Steve Culver MS detailed work in progress

muddy672

muddy672

Joined
Jul 26, 2006
Messages
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I contacted Steve Culver just over a year ago after he received his MS asking to be placed on his list for one of his slip joints. I liked the Persian inspired blade on the folders below and a few weeks ago we decided on a similar folder with single bolster and amber stag scales.

I asked Steve if he would be willing to document the process of building this knife and add a few pics. Steve was happy to do this and provided a very detailed view of the build process. Steve has already exceeded my expectations and I am very excited to see this folder once complete.

Steve has been a gentleman through this whole process.

Pics from Steve’s site of a few completed folders:





Raw materials for the knife: ATS-34 steel for the blade and spring, 410 stainless sheet for the liners and bolsters, amber stag for the handle material.




Surface grinding a few thousands off each side of the ATS-34 to remove the mill scale. I will also surface grind the liner and bolster material as I believe that removing the mill finish helps with making a sound connection when spot welding the bolsters to the liners.




Tracing around the pattern onto the ATS-34 for drilling the blade pivot and spring pin holes.




Drilling the blade pivot and spring pin holes.




The spring pattern is aligned with the previously drilled rear pin hole and clamped to the ATS-34. The center pin hole is drilled through the hole in the pattern.




The ATS-34 is cover with layout dye, then the patterns for the blade and spring are aligned with pins and the outlines of the patterns are scribed onto the ATS-34 with an Exacto knife.




Sawing out the blade and spring.




Profile grinding the blade on my KMG belt grinder. I have carefully adjusted the platten to 90 degrees to the work rest.


 
Using a 6” wheel to profile grind the spine of the blade. I have modified the grinder to hold the work rest in front of the round wheel attachment. The work rest is adjusted to 90 degrees to the face of the wheel.




Using the same set up to profile grind the spring using a 4” wheel.




I have made the same modification to the small wheel attachment. Using it here to do additional profiling on the bottom of the spring.




Cutting the nail nick in the blade with a fly cutter.




The blade pivot was first drilled with a 1/8” drill to match the pivot hole in the pattern. At this point, I no longer need to use the pattern for the blade. The pivot hole is now drilled and reamed for a 3/16” pivot bushing.




The spring notch in the blade is roughed in using a grinding stone. The face of the stone has been dressed to an 85 degree “V”.




The blade and spring ready for heat-treat.




Wrapping the blade and spring in stainless foil for heat-treat.



Blade and spring going into kiln for a 30 minute soak at 1450 degrees. Then the temperature is increased to 1950 degrees for another 30 minute soak.



Blade and spring coming out of kiln to air quench.

 
Blade and spring right after air quench.



Blade coming out of kiln after tempering for two hours at 425 degrees. The spring will stay in the kiln for another two hours and the temperature will be increased to 1125 degrees.



The liner patterns traced onto the stainless sheet for drilling pin holes.



Drilling pin holes in liner material.



The liner material is covered with layout dye and the patterns are scribed for sawing out.



Liners are sanded flat on a sheet of sandpaper that is glued to a piece of flat material.



Liners flat, clean and ready to weld bolsters on.



Grinding one edge of bolster material square where it will meet the handle material.



I use one of my guard shoulder filing jigs to hold the liners for welding on the bolsters. A square is used to scribe a line on the first liner where the bolster will meet the handle material. The liner is clamped with the scribed line aligned with the face of the jig.



Spot welding the bolster to the left liner.

 
The pivot hole is drilled through the left bolster using the previously drilled hole in the liner as a guide.



Both liners are pinned together and clamped in the jig, with the just welded left bolster against the face of the jig.



A brass plate is super-glued to the right liner to position it in the jig during the next step.



The left liner is removed from the jig. Then, the right liner is clamped in the jig with the brass plate against the face of the jig. The brass plate is removed by heating it with a torch until the superglue releases. The superglue is cleaned from the liner with acetone, leaving the liner in position and ready for welding.



Both liners with bolsters welded in place. The pivot hole in the right liner will be drilled as was the left side.



The weld areas tend to harden from the welding process and will cause problems with machining the tang reliefs in the liners and can show on the finished bolsters. So, they are annealed by heating to a dull red with a torch and allowed to cool slowly.



Cleaning up the liners after annealing. I use double sided Scotch tape to affix the liners to a flat plate, then sand them clean.



Steve Culver
President - Kansas Custom Knifemaker's Association
Culver Knives
Meriden, KS
www.culverart.com
 
Very interesting. Thanks for taking the extra time for us to see so many steps involved. Cant wait to see more.
 
Thanks everyone. A big thank you to Steve Culver for taking the time to provide us with these pics and the descriptions of each.
 
36. Surface grinding heat-treat scale from blade and spring.

37. Cleaning scale from pivot hole in blade using an expandable brass reamer and grinding compound.

38. Cleaning scale from the spring notch in blade using stones.

39. Final clean up of bottom of spring (I hope). Grinding the bottom of the spring where it rests on the tang.

40. Grinding the rest of the scale from the bottom of the spring. After grinding the scale off, I will then hand sand the bottom of the spring to final finish. This is hopefully the last work I will do on the bottom of the spring. If all goes well, I will not touch the bottom of the spring again, as I am about to start adjusting the tang and spring fit-up.

41. Using the “Ruple Dial” to set the tang and spring. This device was designed by Bill Ruple. It helps to quickly get the tang to spring fit-up and geometry close without having to assemble the knife repeatedly. The micrometer sets on top of the spring and measures the lift that the tang imparts on the spring. The tang is ground to set the rise of the spring in all three positions of the blade; open, half-stop and closed. The blade kick is also adjusted to fit the tip of the blade into the handle. This will only get the fit-up close; the final adjustments will have to be made after the knife is assembled and the spring is loaded. When the spring is loaded, it flexes, and the position of the blade will be different.

42. Once the spring to tang fit is set in the open position, the blade and spring are fitted to a liner with the pivot and rear pins. The spring is covered with layout dye and the spring is scribed along the top of the liner. The excess material is then ground from the top of the spring.

43. The spring is then positioned to pre-load against the tang and clamped to one of the liners. The center pivot hole in the liner is then drilled through the hole in the spring. The amount of pre-load is a bit of guess-work combined with experience. Too much pre-load can be fixed by grinding away some material from the bottom of the spring; too little may require making new liners and trying again.

44. The center hole in the second liner is then drilled through the hole in the first liner.

45. Assembling the folder using a drill press. This trick was shown to me by Gary Crowder. A wood spade bit with the pilot point round off is placed in the chuck and the knife is positioned on a board with a groove in it. The spade bit presses the spring down into the groove in the board allowing you to insert the pivot pin without pressure from the spring.
 
46. With the knife in the open position, the back of the knife is ground flat, leveling the blade, spring and top of the liners. Now comes the (hopefully) final fitting of the blade to spring. The tang is ground to set the top of the spring level with the top of the liners in the half-stop and closed positions. If the blade tip is not positioned correctly in the handle when the knife is closed, the kick is ground to correct that. This requires a lot of disassembling the knife, grinding a few thousands off, reassembling the knife, taking it back apart to grind some more, put it back together……..you get the idea. All of this I do with assembly pins and an old pivot bushing. There will be some difference in the size of these pins and bushing compared to the knife’s final parts. Later in the knife’s construction, I will use new pin stock and the actual pivot bushing that will be installed in the knife. Final adjustments may have to be made at that time.

47. The edge of the blade is covered with layout dye and is scribed for grinding. This is done to center the edge on the blade and give me a target to grind to when doing the actual grinding of the blade bevels. The blade is now .120 thick, so I set the height gauge to .070 and scribe the edge of the blade with the blade resting on one side, turn the blade over and scribe again. The result is two lines spaced .020 apart down the center of the blade.

48. The scribed lines on the edge of the blade.

49. The blade is then fastened to a brass bar that I use for grinding folder blades.

50. The edge of the blade is ground at about a 45 degree angle down to the scribed lines.

51. The edges ground to center and the blade ready to grind the bevels.


52. Grinding the bevels on the blade. I bet I am the only knifemaker that you have ever seen that grinds while standing on one foot. 



53. Sanding the riccasso and tang on a sheet of 400g paper glued to flat material.



54. Hand sanding the blade.



55. Crappy photo; but the finished blade.

 
56. Sawing excess from the handle material. The handle slabs need to be thinned and it is easier for me to tell when I have ground them to the correct thickness if I first have the slabs cut to the basic shape of the handle.



57. Grinding the handle slabs to the correct thickness.



Steve Culver
President - Kansas Custom Knifemaker's Association
Culver Knives
Meriden, KS
www.culverart.com
 
GREAT thread. One question comes to mind. Just wondering why the bolsters are spot welded as opposed to integral or soldered?

Thanks,
Peter
 
this is one of the great knife making WIPs of all time!
I feel smarter already:)
 
Thanks Steve, Muddy for sharing this. It's a pleasure seeing Steve work.
His knives are always so clean.
 
Thanks for all of the kind comments. I've enjoyed doing this progression, and will probably do more in the future.

Peter, as to the spot welded bolsters; it is simply a decision made on the construction method. I like doing integral bolsters, but they take a while to machine, and so add a good bit to the cost of the knife. I used to solder all of my bolsters to the liners, but have recently started spot welding. Spot welding takes a few minutes less for me. If I solder bolsters now, I feel that I need to add to the price of the knife.
 
sculver said:
Thanks for all of the kind comments. I've enjoyed doing this progression, and will probably do more in the future.

Peter, as to the spot welded bolsters; it is simply a decision made on the construction method. I like doing integral bolsters, but they take a while to machine, and so add a good bit to the cost of the knife. I used to solder all of my bolsters to the liners, but have recently started spot welding. Spot welding takes a few minutes less for me. If I solder bolsters now, I feel that I need to add to the price of the knife.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. The reason I asked was that it seems that there would be that gap (however small it may be) between liner and bolster. On some older production knives having dissimiliar metals that I have, oxidation has occurred.

Your knives look GREAT however.

Peter
 
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. The reason I asked was that it seems that there would be that gap (however small it may be) between liner and bolster. On some older production knives having dissimiliar metals that I have, oxidation has occurred.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment, Peter.

Your question is a logical one. The oxidation is not an issue because of using stainless for both the liners and bolsters. Concerning a gap; I surface grind the liner and bolster material before welding to get them as flat as possible and minimize the chance of a gap. Also, during the finishing process, a small amount of material from both pieces (a bur) will be formed and will cover very small gaps.

In the event that despite your best efforts, you still have a gap between the parts (I'm about to disclose a knifemaker's secret) it is possible to lightly peen both parts along the gap, extruding material into the gap and closing it up.
 
Numbering is off as Steve and I discussed some scale options as the ones we had chosen where not suitable, Steve purchased some new stag scales for this project and the work continues below.


67. A 1/16” hole is drilled towards the front of the liners to hold the front of the handle material.



68. The bolsters are contoured before the handle material is attached. This is done to minimize heat build-up on the handle material during final shaping.



69. Adhesive is applied and the liner/handle assembly is clamped to a steel plate to minimize warping as the adhesive sets up.



70. The handle material is ground down to the liners.



71. The liners are flattened on a disc sander.



72. The disc sander marks are removed by hand on a flat block with paper glued to it.



73. The pin holes are drilled through the handle material, while held to the bottom of a jig in my milling machine vice. I hold the assembly by hand so the drill bit will center in the holes in the liner. The jig assures that the holes go straight through and are not angled.



74. This is where my process differs from what I have seen other folder makers do. Most makers mill the tang reliefs in the liners at the start of the construction process; before the bolsters are attached and the handle material glued on. In my experience, the liners are prone to warp during the build-up of the handle assembly. As the tang reliefs are quite shallow, flattening the liners after the reliefs are cut can result in cutting away some of the relief. So, I decided that I would prefer to cut the reliefs after the final flattening of the liners. To do this, I built a jig that holds the handle assembly for milling. A piece of drill rod through the pivot hole is used to locate the handle assembly in the jig. Then a clamp in the jig is tightened to hold the handle assembly.



75. After the clamp is tightened, the drill rod is replaced by a bolt through the pivot hole to hold the assembly firmly.



76. The jig is placed in a rotary mill and the reliefs are then cut.

 
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