Steve Culver MS detailed work in progress

77. Temporary assembly pins are used to align the handle assemblies and the bottom of the handles are finished.



78. Excess handle material is ground away to prepare for pinning.



79. The front handle pin hole is chamfered on the inside.



80. Setting the front pin in the handle material.



81. The other pin holes are reamed with taper pin reamers to about 2/3 of their depth.



82. I cut the pivot bushing to length using the surface grinder.



83. Setting the pins.



84. The knife pinned and ready to finish grind.



85. The inside of the knife is packed with tissue paper and covered with tape to prevent grinding grit from getting into the pivot area.



86. The back of the knife is finished first.

 
87. The sides of the knife are shaped using the rotary platten.



88. Smoothing and finishing by slack-belting with a scalloped edge belt. I run the belt upside down so I can see how the work is progressing.



89. Next, I switch to a well worn 400g belt for additional smoothing of the finish. I also run it upside down.



90. Buffing the handle material on my home-built variable speed buffer.



91. The knife is thoroughly cleaned with WD-40.



92. With the tissue packing removed; the knife is repeatedly flooded with WD-40 and blown out with compressed air to clean out all of the grinding grit.



93. Paste wax is applied to the handle material.



94. Sharpening by hand.



95. The finished knife.




The fit and finish on this knife is excellent. The grinds and especially the plunge line is perfect (not something I see often). The blade is a razor and finished well. The transition between bolster and scale is seamless.

The scales gave Steve some heartache as during finishing one of the scales was darker than the other. We discussed options over email and decided to send the knife to me for viewing. Steve insisted I hold on the payment until I saw the knife. As I mentioned above I was very pleased with the build of the knife though the scale color did concern me. Unfortunate as they were great pieces of stag. We discussed options again and I have decided to have Steve build another knife and we are going to use Ivory he has on hand. We had talked about ivory for this particular knife and I had pictures of Steve’s ivory scales and tusks to refer back to.

I have to say that Steve Culver handled this situation in the best possible way. His communication was and is excellent. He was completely upfront about the scales. He stands behind his work and his top priority is customer satisfaction with their (his) knives. It is easy to see solid character in his words and most importantly his actions. I am very excited to see the new knife once completed and I will happily show it off in this thread. I have been so impressed with Steve that I am asking to be put on his list for a fixed blade hunter and based on his site he makes stunning fixed blades.

Here is a portion of one of the emails from Steve explaining the color difference in the scales. I thought readers would wonder about this as I did so here is the response.

“I’m sure that you are wondering how I could not tell in advance that the scales would be so different. During the shaping process of the scales, the course grinding of the material creates the same effect as rough sawing a board; in that the torn fibers hide the true final finish appearance. If you look at photos # 84 and # 85, you will see that the slabs appeared to be similar in color at that point. You can imagine how my heart sank as I finished and polished the scales and watched the color change.”
 
This has been an amazing WIP thread and one of my favorites. It exemplifies just how much of a sustained effort it takes to make a nice folder. And then after all that work, for Steve to say, "sorry, but I don't think it's good enough" and make you a new one, let's just say that I am very, very impressed.
 
Steve is "good people". He and his wife are genuine and are ones you are always glad to see. His work is outstanding. Mike Miller
 
GREAT thread. Mr. Culver has a NICE shop.

In picture #86 the difference in the shade of the stag is apparent. That is unfortunate that it didn't meet expectations, BUT that is one fine looking saddlehorn even with the mismatched stag.

Peter
 
Thanks very much Steve and Muddy for sharing this outstanding WIP with us.
We don't often see a folder coming together is such detail. Very educational.
 
You see alot of fixed blade threads and they wow me . This cripples my mind when I see how much work goes into a slipjoint

thanks for taking the time
 
Thanks to everyone for the compliments. I really enjoyed working on the progression thread. I would like to do a progression on another project some day.

I don’t often have problems with material coloration, but this one was trouble from the start. The first set of slabs that I planned to use were amber stag. I have a large inventory of amber stag, but I only had two slabs that were suitable for use on this knife. The drop in the handle of this knife required that the slabs be large and the outer contour of the slab had to be correct for use on a folder. Initial shaping of the two amber slabs revealed a difference in their coloration. One had a brown/yellow color, while the other had a reddish tint. I conferred with Matt, and we located two sets of stag that looked likely to work on the knife. I purchased the two sets and from them selected the slabs that would fit on this folder pattern.

Initial shaping of these slabs displayed a minor difference in the color, but not enough to give me great concern. It was during the final finishing (mostly during buffing) that the color really started to change. The left slab came out a glistening white, as I expected. The right slab took on sort of a “chocolaty” color. Before the question comes up; No, I didn’t burn the slab during buffing. I have a variable speed buffer that I run as slow as possible and I check for heat build-up often.

Because of the odd color of this one slab, I can’t help but wonder if it may have been dyed by the exporter. I’ve heard of this being done to improve the value of a marginal piece; although I know the importers frown on the practice.

The knife is now on its way to another gentleman, who may purchase it. I will build Matt another folder and use mammoth ivory on it.
 
Steve,
Thanks for such an AWESOME WIP!!! It is amazing how much work goes into a slip joint. Can you tell me about your surface grinder? Any and all information on it would be greatly appreciated. One of those would come in handy on most all knives.
And thanks for the tip on turning the belt around backwards "to watch your progress", that's a wonderful tip I would have never thought of! Wonderful work and a stunning knife, who cares if the color of the stag doesn't match????
Tell you what I'll do, as I'm feeling so very generous, I'll give you a hundred bucks for the clearly defective mismatched colored handle knife. I'll make the sacrifice, yes that's me, I'm the Gandhi of knife guys. I know, I know that's me sacrificing yet again for the art of the knife and for all the starving knife makers of the world. OK, that was all tongue and cheek....unless you really would sell me that knife for a hundred bucks!! I'm sure that's about a tenth of what they sell for. Anyway thanks for all your effort, Rex
 
Rex,

I'm glad that you enjoyed the thread!

As for the surface grinder; it is just a Harbor Freight model. You can find specs on it on the Harbor Freight web site. It's a decent little machine. Let me know if you have any other questions about it.

Regarding running the belts upside down; yea, all of us knifemakers have some quirky methods for getting things done. :) It also cleans the little specs of dirt from the rollers and makes them nice and shiny. Just be sure to remove your platten so you don't grind a groove in it.

Thanks too for your offer to purchase the knife, but I think that I will hold out for a little more than 100 bucks. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top