Second slipjoint complete, please critique

Brian.Evans

Registered Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2011
Messages
3,267
I'd like to thank all the makers who have helped me by giving advice throughout this build. Your advice was greatly appreciated.

Finished up my second slipjoint last night. I'm excited to have a knife I can be proud to carry, instead of my first attempt, which was an abomination of a knife.

Specs:
Steel: 3/32" A2 @ 61 Rc
Heat Treat by Peter's
Covers: Brown Canvas Micarta
Pins/Liners/Bolsters: Nickel Silver
OAL Open: 6.4"
OAL Closed: 3.5"
Bolster to Tip: 2.8"
Plunge to Tip: 2.4"
Thickness: .40"
Hand rubbed 320 grit finishing the blade, 800 inside the liners and buffed on the covers. I need to go back over the handle again though, it looks like.
The edge is .0015" right above the sharpened bevel. I ran it about ten strokes on each side on a very old 400-600 grit silicon carbide stone, then stropped. Very easy to sharpen with that thin edge, even though with its high Rc.

All numbers are rounded to the tenth, that's why they don't quite add up exactly.

I am pretty upset, I think I grabbed a piece of stainless rod for the pins instead of nickel silver. You can see the pivot looks like a different metal entirely. Live and learn. I'll make sure I never do that again!

Bear with me, there's going to be a bunch of pictures. I couldn't get my makeshift photo booth to work, so like McDonalds, you get a bunch of mediocre instead of a little great. :)

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The scuff marks are where I messed up and laid it too flat on the very first stroke sharpening it, not leftover grinding marks. I am not going back and fixing it, because its going to get a lot more dinged up before this is all over. I would never send one out like that though.
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Wow, this look horrible close up. The covers look like poop, and the nick is horrible. I'm buying a dovetail cutter for my next one.
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In hand:
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Now, what good is a knife if it can't cut? No good I tell you! So.....lets cut! It was late last night, so I grabbed some leather scraps. This is roughly 8/9 oz. leather, about 1/8" or 3mm for our metric friends. I actually did all the cutting before I took the rest of the pictures.

What I began with:
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It shaved hair easily before the test.

Cut 126 pieces of leather.
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Shaved afterwards.
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I wanted to get a video, but I didn't have a videographer to take it. The cuts weren't sawing, they were easy, clean slice, slice, slice, slice over and over. I was very happy with the laser like cutting of this blade, especially given the very marginal sharpening I did. I'm going to take the edge up to 1000 or even 4000 today and see how amazing this edge can get. Very happy with Peter's Heat Treating.

Critiques, comments, criticisms welcome and encouraged. Tear it apart, I want the next one to be better. I already have a long list I want to fix on number 3.

I am posting this in Traditionals, Shoptalk, and [gulp] Customs due to the wide variance in types of people who frequent each forum. I'd like to hear everyone's feedback to become better. If the Mods take issue, I will respectfully redact my posts.
 
Smaller picture size would be great. Even on a 1920x1080 screen the pics are too large to see entirely without scrolling. 800x460 would be a good viewable size.

However, I like the looks of it. Good job!
 
Sorry. I only have a phone and an ipad, so I don't see that stuff sometimes. I need to turn the result down in my phone when I take the pictures.
That's for looking.
 
Very nice, good job, I really like A2 in a EDC. Cuts forever. One suggestion is to put a bit of relieve in the liner near the blade, this will prevent the liner from scratching the blade when open and closed.
 
Absolutely need a relief in the liners. I don't have access to a mill, and I'm concerned trying to mill on my little drill press, especially wi its tapered spindle. I thnk there was a post somewhere about etching a relief, which I might try next.
 
I like it. I haven't made any type of folder yet, and am sure I would mess it up royally.
 
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