Oh no! Not ANOTHER knife...

Lorien said:
ok I'm back to where I was a few days ago, except this time I did a better job. Not much better, but a bit anyway;



click on the link to get to the album, there are a bunch of pics charting the progress.
Click to expand...

Could you use some kind of fast drying modeling clay and form it on the blade? Once dry, split it and you'd be able to know the shape for the openings and even the inside. Not sure how much it may shrink or expand, but could be an interesting way to go about it.
 
Lorien, I've ruined more brass than you can imagine learning to fit guards..quite a bit of stainless as well..:rolleyes:

Even now I've got a milling machine, mistakes happen...not very often, but they do.:mad:

I keep my bad guards on the shelf over my bench to remind me not to f**k up!! (I also live in hope of one of them fitting a new knife one day to prevent wasting them - no luck so far, but you never know.;))

I don't know if you've read the Loveless/Barney book, but there's a good tip in there (from Buster Warenski I believe) about mirror polishing the guard before filing the slot. The idea being the file is reflected on the guard so you can tell if you're not filing dead straight. I found this method a lot easier.

Ian
 
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oh crap, you're right Ian! I do have that book and now that you mention it I read that too:rolleyes: I'll use that technique on the next one:thumbup:

Sometimes stuff I read in a book doesn't stick until I've tried doing it myself, then I can go back and really understand what I read. How I made it through school is anyone's guess:p
 
y'know the problem isn't so much the guard or the tolerances there, it's that I didn't taper the tang enough. Way more fudge factor if the guard can ride up a 'ramp' to its final destination. As it stands, the area where the guard will reside is far too slightly tapered, and my skill at getting the tolerances perfect is undeveloped at best.
I have an idea or two how to deal, but I might just leave it and live with the imperfection, instead of trying to fix something and waste more material. I got one botched guard on the shelf already, and I'm not prepared to add another.
Really good learning experience for me here.
 
couldn't rid myself of the gap so I will leave it. It's starting to look like a guard!
I'm really looking forward to getting the blade finished and the guard installed. I've been looking forward to the handle the most, can't wait to get started on it.

more pics
 
couldn't rid myself of the gap so I will leave it.
Click to expand...

Lorein don't get in to big of a hurry to finish a knife. If you have a problem take the time to fix it or it will always be there. It is something you can do if you want to! Just my $0.02 worth.
 
Harry you are the wisest person in this forum, imo.:thumbup:
Thank you.
 
oops, posted in the wrong thread
 
I chicken eyed the guard last night and tried to get it more symmetrical and the black marked areas will be removed.


I got a little bit done today, but not much. I figure the guard is pretty much good for now in terms of shape. Tomorrow there might be a little time to tweak further, but it's been a decently busy week in the shop so I spend some time fixing bicycles and some time doing this. Call it cross training!:D Next week I expect to get the blade finish finished and the guard installed, and to start on the handle.

The gap, well, there's gonna be one and I can live with that. It won't cause any more problems than a nice clean slot, except look kind of sloppy. But it's pretty small, this is the first time I built a knife like this and this mistake will be in plenty good company, as it is not the only one.

As always, clicking on the pic will bring you to the album where there are more pics.
 
Great progress! This knife is turning out great! I bet if you user solder to attache the guard onto the blade the gap would almost disappear.

Thanks again for posting this!
 
Harry, I tried peening it on the back side and I wasn't convinced that it would work well enough for me to hand sand the marks out.

I think that the problem is my mounting the guard. As it is, I'm using two lengths of wood elastic banded together to drive the guard on. If I hit one side a little harder than the other, then it pushes the guard to one side, opening the gap. What I have to do, is make a jig which will allow me to push the guard on straight and true. I learned this from Master Knight who used a piece of G10 with a slot in it to allow for the tang.

There is a little gouge that will stay, but I am convinced that I can get this guard on without a gap the size of what I have now.

And I have some West Systems epoxy showing up at the shop tomorrow so I can say good bye to that ugly light grey line that JB Weld can leave if you're sloppy like me.
 
hmm. Starting to look kind of ok...



blade finishin' next week and then attachment yo.
 
I have the blade finished to 600grit, with a quick wipe of 1500grit;


warmin up the West Systems epoxy;


really don't know if this was a good idea or not, but I saved my copper filings and mixed it in with the epoxy;


left er overnight to harden up;


and the fit is pretty good. Not excellent, but a solid 5 outta 10 I'd say. The gap will be less obvious hopefully as the copper darkens.


So... what I have to do next is to sand away at the two sides of the mortised handle to get them nice and flush. This is not an easy thing to do, I'm finding. But hell, none of this has been easy:)

PS. there are several more pics so if you want to see them click on one of these images and you'll be taken to the album.
 
in order to completely flatten both sides of my mortised handle, I use a glass plate on a well supported surface, with a piece of 80grit taped to one side, and a piece of 180grit taped to the other;


It is VERY DIFFICULT to flatten two pieces of wood this size so that they fit together with no gap- but NOT IMPOSSIBLE. You really have to keep track of the number of strokes, and I also rotate the block 180 degrees after each 5-10 strokes. When you get close, go to the higher grit. I found it really helpful to sand cross grain, in fact that's what brought me closest to flush after probably 6 hours of f*cking around and wasting two other sets of handle halves, (once you take off too much material the wood grain REALLY doesn't match up). I don't think I got it perfect but for this first effort it's perfect enough for me. The gap you see here you can see because the blocks aren't bound together;


In order to hold both handle sides together to square up the face which will be against the guard, I drilled a couple of shallow holes on one side, then put a little bit of blue marking chalk in them, put the other handle half on top and lined it up carefully so the wood grain would match, (the wood is dry, unstabilized walnut). Then I turned them over, gave the drilled handle half a tap, turned it over again and carefully removed the undrilled half. Two perfect dots showed me where to drill the corresponding shallow holes and everything fortunately lined up perfectly. I used some 1/8" bronze pin stock to keep the handle halves from moving around and wound some electric tape around the whole works to get the front end square;


the handle profile drawn on.


I drew the tang on both sides by carefully measuring the first block and transferring the measurement so the tang slot is in the same spot on the other. However, when I get the first slot grooved out, I'll use my chalk trick again to make sure the other side's slot is exactly where it should be;
then measure the thickness of the tang, divide by two, and draw the proper depth for the slot onto the handle's face;


and then simply remove the material from the slot;
 
oh, here's how I grooved out the handle halves;


I felt that there should be 'a little something'. Because I'll be using a bronze pin, I decided that the 'little something' would be a bronze spacer. At first I thought I'd filework it, but I think that's a little advanced for me at this stage, even though I can envision how it would work. I will likely file a flute around it once the knife is together;


covered in magic marker ink, the spacer was scribed and the big bits were hacksawed off it;


it's hard to get under the finger guard with a scribe. Ok, it isn't possible, so I pressed everything together in the vise, and used a thin piece of belt sand paper to mark about where the material needs to come off;


like so;


once I got everything pretty close, I used some 'moto tacky' which is really heavy duty clear vinyl to protect the guard and started removing material from the spacer;


close enough for now;


here are the handle halves. I didn't bother using the chalk trick, I seemed to achieve a fair amount of accuracy chicken eying the thing;


here's the tang hole. It fits very tightly, and as we all know, a tight fitting hole is always better than a big, loose, sloppy hole;



As always, there are more photos in the album, so please feel free to click on any of these pics for a larger version and to take a look around in the album.
 
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depends on how my day went pretty much lol
it's all good!
 
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