Stupid Mistakes

Awwww...Nick, I feel all blushy! :o:p:D Appreciate the compliment. I was able to get the second set of scales to work this afternoon. And I fully flattened and prepped the scales prior to drilling as was suggested. Worked very well, and the epoxy is setting up to be ready for shaping in the AM. Though I still think my drill press table is slightly off. Not enough to matter in the thickness of a knife handle, but it seems off. Luckily, I'm getting a much better drill press from the wife for my birthday!! :) Maybe someday I'll step into the ranks of the folder makers.

Oh, and I also bought a cheapie vibrating sander at Wally World and epoxied a piece of micarta to the platen with one edge radiused to match my typical plunge as I'd seen suggested on the boards some time ago. I tried it out on a few knives I have on the bench waiting to be finished, and OMG!! :eek: It works like a charm in cleaning up those plunge areas!

Thanks for all the great input in this thread. It helps to know I'm not the only one to make dumb mistakes.

--nathan
 
Awwww Nathan... group hug :D

WARNING UNSOLICITED ADVICE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

If you get a cheap dial indicator and base, you can chuck it up in your drill press and swing it around the table to check for the spindle being perpendicular to the table. Of course you can get a really expensive test indicator and do it, but for what we're doing, a cheapy indicator should get you there.

So since I derailed the thread before, here's some of my awesome screw-ups.

Put a turkish twist damascus blade in the acid, forgot about it... remembered 8 hours later. You could almost see light through it. :eek: :foot:

I sprayed two of my Js knives with a can of WD-40 that was about 20 years old (got it from my great uncles estate ... in the blacksmith shop). Put them back in their Bill's cases... checked them two weeks later and the WD looked like maple syrup, and the blades were pitted so bad I had to take them from their 1500X finish down to 320 to get them cleaned up.

Put a $60 block of wood in the drill press vise to drill it at an angle and forgot to set the depth stop and drilled right through the side of it.

Here's proof of my idiocy. I always get the tang as far into a handle block as I can. I had this handle about 80% done and decided to grind about 1/4" off the end. Looky what I found!... the bottom of the hole! Grr...:grumpy:
 

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Great tip, Nick. The best I did before was chucking up a piece of wire with a couple of bends in it to use as an indicatore :p. I'm not sure if this drill press will even keep level anymore. It's a little jickity (is that a word?)

I can hear the curses coming out of my mouth had I found the bottom of that hole as you did. Seems exactly like something I'd do!



Oh, and you're such a JERKASS for steering this thread off and then back on topic and then making me feel all gay with your group hug before you post stories that make me empathize with you. Sheesh. Jerk. :p

--nathan
 
I'm not hugging any of you lunatics... who knows where you've been?!? :D I'll shake hands with any of ya, though.

silver_pilate said:
Oh, and I also bought a cheapie vibrating sander at Wally World and epoxied a piece of micarta to the platen with one edge radiused to match my typical plunge...
Click to expand...

Hey! I've heard of that trick but forgot somehow. Sounds good for getting flats flat, too. And I already have one of those palm sanders from my guitar-refinishing days... thanks for the reminder, bud.

Nick, at least at the tang end you could pretend you meant to do that, since you have a clean fit showing... I've actually ground into the tang from the bottom side of the handle :o :eek: Not much you can do about that except tear it all apart and start over :( It took me longer to get it apart than it did to put it together.
 
silver_pilate said:
You ever just make one of those "what tha fu......awww CRAP!!!" mistakes? :grumpy:

Case in point:

So tonight I'm working along on a knife that I'm delivering on Friday this coming week. I heat treated the knife last night and dunked it in the liquid nitrogen dewar overnight. This morning I took the knife out and started working on hand finishing and getting it ready for handles. This evening, I'm ready to glue up handles so that they can cure overnight and I can shape the handle tomorrow and make leather starting on Monday.

So I grab a decently figured set of desert ironwood scales out of the box and start going to work on the handles. I match up the flow of the grain, and it's going to look great with the flow of the knife. :cool: I trace the outline and cut out the scales and proceed with drilling for 1/4" pin and tube. My method of drilling involves one hole at a time and placing the pin/tube in the first completed hole before I drill the next to make sure everything lines up. I drill the first scale and go to town on the second book-matched scale. After drilling the pin holes using the knife as a template, I flatten the tang side of the scales and go to join them together so I can shape the front end of the scales. I can't seem to find that thong tube..."hmmmm...where did it go? :confused:....I swear I'd loose my head if....oh, there it is.....in that other knife on the table....wait a sec, what the heck is it doing....awwww CRAP! :mad:"

Yep, when drilling the holes for the second scale, I USED THE WRONG KNIFE as a template. The order I'm working on is for three similar knives and I've already ground all three blades. The one I was working on was heat treated and hand finished and had the blade taped with blue tape to protect it. For some reason, I didn't notice that I grabbed the wrong blade...not taped...not hand finished and used it for drilling holes in the second scale. And of course, the holes don't match up.

So, I ruined a fairly nice $25 set of ironwood scales (have to throw them in the scrap drawer for future smaller work) and set myself back a day in finishing this knife.

ARRGGG!!

I'm going to bed. :grumpy::grumpy:

--nathan
Click to expand...

Nathan, do a search for my posts entitled "Bonehead move of the week, V2.0, and V3.0. One of those is I ruined a piece of wood by bookmatching the block of wood in the wrong direction of the grain. The issue was more significant to me cause I got the stuff from my back yard and I DIDN'T pay anything for it. I am used to pissing away money all the time for whatever reason, but when I ruin something that I get for free it means more for some reason.
 
Well.. for having only done this for a short period of time, I've had my fair share of blunders... This one doesn't involve turning my knuckles into hamburger, or ruining a 100.00 piece of scale material, but it still irked me. Most recently, I'm making a knife that has rear bolsters drilled for 1/8" pins. I have my pins separated into brass, N/S, 304, 410, etc. Grab a 1/8" pin from the 410 bag to match my 410 bolsters and get everything fitted. I had to grind the pins down a bit before peining, and noticed they had a kind of straw color to them... thinking I may have just heat-colored them a bit, I cleaned it up and peined them in. At this point, everything looked ok... once I flush sanded the "mushroom", they seemed to blend pretty well. A little hand sanding, then over to the buffer. Yup... the straw color was back. I could see they were clearly nickel silver :o I almost wish I would have just used brass... I could have at least claimed it was intentional..ya know... for contrast;) Oh well... It really doesn't look that bad, but it still pissed me off. I think I need to add some more shop lighting.:eek:

-Mark
 
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