Thank you for all the support! It’s fun to do this, and even more fun to share it with people who share my interests And fully appreciate the effort. Today was the first of 15 furloughed Fridays, so what better way to enjoy it than working on something I wouldn’t normally be able to?
The final product is significantly larger than a regular No. 8, and at 3 oz even it weighs about twice as much, but I think it looks great and feels great in the hand. The tip will probably be proud after a handful of sharpenings, but there’s ways to handle that. I liked the drop point I had made, but in the future it might become a spey or spear.
The action is quite nice on the blade- it’s a smoother opening and then (by chance!) the full open is a firm pull to get it the last few degrees. I suspect the extra ~0.005“ matters in this position due to the tang being positioned further toward the back end of the knife. Oil made all the difference for making the action slick; I don’t know why this surprises me...
the biggest challenge is maintaining the critical dimensions for the viroblock ring to function. The underside of the blade by the tang cannot be altered (both front or back) without potentially messing up the alignment. The blade cannot rest too high or low in the blade well, though better high than low, since you can always trim the viroblock ramp to match the closed position. I suspect one can change the runout on the low side, too, but there’s a locating feature in the ring that might prevent it from twisting far enough to engage it.
this is one of the reasons I elected to use a metal pin as a stop for the blade: over time a regular Opinel will be sharpened to the point where it rests so deeply in a blade well that the viroblock will not engage in the closed position. in the open position, one cannot sharpen the blade near the handle too far, or the viroblock will not engage there, either. So I created a faux kick with a pin rest. This also protects the user’s hand some from slipping up onto the blade.
I’ll stop gabbing! Here’s some pictures. Dan’s “Opiwan Inspired” Opinel. It’s not “perfect”, but any minor blemishes will be trumped by other knocks with pocket time.