Thanks for all the comments everyone. This has been a strange project. I had a good drawing and an idea what I wanted to end up with. Honestly this isn't really it. In some ways it's better and in some, not so much. It is certainly a prototype in that I learned a lot from making it and future models will have some significant changes. It really doesn't flip very well and I pretty much knew it wouldn't early on; the tab is too small and too far back. I kept going because I have been told, and do believe, that you've got to finish knives to learn the story. Overall it is a fantastic little knife and I learned I could grind a recurve and etch copper bolsters.
And about those bolsters, they are 110 copper. The stuff is a nightmare to drill and I broke several twist drills while making the copper parts for this knife. Ideally, you want to take the sharp leading edge off your twist drills for soft materials like copper and brass. I usually do this with a small diamond file on larger twist drills but, it's really hard to tune the rake on a #55 drill. Every drill that broke was stuck in the hole. Other than drilling issues, it works pretty easily. It heats up fast while grinding and cools down even faster when dunked. The pattern was etched in FC using a sharpie as the resist. It was pretty easy. The patina is from a dunk in an oxidizing agent and then a scrub with a grey scotch-brite pad.
I got my locks and detents set on this and one other today. Tomorrow I will do finishing touches like jeweling, pocket clips, and anodizing. I'll post some pics when finished.
Bob
Untitled by Bob, on Flickr
