My General WIP Thread

[AVigil]

Hey that really would be a great. I have the contact wheel and bearings and they have been sitting in a box for a long time now...lol

If you can help out that I would really appreciate that.


Your grinds are looking good. You have a knack for it.

 

[HallHandmade]

Hey that really would be a great. I have the contact wheel and bearings and they have been sitting in a box for a long time now...lol

If you can help out that I would really appreciate that.


Your grinds are looking good. You have a knack for it.

Thanks

I still am not sure when I'll be down there, but it will be some time this week. If you bring your contact wheel and bearings I'll see if I can fiddle in some bearing seats for you. I can guarantee that it will be concentric to 0.001" of the original bore, but that's about it. Surprisingly the wheel I got at least was fairly true, both the hub and the "tire". My grizz 10" wheel is completely dead on concentric, but it has about .002" of axial wobble due to variance in thickness. Luckily many sanding belts exceed that, so it's not even really noticeable. I got one of the hermes belts from tru-grit that had like .050" of zig-zag on it.




So, I keep flip-flopping around, this is the first knife I finished even though it's the third one I ground:


I decided to try and recover the handle I finished too early, for use on the 3" EDC/hunter/skinner whatever it is

After a few hasty prayers and some really careful drilling, I managed to get a pretty nice fit on the tang.

Here I'm about to slot out the bolster with a 3/32" solid carbide end mill. The blade is 1/8" thick, so I have a little room to tune the slot width by using a smaller cutter.

This is right before press fitting the blade.

Scribing the handle shape onto the bolster blank.

Roughing out the bolster shape on the 2x72.

Smoothing the handle/bolster joint with 220 grit.

Cross-sanding to bring to final 1000 grit.

Finished knife, after quick once-over with a clean buff, and some oil on the blade. I did the edge slight convex w/strop, and it is SHARP. I'm a little bit afraid of it actually.

I was thinking about "accidently" forgetting the shot of the joint, but I knew that wouldn't fly here As you can see, I screwed it up by a couple thou. I know what I did wrong so hopefully the next won't have that issue. Otherwise, I think I gota fairly good seat. I think that it would have been fairly invisible if I had gotten the slot right.

 

[Willie71]

I like it. Really clean work.

 

[AVigil]

Nice clean work.

Looks very nice.

My wheel has been sitting it the box so long it will be nice to finally get the bearings in it

 

[HallHandmade]

So, got another one done yesterday. Was hoping for the third tonight, but didn't quite make it.

Here I'm gluing up the scales, it looks a little haphazard, but I was more concerned with the position of the two wood pieces to each other than their location on the liners. I glued and clamped the bolsters first, then installed the other pieces with the clamp slightly tilted, so they pushed into the bevel that I had sanded. That's why there is only one clamp on the longer pieces. I got a very nice tight joint on them.

This is after rough thickness sanding and profiling on the bandsaw. It looks like there is a gap in the glue joint, but I just had barely taken them down to where the two pieces met (they were originally a bit different thickness). Luckily that sanded out to a nice tight joint.

I really intended to get more WIP pics for doing the pins and lanyard tube, but I was busy with other things and working in 20-30 minutes whenever I could squeeze in a quick session as I finished this knife. Just some quick assembly notes, I taper reamed the front pin hole and very lightly hand tapered the lanyard hole. The pin was peened, but I didn't quite get it enough on this side so there is a slight shadow The lanyard tube was lightly swaged with a taper tool I had from another project.

Normally I am NOT a fan of thick liners, but for some reason I had a gut feeling, and I think that overall it came out nicely. I wanted the liners to peek out a little bit from the side after profiling. They aren't quite as visible as I'd hoped from the side, but they still add a nice highlight. Just FYI after these photos, I tuned in the slight crown on the top of the handle/blade edge and smoothed the back taper of the handle a bit. I missed it with my last pass when I was finish sanding and didn't notice until photos were done.

Luckily the pin came out a little cleaner on this side. The handle is a fat oval in front, which tapers out to a narrower oval with flatter sides in the back, across the top of the lanyard tube. I forgot how much sparkle this birdseye had, I had the two tiny scraps I used for the bolsters left over from a project a few years ago. I'm really happy I held on to them now.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

All you need to do on that bolster is solder it in place with silver bearing solder. It will make a seamless joint. Your joint is actually quite good. The joint always needs to be sealed with either solder ( the standard method) or JBWeld ( the lazy mans solder joint )

 

[HallHandmade]

All you need to do on that bolster is solder it in place with silver bearing solder. It will make a seamless joint. Your joint is actually quite good. The joint always needs to be sealed with either solder ( the standard method) or JBWeld ( the lazy mans solder joint )

Thank you for the tip. I went with JB weld on the knife below, because everyone knows that every project needs a little JB weld in it

I did much better this time on the fitment of guard/bolster (does it become a guard once it sticks out from the handle more?). It's very close to invisible this time. I gave the tang a very slight taper in thickness, and cut the slot .001" undersize. It was a bit harder to seat, but worth the effort. The pic showing the joint is at the very end of this post.




So, I managed to finish #3, after two large blisters and one fairly severe cut on my thumb.


I got this really special piece of stabilized buckeye down at Tru-Grit. I fell in love at first sight. Per the advice of our resident experts (plus some common sense), I withheld contouring on the handle until I actually had the socket done.

After marking the socket, I went ahead and drilled it out on the mill. Now that I was able to drill the socket properly, I got a very nice fitment on the tang.

Somehow I ended up deleting an entire day's worth of pics from my phone, so I don't have any of the guard fitment or roughing the handle shape out. I did however take an excessive amount of finished pics, in an effort to capture this piece of buckeye's personality. I got fairly close.

I suppose the 3rd time really is a charm. I'm very happy with how this came out. It isn't perfect, but it's good enough that I'm able to pick it up and just admire it instead of tearing apart all of my little mistakes.

As mentioned above, I got a really nice fitment on the joint. I'm happy with this.

 

[Varga Knives]

Wow! And wow! Those really do look like you have been at it for years.

 

[AVigil]

Very nice!

You are doing some nice work.

 

[HallHandmade]

Wow! And wow! Those really do look like you have been at it for years.

Thanks!

I know it felt like I was sanding the handle for years, especially once the blisters started forming

Very nice!

You are doing some nice work.

Thank you. I still plan on doing lunch, just haven't been out of my cave yet. I want to get another few pieces done for HT before I venture out into sunlight.

I'm really happy with this one, but it seems like each new one I finish brings about another ten ideas that I don't have the time or money to implement in the near future. I'd like to attempt a really advanced piece, and maybe have it to tinker with in the background while I make knives more suited to my experience level.

A good friend offered to purchase me a billet of Damascus and some acid, in exchange for me making a knife for him. I have a very nice piece of stabilized curly redwood that I think would just scream with the right pattern on the blade. I only wish that I was able to HT and forge here. I really am interested in that type of work.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I've got to say, "Your knives are really well executed, as well as well designed and built."
I know guys with ten years experience that don't get that good of a fit and finish.

 

[HallHandmade]

Wow, what a compliment. Thanks!

I have tinkered with a lot of different things over the years. When I work with my hands I get into a trance, and everything just melts away. I really found peace on this last one, besides the occasions where I found I was bleeding, and the couple instances I almost screwed up the grind and had to stop because my hands were shaking from being nervous.

I really love knives when seen from this side (I used to be more of an average consumer/knife user). They're fairly singular in general design and purpose (knives as a broad term), yet can be so amazingly complex and varied. It's wonderful that I can take a not particularly original drop point hunter design as above, pair it with a lucky strike piece of wood, some attention to detail, and hours of TLC, and come up with something that has an individual personality, even when essentially the same knife was being made by a hundred different people before I was even born.

This is truly an intriguing pursuit. :thumbup:

 

[Bomp]

Those came out really nice! Great job!

 

[dsgibbs1]

Great job. Your blades are very well thought out and the workmanship is outstanding. I can only offer one bit of insight. Wait on the sharpening. A good friend of mine was fitting the handle onto a dagger. The blade was sharp, while looking at the fit he pushed the handle down a little more. The blade slid right into his thigh. Required a whole bunch of stitches. This is just my .02. Other than that. Good work. DSG

 

[Tim Pollack]

Really nice work! I can't believe these are your first knives. I may have missed it somewhere,but what size wheel did you use?

 

[HallHandmade]

Thanks again for the comments.

Great job. Your blades are very well thought out and the workmanship is outstanding. I can only offer one bit of insight. Wait on the sharpening. A good friend of mine was fitting the handle onto a dagger. The blade was sharp, while looking at the fit he pushed the handle down a little more. The blade slid right into his thigh. Required a whole bunch of stitches. This is just my .02. Other than that. Good work. DSG

I think you may have seen a reflection off the edge in one of the photos, the blade was flat edged up until the point where I gave it a final wipedown after buffing the handle.

One time I was doing something stupid as a kid, think I was carving something, and slipped while using an x-acto knife. I ended up with stitches in the top of my leg. Then, a few years later, I doing something stupid with a boxcutter, and ended up with the same number and orientation of stitches on the other leg. I have bookmatched idiocy scars on my legs. I really hope that I've learned my lesson

Really nice work! I can't believe these are your first knives. I may have missed it somewhere,but what size wheel did you use?

I used a 10". I really need to get some more attachments for the grinder. I was doing layout last night and started to feel really boxed in.

These really are my first knives. I probably am a little ahead of the curve though through my past pursuits, and I've always had this knack for things that I haven't done before (when it comes to working with my hands at least).

To be completely honest, I didn't think I would get decent grinds to start with, but I learned "the trick" when I was right on the edge of ruining my first blade, and managed to save it. There's still plenty of chances for me to screw up horribly. After a couple drinks last night I started thinking how cool it would be to try a dagger as a challenge. That line of thinking dried up just about as fast as the beer did. I dont' feel like making any vaguely dagger-shaped fire poker/tent stakes right now.

 

[Willie71]

A dagger is a challenge. I started one last night. If the pics turned out OK, I will do a WIP on this one.

 

[HallHandmade]

Been pretty busy in the shop this last week. Desert nights are beautiful to work in. These are down at Tru-Grit for HT, hope to get started finishing some early next week.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I think you will find the second and third blade ( from the top) and the santoku blade on the bottom left the best of that batch.
Make more of these and you will find them quite easy to sell.

Suggestion - You might want to make the santoku with a full tang to match the chef's/slicer and the utility blade ( #2 & #3). This three piece set will be all most folks will ever need in the kitchen.
A set like that with the quality you show in you previous blades will easily bring $500-600. Add a custom knife block and it could fetch $700-750.


Blade number four will make a great hunter/skinner.

 

[Brett Mathews]

Vintagefan Your grinds look prefect in my eyes. Good Job. They follow the contour of the edge perfectly. With you being in the machine type shops for years did you build any type of fixturing to work with. as far as details go I personally think the opposite of some and seem to think its best to not get caught up in the details so much with the first few knives. Right now it is better to just go through the mations and not expect them to be prefect. I also think it is wise to stick to one pattern for the first few like 4-5 knives way you can easily get those repetitive and is easier to compare improvement from one to the other while getting the motions down.