up. For now I just stuck a tiny bit of gun oil on the blade until I build up enough courage to go out into the shop again.
 
Nice work.

We should meet up for lunch sometime since you are in the area and talk knives!

Getting out of Tru Grit for $100 is often a goal for me. I often go over...lol
 
AVigil said:
Nice work.

We should meet up for lunch sometime since you are in the area and talk knives!

Getting out of Tru Grit for $100 is often a goal for me. I often go over...lol
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Hehe, I was only counting the cost of the wood. It was actually $142. :o

I made a joke about having to sleep on the couch once my fiancé sees the invoice, but all the guys in the front office just knowingly nodded their heads instead of laughing. I must not have been the first one to utter those words there :D

I'm in the High Desert area, about 1hr north of Tru-Grit, but I'm usually down the hill at least twice a week.

Lunch and knives sounds like fun. Also, I just realized how I will make my fortune. A steak restaurant with butcher block dining tables, that also sells knifemaking supplies and knives. Try before you buy? I can see it now: guys busting out wakizashis and kukris to cut their steaks. Awesome. :D
 
AVigil said:
You have some talented makers up in the high desert. David Sharpe is up there.

Here is my email address hexcanemaker@hotmail.com

Lets do it.

Adam
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Sounds good. If things go according to plan, I should have another few knives to drop off for HT early next week. I've already got a backlog of designs I'd like to try with the 10" wheel. I really, really need to get my flat platen built though. I actually kind of like hollow grinds, they're classic in a way, but full flat grinds are all the rage nowadays. I think I may even end up being a large radius platen guy.

I looked at David's work, it is quite impressive. Tru-Grit put me in contact with another maker up here (Hesperia); he came by my shop a couple weeks ago, and brought a nice piece that he'd done.

I've loved knives for many years, but I'm very new to the maker community. I am constantly surprised by the work I see. You have so much appreciation for another's skill once you try it yourself.
 
I work a lot off of my flat platen. I took a piece of 01 and hardened it for the platen. Next time I think I will use some D2 and have Tru Grit heat treat it for me.

I have one of the Grizzly wheels but need to find someone to install the bearings so I can do some compound grinds on a few blades.
 
AVigil said:
I work a lot off of my flat platen. I took a piece of 01 and hardened it for the platen. Next time I think I will use some D2 and have Tru Grit heat treat it for me.

I have one of the Grizzly wheels but need to find someone to install the bearings so I can do some compound grinds on a few blades.
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I might be able to help you out with that. Do you have the bearings already?




I finished grinding the other two blades I have. They came out well, and I was able to fix the low grind on the largest blade, but I definitely will be taking more time refining the shape before I send my next blades out for HT.

I'm happy with how they both came out, but now that I've done this once I probably will do things a little different. There is a tiny radius on the inside corners on the tang, but it probably should be a bit bigger. I also think I may have made the plunge area geometry a bit too "squat".

This blade is 5" on the dot (length of cutting edge). It had a low grind on one side when I sent it out for HT, so I spent probably a good hour or more tuning it in. Would have been much easier to have it roughed out properly in the first place.
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This little guy is 3". It had a couple hiccups in the profile as well, but I was also successful in cleaning this one up. Setting the belt on the lowest speed and taking your time really works wonders!
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