The road to my first framelock

Good news.
The surface grinder is finally together and seems to be holding great tolerances. The chuck is ground in and will not even move the dial on my half thou indicator. I made a test part and it seems very good (within .00025"). With any luck Ill finally start on some actual parts next weekend. I posted some videos on my Instagram stang_bladeworks if anyone want to see the tests.
 
looks great dude!! I just picked up a surface grinder so will be going through the same thing you did soon lol... just posted up on practical machinist and have to finish reading your thread there. a lot of good advise!!
 
Finally got started on the framelock. Im embarrassed to admit it took me most of an afternoon and a fair amount of broken and scrapped stuff to get here. I havent had the best luck with surface grinding the ti. I warped one scale beyond salvage. I ground another but the finish isn't the best. Its also not getting flatter. Luckily the ti from alpha knife supply comes very flat already. I will need to grind or mill the backspacer to final thickness once the blade is finalized. So far i have tried fixturing the ti with steel plates and superglue. I tried hot glue as well but it seems to be too thick.
I have developed a procesure to ensure the everything lines up properly. The 2 threaded barrels seems to result in a rigid assembly. I have to leave for work tomorrow but with any luck ill be ready to heat treat next weekend.
20190914_205534.jpg 20190914_205538.jpg
 
razor-edge-knives said:
Looks great! Are you using coolant while grinding the ti?
Click to expand...
I did not. I will try on some scrap with coolant. I noticed some discernable ledges wich would imply my parts are shifing a bit. I know when i grind steel its perfectly flat. I just need to get a technique figured out. I was worried that the coolant may affect the bond of the glue. I know the glue isnt letting go because i have to tap the parts off the chuck after. Maybe i just need more glue. If i get something figured out i will post it up.
 
I did manage to make some more progress last weekend. So far I have the frame drilled and reamed. I am really happy with everything so far and I have some procedural improvements to make in the future. I like how rigid everything is using the barrels inside the backspacer. I milled the stop pin track and left some room for post heat treat milling to set the final open close positions. I imagine that I left more than enough excess material but for this one Ill play it safe and modify as needed. I hope its not too tough to mill the hardened steel to final dimension. I think I need to mill an extra .100" or so in either direction. I had difficulty centering my rotary table at first. I tried using a dial indicator but it was always out a bit. I need to get a better setup for this. For now I used a technique from Ekim knives videos where he used an m2 taper dead center to position the table in an empty collet. It worked great and was quick and easy. I milled my jimping because I wanted it precise. uneven jimping really eats at me. I was worried that I would destroy the tiny 1/16 end mill but so far it has survived. I just kept my feeds slow. I did notice that my .500" counter bore was way slower than my 3/8". I'm not sure if the extra surface area makes it slower. I would saw it is 10x slower easy and requires way more pressure to cut soft steel and ti. I think it may be damaged or dull. I did have it catch once and I had to shut the mill off. I may try to order another and see if its any better. The smaller one cut titanium like butter. I did use coolant for both. I actually used coolant for almost everything. I did a test assembly which doesn't mean a lot because the backspacer thickness is not set yet but the blade was centered and the pivot was free and smooth with no play. I cant imagine it will get worse once everything is set to spec and the blade is hardened. I left .010 of material on the blade to counterbore after heat treat to ensure the bearing surface is as perfect as possible. hopefully my counterbore will cut it at 61-62 HRC. My goal is to have the best surface finish possible in the bearing pockets. So far the 1/2" c/b is the biggest mystery to me. If anyone has any comments, suggestions etc. I'm all ears. Thanks for looking. Here are some pics from my last adventure in the garage.
20190921_202752.jpg 20190922_184918.jpg 20190922_184924.jpg 20190922_184944.jpg 20190922_185135.jpg 20190922_185145.jpg 20190922_185247.jpg
 
This last weekend I was able to cut the lockbar, get the clip figured out, mill the relief, and heat treat the blade. Hopefully this weekend I will finish. The blade came out at 62hrc with cryo.
20190929_204945.jpg 20190929_155324.jpg 20190929_155355.jpg 20190929_204713.jpg 20190929_155331.jpg 20190929_135840.jpg
 
Jason Volkert said:
Stang Bladeworks Stang Bladeworks everything is looking good. What rotary table did you end up getting?
Click to expand...
Thanks man. I got an accusize branded table off amazon for amazon for $370
upload_2019-10-1_17-44-27.png
Its a 6 inch table and it seems good enough for my uses. I don't know much about them so I don't think I would be able to provide much feedback. My use for it is very basic. I did initially buy a 4 inch table for $150 but it was a waste. It doesn't really have a good way to center easily and its a bit lacking in quality.
 
Dunno how I missed these updates!! Looking fantastic, your attention to detail will serve you well man.

Got some skiff bearings huh? Nice!
 
razor-edge-knives said:
Dunno how I missed these updates!! Looking fantastic, your attention to detail will serve you well man.

Got some skiff bearings huh? Nice!
Click to expand...
Thanks,
Yeah I grabbed some bearings from Steve. I messaged with him back and forth on Instagram and I really think his bearings are the very high quality. He told me that the larger 2mm balls don't really wear in a track in the titanium. I did ask about hardened washers but he doesn't have any. He is looking into it for the future. My plan is to mill my pivot barrel to the exact length such that the screws can be fully tightened and the action I want is maintained with no blade play. Kind of like a Sebenza pivot bushing but without the additional bushing. I will do my best to achieve this and then test the knife and make sure that no significant track is developed that throws that throws my tolerances off and ends up with blade play later. I want my knife to be fully assembled without requiring Loctite. I have yet to see if this concept will work but I purchased a few extra pivot barrels to test and see how to set everything properly. It makes sense, at least in my head... My hope is to finish my prototype this weekend.
 
Yeah it should totally work if you can get the pivot bushing dialed in right... Make sure you have a few extra on hand. I use this if I really wanna fine tune something like that by hand, but if you have the quill dro on your mill you should be able to make that work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top