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Sculpted Bowie/Fighter handles w/ Nick Wheeler
- Thread starter NickWheeler
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2010
- Messages
- 661
Hey Nick, I do have it nice with the machine shop fringe benefits.:thumbup: I think every one of the machinist there have a Bingenheimer knife as payment for some work I've needed done.
(sssh need to keep that a secret).
Thanks for posting these up pal
I learn something every time
Bing
(sssh need to keep that a secret). Thanks for posting these up pal
I learn something every time
Bing
Hey Bruce!
Here's part 7 for anybody interested...
[video=youtube;jbHCsXbtvNw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbHCsXbtvNw[/video]
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2013
- Messages
- 600
Nick, thank you for taking the time to make these videos. I've ordered some 6" half round files and I am looking for one of those pencil holders to draw center lines on. I now have a better understanding of how to shape handles!
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2000
- Messages
- 1,132
Nick,
For a moment there I was hoping that you were gonna tell me that you had found a way to avoid the stuff dulling the files! lol. I hate working the stuff, but I have a bunch of folder scales to sculpt, not to mention a couple friends who like orange handles, so have been looking for ways to shape it without killing tools, and without quite so much dust.
The thing I tried last, with some success, was a couple of Permagrit files, http://www.permagrit.com/. The coarse ones are pretty coarse, like 60-80 grit. I haven't tried the finer ones, but think I will, they might be more like 120, which would be a good match for a second cut or smooth cut file. The nice thing is, you can use them wet, so no dust, just a puddle under the work area. Saves the files a bit for just working around the guard, perhaps.
Thanks again
Chris
For a moment there I was hoping that you were gonna tell me that you had found a way to avoid the stuff dulling the files! lol. I hate working the stuff, but I have a bunch of folder scales to sculpt, not to mention a couple friends who like orange handles, so have been looking for ways to shape it without killing tools, and without quite so much dust.
The thing I tried last, with some success, was a couple of Permagrit files, http://www.permagrit.com/. The coarse ones are pretty coarse, like 60-80 grit. I haven't tried the finer ones, but think I will, they might be more like 120, which would be a good match for a second cut or smooth cut file. The nice thing is, you can use them wet, so no dust, just a puddle under the work area. Saves the files a bit for just working around the guard, perhaps.
Thanks again
Chris
Man this is a great WIP. After seeing some of your knives I wondered how intentional that flat that transitions from the guard to the handle was. Now I realize that every single curve and detail are thought out and intentional. When you use the squishy backed sanding stick on the "ass end" of that handle does that wash out the G10 and if so is that intentional to have more of a spherical ass all the way across the g10 and steel?
Seems you are asking if what Nick does is intentional. I think we all know the answer. A new maker would have some things just happen to work out. A experienced maker designs the whole knife, every bit bit to serve a purpose either for the function or design.
Yea that came out kind of wrong. I am not implying that anything most makers do is by accident. I just love those handles especially that flat.
A.McPherson
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2012
- Messages
- 2,933
Nick, your videos are completely awesome! Thanks for sharing your hard earned knowledge with us, I've learned a TON from the stuff you've posted on here!
- Joined
- Dec 3, 1999
- Messages
- 9,437
Pete- Just make sure you search for a "surface gauge" and keep in mind I made the little attachment to hold the pencil.
Chris- Thanks for the link! I honestly had never heard of those until I looked at your link. Cool stuff... We always need more tools...
629hugo- the answer to that gets into a bit of semantics. When you're trying to keep transitions crisp and clean, I usually talk about avoiding "washing-out" an area. But it could also be described as smoothing/rounding over. Since we want the pommel/butt/ass-end to be nice and smooth AND since there are no metal parts to transition into... then a squishy block that helps round stuff over is good. I should point out that if this were a full tang knife and we had an exposed tang right in the middle of the pommel area... then I would use a more rigid block.
The way you worded your post was just fine, I sure didn't take any offense to it. I do try very hard to make sure that every aspect of my knives is done with an intention... I remember Ed Caffrey, MS, telling me about 17 years ago... "I try to make my knives in a way that everything looks like it was done on purpose."
That probably sounds a bit silly to a non-knife person... but any of us that make knives get it. As you're learning (well, this is sure true for me anyway!) there is often a gap between what we WANT the knife to be like, and what we are actually capable of building. The best example of that is the notion that most of us start out thinking we're going to build a museum quality knife right out of the gate, but the first knife ends up looking like a prison shank.
:foot:
Just for the record--- the sides of my handles aren't actually FLAT...they're just a gentle arc that matches the sides of the guard. If you made them FLAT-FLAT, then it would be really easy to keep the transitions crisp and clean, but it wouldn't fit into the hand very well. With a gentle arc, it makes it harder to keep the transitions crisp, but it gives enough of a flat-ish area that the knife will VERY quickly and easily index in the user's hand... And IMHO has a nice look to it.
On some of my knives I make that whole plane crisp for aesthetic reasons. On some, I want it crisp at the guard to handle transition, but want it to fade away into the swells and recesses.
Just for a quick walk down memory lane and some visuals to help explain... Here is one of the first fighters where I was starting to get the handle shaping dialed in to produce something closer to the image I had in my head--- (this was around 15-16 years ago)
A few years down the road I was getting a lot closer to the vision in my head...
Fast forward a bit... and here is a photo of the first knife where I really made a concerted effort to keep that plane smooth but crisp, and actually achieved what I had in my mind's eye. This was one of my Js submission knives in 2007. I remember Dickie Robinson, MS (RIP) asking me, "How the heck did y'all do that, it reminds me of the shapes on a fine English stock?" Talk about making your head swell!
On fighters like this one, I wanted the transitions near the guard to be super crisp for visual effect and functionally for easy indexing, but I wanted the transition into the palm recess to fade off smoothly...
Hope this helps clear up the mud a bit...
Chris- Thanks for the link! I honestly had never heard of those until I looked at your link. Cool stuff... We always need more tools...
629hugo- the answer to that gets into a bit of semantics. When you're trying to keep transitions crisp and clean, I usually talk about avoiding "washing-out" an area. But it could also be described as smoothing/rounding over. Since we want the pommel/butt/ass-end to be nice and smooth AND since there are no metal parts to transition into... then a squishy block that helps round stuff over is good. I should point out that if this were a full tang knife and we had an exposed tang right in the middle of the pommel area... then I would use a more rigid block.
The way you worded your post was just fine, I sure didn't take any offense to it. I do try very hard to make sure that every aspect of my knives is done with an intention... I remember Ed Caffrey, MS, telling me about 17 years ago... "I try to make my knives in a way that everything looks like it was done on purpose."
That probably sounds a bit silly to a non-knife person... but any of us that make knives get it. As you're learning (well, this is sure true for me anyway!) there is often a gap between what we WANT the knife to be like, and what we are actually capable of building. The best example of that is the notion that most of us start out thinking we're going to build a museum quality knife right out of the gate, but the first knife ends up looking like a prison shank.
:foot: Just for the record--- the sides of my handles aren't actually FLAT...they're just a gentle arc that matches the sides of the guard. If you made them FLAT-FLAT, then it would be really easy to keep the transitions crisp and clean, but it wouldn't fit into the hand very well. With a gentle arc, it makes it harder to keep the transitions crisp, but it gives enough of a flat-ish area that the knife will VERY quickly and easily index in the user's hand... And IMHO has a nice look to it.
On some of my knives I make that whole plane crisp for aesthetic reasons. On some, I want it crisp at the guard to handle transition, but want it to fade away into the swells and recesses.
Just for a quick walk down memory lane and some visuals to help explain... Here is one of the first fighters where I was starting to get the handle shaping dialed in to produce something closer to the image I had in my head--- (this was around 15-16 years ago)
A few years down the road I was getting a lot closer to the vision in my head...
Fast forward a bit... and here is a photo of the first knife where I really made a concerted effort to keep that plane smooth but crisp, and actually achieved what I had in my mind's eye. This was one of my Js submission knives in 2007. I remember Dickie Robinson, MS (RIP) asking me, "How the heck did y'all do that, it reminds me of the shapes on a fine English stock?" Talk about making your head swell!
On fighters like this one, I wanted the transitions near the guard to be super crisp for visual effect and functionally for easy indexing, but I wanted the transition into the palm recess to fade off smoothly...
Hope this helps clear up the mud a bit...
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 3, 1999
- Messages
- 9,437
For what it's worth... I do realize that "plane" is, by definition, a flat surface... so I am probably confusing things a bit with my wording since I said the sides are not actually flat. :foot:
But I'm not sure of a better way to describe that area in simple terms. I could start blabbering about things like principle curvature, curvature from arc and chord length, and the surface's tangent plane... But I would probably only confuse everyone (including myself) except maybe a couple of super nerdy engineers. 
But I'm not sure of a better way to describe that area in simple terms. I could start blabbering about things like principle curvature, curvature from arc and chord length, and the surface's tangent plane... But I would probably only confuse everyone (including myself) except maybe a couple of super nerdy engineers.
- Joined
- Dec 3, 1999
- Messages
- 9,437
Here's part 8. This is the final one for this series following along with the Joe Paranee fighting Bowie knife handle shaping...
[video=youtube;_oXY2xZU5jQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oXY2xZU5jQ[/video]
[video=youtube;_oXY2xZU5jQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oXY2xZU5jQ[/video]
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2014
- Messages
- 1
Awesome
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2000
- Messages
- 1,132
Excellent...another Wheeler tutorial:
I'm gonna be sorry when this knife is all done.
Nick,
Not wanting to get into cross thread stuff, but saw your post in Aaron's thread about views and subscribers and wanted to ask that you not get discouraged and go down the marketing route too far. Aaron's is a really good video, and it gives a taste of what he does to make a knife, 12 minutes of viewing time and you have seen everything, a nice bite size documentary, but there aren't too many lessons. Watching your stuff is more of a time commitment, 35 minutes over four videos to dome a pin, for instance, but having watched your videos , a less skilled fella stands a very good chance of taking a bunch of tips away to use in his own shop. I know I have!
Chris
I'm gonna be sorry when this knife is all done.
Nick,
Not wanting to get into cross thread stuff, but saw your post in Aaron's thread about views and subscribers and wanted to ask that you not get discouraged and go down the marketing route too far. Aaron's is a really good video, and it gives a taste of what he does to make a knife, 12 minutes of viewing time and you have seen everything, a nice bite size documentary, but there aren't too many lessons. Watching your stuff is more of a time commitment, 35 minutes over four videos to dome a pin
, for instance, but having watched your videos , a less skilled fella stands a very good chance of taking a bunch of tips away to use in his own shop. I know I have!
Chris
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2009
- Messages
- 21,855
Nick,
Not wanting to get into cross thread stuff, but saw your post in Aaron's thread about views and subscribers and wanted to ask that you not get discouraged and go down the marketing route too far. Aaron's is a really good video, and it gives a taste of what he does to make a knife, 12 minutes of viewing time and you have seen everything, a nice bite size documentary, but there aren't too many lessons. Watching your stuff is more of a time commitment, 35 minutes over four videos to dome a pin
Yea, what he said
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2014
- Messages
- 16
Same with everyone else. I hardly post, but am very appreciative of what you put out. I love how you demonstrate and teach. If I'm ever in your neck of the woods I'd love to stop by and take a class with you
- Joined
- Dec 3, 1999
- Messages
- 9,437
Thanks fellas.
Chris, I really appreciate that. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit confused/disappointed by the fact that a thread with one video got as much response as my thread with 8 videos got. I don't need everybody kissing my ass or anything, but these things do take up a ton of my time and energy. I'm sure some folks don't care for me talking as much as I do in the videos, but I want to explain what I'm doing and why.
The whole technology thing is very odd... I paid money to knife makers that weren't very well established for videos when I was getting started that were poorly lit, had horrible sound, and didn't really explain much. Nowadays, I think many people just expect there to be quality content that's FREE.
At the end of the day, for whatever reason...I just like making this stuff though.
Chris, I really appreciate that. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit confused/disappointed by the fact that a thread with one video got as much response as my thread with 8 videos got. I don't need everybody kissing my ass or anything, but these things do take up a ton of my time and energy. I'm sure some folks don't care for me talking as much as I do in the videos, but I want to explain what I'm doing and why.
The whole technology thing is very odd... I paid money to knife makers that weren't very well established for videos when I was getting started that were poorly lit, had horrible sound, and didn't really explain much. Nowadays, I think many people just expect there to be quality content that's FREE.
At the end of the day, for whatever reason...I just like making this stuff though.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2010
- Messages
- 1,783
I think the people who come to watch your stuff are more the people who actually want to learn to make a high quality ABS style knife . As you know this crowd is way smaller than a lot of the other knife classes. I have not looked at the video you are comparing view counts to but I am sure that a lot of people who don't make knives would watch something like that , so comparing the view count it is not a fair assessment by any means.