I just wanted to show you what I am working on right now. I made the two blades out of 5mm leaf spring with hand tools (no KMG grinder here guys...), heat treated on a coal forge, tempered at mom's kitchen oven, sanded by hand up to 800 grit. Since they are saber grind this time (always made full flats and wanted to try something new) and to make it show up more... I did my final sanding in two different ways. In the non beveled part of the blade as well as in the ricasso area, I sanded along the blade while in the beveled part of the blade I sandes across. I hope this helps noticing the saber grind since the grind lines are not so crips (hand sanding seems to end up rounding edges).
Pins in the back are just trying pins... they are soooo scratched.
This time I made the micarta out of mom's old red jeans. I got enough to make two slabs (like 4 sets of handles out of it) and kept a few strips for liners on other slabs. When I was cutting the slab I started worring a bit. Well... actually I worried A LOT. In some spots one or two of the strips were peeling off. Oh crap... Being girl jeans they are not 100% cotton... the have some elastic fabric in them. Somehow the resin didn't penetrate as well as in 100% cotton fabric. Lucky me the stripping didn't go any farther.
Here you have a pice of a leftover I quickly sanded with the angle grinder to see what pattern I was getting (not polished at all, just used a 80 grit disc).
Here you have a picture taken while gluing up the handles (72h epoxy).
Right now I am almost done with the sanding but I won't show them until done. I am somewhat ashamed because handles started out as red jeans... and ended up a lot more.... pink!!
Nah... seriously. What really pisses me off is that after so much work (shaping, beveling, whole HT and sanding) I noticed I had a dimple, in one of the blades due to the not so precision flat ground nature of the material being used (leaf spring). I didn't notice before due to the forging scale on the leaf spring. I will show it when done. If I was to sand it down, I would ruin the blade. It is just on the spine near the tip. I will probably keep that one for personal use and, if need arises, gift the nice one.
I hope you liked them so far.
Mikel
Pins in the back are just trying pins... they are soooo scratched.
This time I made the micarta out of mom's old red jeans. I got enough to make two slabs (like 4 sets of handles out of it) and kept a few strips for liners on other slabs. When I was cutting the slab I started worring a bit. Well... actually I worried A LOT. In some spots one or two of the strips were peeling off. Oh crap... Being girl jeans they are not 100% cotton... the have some elastic fabric in them. Somehow the resin didn't penetrate as well as in 100% cotton fabric. Lucky me the stripping didn't go any farther.
Here you have a pice of a leftover I quickly sanded with the angle grinder to see what pattern I was getting (not polished at all, just used a 80 grit disc).
Here you have a picture taken while gluing up the handles (72h epoxy).
Right now I am almost done with the sanding but I won't show them until done. I am somewhat ashamed because handles started out as red jeans... and ended up a lot more.... pink!!
Nah... seriously. What really pisses me off is that after so much work (shaping, beveling, whole HT and sanding) I noticed I had a dimple, in one of the blades due to the not so precision flat ground nature of the material being used (leaf spring). I didn't notice before due to the forging scale on the leaf spring. I will show it when done. If I was to sand it down, I would ruin the blade. It is just on the spine near the tip. I will probably keep that one for personal use and, if need arises, gift the nice one.
I hope you liked them so far.
Mikel
