Sculpted Bowie/Fighter handles w/ Nick Wheeler

Dude, sick video! I love your emphasis on function over aesthetics, I think that in the end that results in the best looking knives anyways. Keep the videos coming, you are a great maker! Oh, and is your platen liquid cooled?! That's awesome I have never seen that
 
Tk, I believe that is one of Nathan the machinist's chilled platens... I could be wrong, but I seem to remember Nick raving about them a while back. Yes, I'm THAT internet stalker guy! Lol!
 
That is awesome, very well done. Thanks for the hard work and the extra time you are putting into doing these videos.
 
Excellent videos Nick! The production quality keeps getting better and better. The flow is very good. I know first hand how much work goes into one of these videos. :thumbup: :barf: For people who haven't done video editing, it's about an hour of work for every minute of video you see.
 
Man I love seeing your work Nick. Thank You.
 
Can I pre-order the complete set of videos?
Just teasing but not really.
The detail you go into would enable a complete dummy like myself to learn and improve dramatically with their knife making.
 
Thanks guys :)


Here's Part 4...

[video=youtube;pvZFx0FW58g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvZFx0FW58g[/video]
 
Nice. I would be curious about the tapper from the front of the guard to the butt end. I think I keep missing you talking about it. Do you have a picture from the top to see the taper?

-Brian-

P.S. Thin guards are sexy... I am right behind you
 
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P. McKinley said:
Nick - Thank you for this video series. You have a "way" of 'splainin stuff so even I can understand and learn.:D

I'm still at the point where I'm constantly scribing reference lines in order to maintain symmetry ... draw a set of lines, take some off, draw another set, etc, etc. At some point this becomes somewhat useless and I just start smoothing out the contour. I'm pretty sure that my handles would turn out all wonky without this process. You seem to do this entirely by eye/hand without the aid of reference lines..experience??

I would be concerned that shaping the guard/spacer/handle transition on the grinder would create too much heat and jeopardize the epoxy bond. I assume the platen cooler, fresh belts, and not lingering in one spot is the key here?

I'm also taking a page out of your book(so to speak) and will be protecting my blades your way, and never with painters tape ever again.

Thanks Nick.

-Peter
Click to expand...


Peter-


Thank you for your post! Sorry I didn't get to your questions sooner. I'm still not used to this crazy schedule with my "real" job.

I am all for reference lines. Some folks have really weird ideas about that sort of thing. You know, the same ones that consider anything different than what they do, to be "CHEATING." ;)

That's pretty damn funny to me, because I have never gotten a reference line to take over and finish out a knife for me without me doing some work to get there. :)

The center line down the length of the handle is the one that helps me the most.

As far as power grinding the guard to handle transition... keep in mind that most of the bulk was already removed, so there's not a whole lot to take off. A good, sharp belt is a must. I actually didn't have the water pump on while I was doing that... so it isn't something you have to have to do what I was doing in the video.

Where things really come together (for me) is when I bust out the hand tools. That will be in the next one. :)


Thanks! :)
 
Brian- I'm not 100% sure of what you're asking about. :foot:

I may have edited something important out. I don't know... I usually start with 3-4 hours of video clips, which take 1-3 days to collect, and then whittle that down to a 10-30 minute video... so sometimes things that I wanted to include... get left out.
 
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NickWheeler said:
Brian- I'm 100% sure of what you're asking about. :foot:

I may have edited something important out. I don't know... I usually start with 3-4 hours of video clips, which take 1-3 days to collect, and then whittle that down to a 10-30 minute video... so sometimes things that I wanted to include... get left out.
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No problem! I was a little behind and watched all 4 videos yesterday. At one point you were talking about the transition in the guard and the handle and how the entire handle was tapered towards the guard ( into the guard).

I figured I would ask, because I just finished my first fighter. I ended up doing that but probably did it the hard way. Didn't know if you tapered the guard pre handle, while you where on the grinder making it an oval.
 
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Man I do all this handle shaping on the fly, and chase little inconsistencies in handle shaping basically for a living. Its a LOT of my time. Having not come from a machining background I had no idea how these steps might be done precisely. Thank you Nick. This is beyond my knives, but it was very helpful watching you do the process.
 
Nick,

The information you provide is worth the price of admission.

BladeForums is very lucky you provide so much free content for this site.



It is much appreciated
 
One of these days I'm going to have to kick enough cash together to buy a Wheeler knife... if only to pay you back, in some small way, for everything I've learned from your free videos.
The guide line tutorial is priceless. Also, that last video gave me surface plate envy.
 
There's a heapin' helpin' of karma being served up this thread.

Again, and again, and again....... Thank you Nick.

-Peter
 
Brian- Okay... we're on the same page now...

It's something I started doing after realizing that I was always rough grinding the guard sides square (tool rest set at 90 degrees to the grinder platen) but my finished knives have an angle to the guard sides.

I DID have a video clip showing me setting up the KMG tool rest a few degrees off of 90 (to the platen) that I THOUGHT had made it into the JoeyP guard fitting videos. But it didn't for some reason. There is a shot in that video of me setting the tool rest at the angle, but it's probably hard to see that I wasn't just locking it down at 90 degrees.

I typically just eyeball it... but here are two pictures I took from my sig line thread showing the angled tool rest, and the result.

Kind'a hard to see, but that angle gauge is reading about 87 degrees... versus the typical 90 degrees (square to the platen) that we usually go for...
384.jpg


386.jpg



Andy- I always did stuff on the fly too. It wasn't until I had a couple knives that just kept fighting me at every step of the way, that I came up with some of these things to help with lay-out. Trust me, I don't come from a machinist background either. I'm more of the millwright mindset... you know "anything can be fixed with a 12" Crescent and a 4# sledge!" ;) :D

Adam- Yep... they are very lucky! ;) LMFAO :D

FullyTorque- My granite plate was pretty darn cheap. It's an import, tool-room grade... shipping was about as much as the plate itself! LOL

Peter- Ha! I appreciate you saying that. :) I'm a firm believer in "what goes around, comes around."
 
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Cool. Thanks for the clarification. I found the exact same thing happened to me, everything was square and then when finishing it I tapered it. It had not occurred to me until I heard what you said on your video.

Thank you very much!
 
Ya know, not trying to kiss Nicks butt here, but the mods should make a sticky thread with all of Nick's tutorial in it
 
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