Something a little different for me - WIP

fast14riot

fast14riot

Joined
Oct 27, 2010
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Well I make lots of miniature knives, I really enjoy doing them. Fooling people with pictures brings me great joy because I did things right. Well I started something a little different for me, a full size knife! :eek:

I had this scrap of 1084 kicking around the shop and I got to looking at it and just started grinding. No layout, no plan, just freestyle grinding. Sometimes its more fun that way, just to see what knife is inside that piece of steel.

It started as a 5/8 wide, 6 3/4 long, 1/8 thick piece of rusty and pitted 1084. I envisioned a small B&T, hiding in it. This is where it went from there...

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As you can see I ground the bevels off the top of the spine, this was intentional so when I ground the ricasso and tang flat it would bring the grind down just to the edge of the spine, hopefully!

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This is also the first knife I have ever marked! Big step for me. Nothing fancy, just basic letter stamps of my initials.

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This knife was ground with a HF 1x30, and cleaned up the details by file. Just a bit of sanding to get to a good 320 before heat treat and then to finish it up. Still thinking about what to scale it with.


-Xander
 
That's looking good Xander. I make paring knives that are pretty similar to that minus the choil, they are great little knives. What are you thinking of for handle material? Wood, micarta?
 
Thanx Matt! I have been trying to figure out if I should give it to the wife as a parer, but its about .117 thick right now, so just a little fat for a a paring knife. Plus it gives me an excuse to carry it myself!

WOOD! I'm a fan of natural handle materials, I have a nice slab of snake wood that might look good, or amboyna burl. But I also have a big black walnut burl I need to process and have stabilized that would be killer on it.

Its still up in the air though!


-X
 
That is looking good!

I really like the sleek lines. The stamp looks great too, those are tough to get right!
 
zaph1 said:
Nice little scalpel! Graham's first knife was a scalpel. I hope this doesn't mean you're going to stop making minis.
Click to expand...

Thanx Charles! I like small knives, this was fun to just start grinding on to see what it turned into!

Daniel Fairly Knives said:
That is looking good!

I really like the sleek lines. The stamp looks great too, those are tough to get right!
Click to expand...

Thanx Daniel! The lines did work out pretty well, I went in reverse on this one. I started by grinding the handle and figured I would just grind the blade with whatever was left. I considered a three finger handle, but the blade would have been a touch too big for that.

The stamps are tough to get right! That's the reason I offset the letters, because I couldn't get them straight!


And don't worry, I'm not going to stop making minis, I just need to make a real knife from time to time!


-Xander
 
Ok, I'm needing a little input on scales here. I really like thin, sleek knives. I'm considering using 1/8" thick scales for an overall thickness just about 3/8", too thin maybe? If I bump it up to 3/16" thick scales that will give me just about 1/2" thick. Either size feels good to me in hand, but the practicality of such a thin handle might not be there? I think the standard 3/4" thick handle might be a bit fat considering the profile height of the tang, but I'm all ears on this.


-Xander
 
Well, if it were me I definitely wouldn't put 3/4" scales on this knife. My thoughts are that if you are going to be applying a lot of force to the knife then you want thicker scales. On a knife this size imho 3/8 to 1/2 is right were you want to be.
 
Thanx Matt, again!

I had it in my head that 3/8" or 1/2" would be just fine, but I still have that little guy on my shoulder yelling in my ear that I'm probably wrong! Other opinions are still welcome.


-Xander
 
I think anywhere between 1/8"-3/8" scale material (on each side of the knife) could be fine. For a thin look you want 3/16 or even 1/8" thick scales. 3/16 gives you some room for shaping.

Everyone has different opinions about scales and I think most thicknesses if done well can be comfortable.
 
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