New flipper model

Varga Knives

Varga Knives

Joined
Aug 12, 2006
Messages
1,302
So Saturday was my birthday and my present to myself was to start a new model. I always wanted to try a wharny but I'm so far behind that I had to use the birthday excuse to justify abusing cutomers patience.

This won't be a WIP, per se, but more of a pictoral retrospective.

I began Saturday morning with an idea and spent five minutes putting it to paper. I had no idea if it would work out mechanically but the small stuff would be resolved when it was all cut out. Deciding to go to an internal stop pin was a HUGE factor in making the designing easy beacuse I find the hardest part of the design is normally the stop pin location.



I made some copies of the drawing and transferred it to a milk carton to be cut out. I left some room in the areas which may pose a problem on the drawing.




I found the handle was too short and I adjsuted the pivot with a pin and trial and error.



After I was happy I transferred the cutout to acrylic.




Overlay on the original drawing with the pivot just right. Being able to see through the acrylic is a big help in last second tweaking before drilling.



Cut and profiled some titanium and s35vn.



Seemed to go together pretty well so I went ahead and ground the bevels.




Not exactly what I started with but I'm happy so far. The problem is that I'm not sure when I'll get back to it.


Mark
 
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You could give one of us old guys a heart attack! Something like this from someone like you has to move forward !!! It looks great so just keep on truckin'.
Well, as soon as you can. And
Happy Birthday To You !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Frank
 
Thanks Frank and Adam! And thanks, too, for the birthday wish! ...now if I could just fill my shop with birthday gifts I'd be all set.
 
First off happy birthday and secondly nice work. Looking forward to seeing more of this one.
 
Wow! Really liking the shape. Thanks for taking us through the process from sketches to a prototype. Can't wait to see it when your done.
Happy Birthday!
 
Thank you gentleman! I'm a habitual over thinker so my goal is to not analyze this so much and actually get some work done. I've never done a hidden stop pin so that should be the most interesting part (for me at least). Stay tuned.
 
Happy birthday and I'm looking forward to seeing this knife come to life. It's a nice design.
 
Belated Happy Birthday.....Lookin' Good so far!

Is this going to ride on bearings or bushings?? Also is that pivot 1/8 or 3/16" that could play into the room needed for a hidden stop pin. If you plan on using a 1/8 dowel pin you need to look at the Arc of blade travel in relation to clearance of the bearings (if used) so you have enough frame material out front of the pivot to cover the slot in the blade through its entire arc.
 
Thanks guys!

I worked it out so I would have enough room to play with but the exact details aren't ironed out yet. That's a little bit down the road. I did a quick marker layout of one possibility. The line is a little too narrow for the .125" I am planning to use but you get the idea that there is still some room left. Also I'm going to have it a little further away from the pivot (larger diameter arc).

To answer your question, bearings and .250" pivot.

 
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I always sweat not having enough meat left between the bearing pocket and the pin slot its hard to tell if there is enough using the marking pen....Should be plenty beefy with that .250 pivot and be Smmmmmoooooth.
 
And we're off...

With all the time in between it may seem like this is taking me awhile but it really isn't, I just haven't had much opportunity to work at it. My goal is to almost rush through making this knife because my MO has always been to deliberate way too much. I think and analyze things to death and end up getting less work done than I expected. As my boss calls it, "paralysis by analysis". Having said that though, I don't want to do a crappy job but just move along from finishing one thing and going right to the next, sans ponder time.

So, I drilled some small holes where the lockbar should start and end and scribed a line.



The way I do it is to put a couple of same size drill bits back through the holes and use a measured flat piece of material to level it in my vise. This piece was a little thick. I went with something thinner to get more meat in the jaws but didn't take a picture.


Got the right height and went for it.


After I wore out a disc this is how I had to line up the next one. Not the plan at all as I was able to leave the arbor in the chuck and put a new disc in but I overtightened it and broke the screw in the arbor.



Now the small cut.

CA glued the scales together. Smallest wheel I have is eight inches so I went to the file for the inside of the handle.


I broke the pilot off my old 21/64 counterbore after many uses and had to get a new one. Looks exactly the same but not only is it a little too big but I wore it out before I was through with both sides. JUNK!!! I deserve it for buying the cheapest one I could find online. When will I learn...


Drilled some standoff holes. I plan to use M3 screws passing through the show side and threaded into the lock side with 1/4" steel standoffs. I drilled out just enough to tap the M3 and when the scales are apart I'll ream out the show side for a clearance fit.


A little curve to it.


A lot of random Photo Bucket pictures aren't coming across but I'll finish this post up once I get that figured out.
 
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Thanks Lo/Rez. I don't know if there's much interest in this so I'll keep going but just with pictures. If I get a chance I'll add comments where necessary. Please ask any questions.







 
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