I just read through your slip joint WIP over on the ABS site. Good stuff!
Thanks Allen. Glad that you liked it!!
The ivory is now fluted and today I will be working on installing the gold wire. Thought that I had better get to posting some of the work that has been done on the handle......
Earlier in this thread, where I wrote about shaping the handle material, I said that the piece didn't have to be "perfectly symmetrical". I probably shouldn't have been so flippant about the accuracy of the shaping process. While the piece doesn't have to be micrometer exact; it needs to be pretty damn close. Eyeball perfect is how I describe it. Roll it around on the bench, check it in multiple locations along its length with calipers and look it over closely. I can shape the handle material by eye and get it close enough. If you can't do this, then you had better use a lathe or some other process to shape the material. If the piece isn't decently symmetrical, then you will have issues with the spacing and depth of the flutes. I wound up going back to the grinder with my handle material and doing some more work on it before starting the fluting process. Just wanted to make this clear before moving on.
The jig in this photo is the "Flournoy Fluting Fixture". This tool was designed by Master Smith Joe Flournoy. The fixture can be purchased from Al Lawrence (Uncle Al) of Riverside Machine Shop. The device has a wheel with 12 evenly spaced holes drilled through it to accept a pin. The pin stops on the frame of the fixture to locate the handle material. A pencil holder is provided to mark lines on the handle material. The intended use of the fixture is to mark evenly spaced lines lengthwise on the handle material. Then, evenly spaced lines are marked around the circumference of the material by spinning the material against the pencil. This creates a grid of squares on the material. Drawing a lines across the corners of the squares creates spiral lines around the handle material. This fixture is handy to use for laying out simple spirals, but is almost essential for laying out gain fluting.
Since not everyone has this fixture and perhaps do not want to purchase one, I decided to demonstrate an alternate method of lines for spirals. I used the fixture just to place evenly spaced marks on the ends of the handle material. I will be doing six flutes in this handle, so each end gets six marks. Without the fixture, this can be accomplished by inserting a piece of all-thread through the material and threading hex nuts against the ends of the material. The points of the hex nuts are used as a reference to mark the lines for the fluting.
A small notch is made on the edge of the handle material with a three corner file. These notches are made on both ends of the material at each of the reference marks.
The material is placed in my filing jig and a string is used to lay out the spirals. The string is held by the small notches that have been filed into the edges of the ivory. The type of string isn't too important. I have used dental floss and monofilament fishing line; it just needs to be fairly strong so you can pull it tight without breaking it. In this photo, I am using a couple of strands pulled from some leather stitching thread. I needed a dark colored string to have it show up in the photos. I am laying out 1/2 turn spirals, so the tread will be placed accordingly. One of the problems with this method is that it is difficult to get the string wrapped around the handle material in the same spiral for each of the lines. This issue will need to be corrected later. So, just do the best you can at pulling the string across the material and into position. Holding the thread tightly, I use a mechanical pencil with soft lead to draw a line against the side of the string. Try not to move the string as you draw the line. Once all of the lines have been marked, it is time to correct any misalignment. Measure between the lines to check the spacing between them and redraw any lines that are out of place. Take your time to make sure that all of the lines look correct.
The soft lead lines are easily smeared and/or rubbed off, so I use a small three corner file to cut them in. These file cuts will also help with the next step in the process.
Here's where you have a choice to make; do you cut the flutes in first, or the wire grooves? Some makers like to cut in the flutes and then center the wire grooves on the land area left between the flutes. I like to cut the wire grooves first and then cut the flutes between them.
I made this tool to cut the wire grooves. It is a file handle that has a shortened Exacto Knife handle inserted into it. A piece of hacksaw blade is ground to be held by the Exacto Knife chuck. The hacksaw blade has been thinned to cut a groove the appropriate width for the wire. Actually the blade is slightly thinner than the groove needed to fit the wire. I will be using wire that is .020" in diameter. After twisting the wire, the diameter will be .040". The hacksaw blade has been ground to .036". I know that I will probably wobble around and saw a groove wider than the blade. I don't want the wire to be sloppy in the groove. If I actually cut the groove too narrow, that is easy to fix later. To control the depth of the cut, I have Super-glued steel plates to each side of the hacksaw blade. The plates were ground to be shorter than the height of the blade. The blade is placed with the teeth up on a flat surface. The plates are affixed to the blade in this position. The twisted wire is to have one half of its diameter set into the handle material (.020"). I left .025" of the teeth exposed on the blade. There will later be some finishing done to the surface of the handle material, so the depth of the wire cuts will be reduced by that process.
Cutting in the wire grooves with the saw tool.
I pulled a couple of strands of .020" copper wire from some automotive cable. These have been twisted and are used to check the depth of the wire grooves.
Here the handle material has been marked to cut in the flute. One leg of a divider was placed in the wire groove and used to mark lines for the edges of the flute. The divider was used again to make two lines to indicate the approximate center between the wire grooves. Lines were also placed on each end of the material to indicate where the flute cuts should be stopped.
