Putting a blade on a diet

[JTknives]

I have been playing around with a few changes to my oldest knife design, the 2nd Amendment. It has been quite popular in the past but I have been getting restless with the design. I still want to keep the cord wrap but loose some weight. I also hope this will put my hard earned grinding skills to work. The last change I implemented was a few years ago and it was drilling 1/2" holes in the tang which helped a lot. I have done a handful with flat grinds but still love a deep hallow. So here is a sample of what I came up with so far.

This was just rough ground with a 50 grit belt. If you don't know what the a finished 2nd Amendment looks here is a pic of a finished blade.

This is one of the flat ground styles.

So looking for advise on what you think. Thanks guys

 

[Bladegunner]

I don't know what you could do to make it better but that is some wicked grinding!!!

 

[bike4fun919 OpbunchKnives]

Beautiful work!! I really, really like the flat grind look.

 

[Ian Fifelski]

Those grinds are perfect. I like them both, flat and hollow. Beautiful work.

If you want to lose some weight, I would make the handle thinner. I am not sure of the dimensions but because of the thicker cord pattern (which looks amazing btw) isn't the handle a bit wider than it needs to be? Just my thoughts...

 

[DanF]

Can't advise, but that's a damned nice knife in all grind styles! I'm partial to the ffg.

 

[KnuckleDownKnives]

Those are very lovely, nice grinds. If you had the same lines after the wrap as it does in raw state before the wrap I think it would be even sweeter.

 

[Ken H>]

You mention putting blade on a diet, just how much weight difference is there between the two blades? While I'm VERY impressed with the grind lines on the "new" blade, I sorta like the original myself with the FFG. Perhaps add a bit of hollow grind to original? Not sure how that would work, but hollow grinds do look nice also. Good job either way.

 

[Geoff Flato]

I've always used a combination of drilling and tapering the tang when I want to really shave weight off. Pushing your hollow grind right to the spine would shave a bit more off too.

 

[Justin Schmidt]

I would do the FFG then hollow and taper the tang. In my small testing it saves a bunch of weight

 

[Frank Niro]

Looking real nice !!!

 

[JTknives]

The steel is 1/4" and the reasion for that is to get the handle thickness I need. That also means becaus it's cord wrapped I can't taper it or hallow grind the center.

 

[T.Saslow]

Just a thought- if you want to cut down on weight, but maintain the solid nature of the handle, you could try having the inside of the tang cut out leaving 3/16-1/4" of material around the perimeter and inlay carbon fiber or another light, yet stiff, material in the pocket. Aside from that, drilling out the tang, or tapering the tang, i would do a distal tapper on the blade would. That would theoretically improve "stabby-ness" and cut down on weight. My only concern there would be that it would defeat the primary function of a knife- being a pry bar
-Tanner

 

[Ian Fifelski]

The steel is 1/4" and the reasion for that is to get the handle thickness I need. That also means becaus it's cord wrapped I can't taper it or hallow grind the center.

In my post I guess better wording would be "make the handle narrower" rather than thinner.

 

[coldsteelburns]

You can taper the tang and underneath the cord wrap add wedge-shaped pieces of neoprene (Like James Helm uses) or the like, being thicker at the butt and thinner towards the ricasso to even out the tapering of the tang. Maybe something along those lines would work.

~Paul
My YT Channel
Lsubslimed
... (It's been a few years since my last upload)

 

[Will52100]

Good looking knives and I love the way you wrapped the cord. What I've been playing with is to drill as large a holes as I can while leaving 1/4" or little more on the perimeter, and milling some of the handle out. Then I epoxy leather slabs over it making sure I fill the holes/hollows with epoxy. After that's set I contour the leather slabs to give a little more roundness to the handle. I then soak the leather with epoxy and do an underlayment wrap with gutted cord and let it set up. Then the overlay and turk's head knot for a guard and soak again with epoxy. Makes for a relatively light and comfortable knife.

 

[golfer1]

What about a jr. size. Little narrower blade 1/2" shorter reduce girth of handle make it 1/4 to 1/2 shourter, use 3/16 or 1/8 steel. Beautiful work, I'm jealous.