Uh, oh! Not a knife, yet.

[NickWheeler]

If you sand somewhere around a 30-45 degree angle from the centerline, then you can just switch to 30-45 degrees in the other direction with the next grit. Accomplishes what you're doing here, but more than twice as fast.

I don't worry about a smooth, full drag pull on the sanding strokes until I'm on the last grit.

Look'n good Lorien! :thumbup:

 

[irbailey]

Looking good there mate. :thumbup:
Looking at this is giving me flashbacks to my pre-belt grinder days!
Funnily enough, I don't miss them at all.

Ian

 

[Lorien]

If you sand somewhere around a 30-45 degree angle from the centerline, then you can just switch to 30-45 degrees in the other direction with the next grit. Accomplishes what you're doing here, but more than twice as fast.

I don't worry about a smooth, full drag pull on the sanding strokes until I'm on the last grit.

Look'n good Lorien! :thumbup:

THANK YOU! man what a difference that tip made!
I almost see the light at the end of the tunnel...

 

[Lorien]

my life has been absolutely nuts! And it's only getting nuttier over the next couple of weeks. It's been an exceptionally busy late summer here at the bike shop, and I've just added the ludicrous proposition of moving my business at the end of the month! Moving on up:thumbup:!

Suffice to say, I've been starved of spare time. Anyway, I've got the blade down to 320 grit and we'll see how things go, but I might just finish it at 400.
Nick pointed out that the longitudinal sanding strokes were counter productive and man, was he right! It took probably an extra hour just to correct some of the deep scratches I made. Oh well, live and learn.

The length and timespan of this thread is no real indication of how much time I actually have into the knife. I might get a chance here and there to work on it for up to 2 hours at a time.

I've run into a snag, as well. Although my drill bit easily made a dent in the tang, I am finding that under the surface the steel is too hard for my drill bits. This is one of the reasons I need a drill press, (just love that word, "need").

So, I think we're getting to the end of the boring bit, and hopefully my next post will picture the assembly of the handle. I'm crossing my fingers

 

[Lorien]

Note to self: drill holes in tang BEFORE sending knife away for heat treating
Don't worry, I'll finish this knife eventually

 

[SBranson]

Note to self: drill holes in tang BEFORE sending knife away for heat treating
Don't worry, I'll finish this knife eventually

When I was talking to Jason Knight he told me the same thing but if you have to do it after heat treat use a concrete bit and as fast a speed as you have on the drill.

 

[Lorien]

The big knife is still 'out there somewhere' and hopefully one day it will find its way back to me. At that point I will finish it.

In the meantime, I figured I'd get my REAL first knife done finally. A friend gave me some wood some time back, and this is the knife I started making first. You know, because I had some wood to make a knife.

One of my favourite teachers in Bladeosophy has been know to say that one must become a knife finisher before one can call one's self a knife maker. I don't believe I will call myself a knife maker at any point in the near future, but I sure do want to finally finish these two.

As can be expected the hole I drilled in my tang does not match up to the hole I drilled through the handle. There are many reasons that this happened, and I won't go through them all here. The important thing is that I've kept track of what those reasons are and hopefully will not revisit them in the same manner. Now that I think of it, maybe I should refer to those reasons as 'mistakes'.

Here's the action shot:

At least the initial hole is large enough for me to not miss. Oops, I missed! Here you can see how I had to remove material to get the pin lined up through the tang and both sides of the handle.

ok, they kind of line up now.

this shot is a little cleaner. The grain in this lignum is really pleasing.

What you didn't see in the previous picture was how butt ugly the transition between the handle and blade is. It looks terrible, and not only that, there's a big gap on either side of the blade because I removed too much material. It will be filled with epoxy, but look like shit no doubt. I was going to use a little piece of titanium as tsuba, but it was so hard to work and get done right, this project kind of languished because I could not get past that issue.

Last night I stumbled into the idea of making a leather tsuba, (not really the right word, but I'm not sure what else to call it). The project is back up and running.

here's the little guy with the leather 'tsuba'. I will glue it to the handle with Gorilla Glue tonight, and then trim it down so that it matches up to the handle. I won't leave it sticking out like that.

here you can get a gist of how crappy the knife would look with nothing in front of the handle.

 

[T.A.DAVISON]

One of my favorite teachers in Bladeosophy has been know to say that one must become a knife finisher before one can call one's self a knife maker. I don't believe I will call myself a knife maker at any point in the near future, but I sure do want to finally finish these two.

Lorien,

One of my favorite makers says "If it was easy, girls would be doing it"

And one more thing he says IF you are going to make pocket knives is..... "You BETTER have the want too"

Keep at it I'm sure you will finish them and remember all knife makers started some were?
And it is very hard to make the perfect knife. And to do it? you better make enough of them, like doing it and have your game on.

Take care,

Todd


.

 

[sparrow75]

I like the shape of that handle

 

[Lorien]

Thanks Todd:thumbup:
And thank you sparrow75, the handle kind of looks like a piece of poo to me. But, it feels really comfortable so I'm good with it

 

[Lorien]

I should really be working, but I have this knife to finish...

trimmin my tsuba with my Goo leather trimmin knife;

she's starting to look kind of ok.

In the reflection, you get a clue about the next batch of pictures...

so...

 

[Lorien]

and now on to the epoxy. I'm using JB Weld, which is pretty amazing stuff.

I found a syringe which I'd usually use to bleed hydraulic brakes. Not any more! Worked great by the way and kept things pretty neat.

I mixed up more than I thought I'd need, and I was right. There was epoxy everywhere! I planned ahead, (for once) and had a cup of warm soapy water and a rag close at hand and the extra cleaned right on up.

I had to laugh when I saw how crooked my pin was. It doesn't matter and it will be unnoticeable once it's cut down and peened.

sort of almost looks like a knife!

 

[Lorien]

just as I was cleaning this little knife up for those last pictures, the big knife finally showed up!

It's been waiting to have holes drilled into the tang because I previously lacked the foresight to drill the holes while the steel was still soft enough.
4 drill bits later, and here we are;

 

[NickWheeler]

Where did it go??? lol

 

[Lorien]

Nick, man, where DIDN'T it go?
The important thing is, it's back, it has holes drilled in it and hopefully in the right places, and now I can finally finish it. After, what, a year?
Oy vey!

 

[Hmathews]

Lorien in my first post on this thread back in March I said "don't get in a hurry". I believe I can say that I don't think you have.

 

[Lorien]

Harry, I always enjoy reading the words you typed on your keyboard.
Would be great to meet you in person one day:thumbup:.

So, since my handle was at home and I took delivery of my blade at work, the moment of truth had to wait until the end of the day.

Will the holes line up?

Miraculously, everything lined up pretty good! I was pretty careful, and there definitely will be little gaps here and there

but I am happy to finally have everything all together. Except that dang fourth pin Where the *%#@ did it go? I'll harvest another tomorrow, from my 'fender parts box'.

 

[Lorien]

the little knife is just about finished. Blade is pinned to the handle and epoxied, leather tsuba is varnished and will need another coat or two before I'm totally happy with it.

Here are some more pics

I epoxied and pinned the handle on the big knife. I totally screwed it up and I'm not real happy about it I rushed it when I knew I should have take some more time. Good lesson learned there.
However, all is not lost and I believe I can still make a reasonably good knife out of it. But we'll see.

 

[Lorien]

Here's how I screwed up;

I really wanted to have three peened pins showing. Then I was going to wrap the mid part of the handle with hemp twine.

As you can see, the pins didn't make it all the way through and not only that, the wood cracked a bit from me trying to force them through.

And not only that, it snugged everything up so tight, that my ferrule is crooked.

The best part of not having a plan is that adaptation to unforeseen difficulties is expected. I do have a way to 'fix' all these problems, without starting all over again.

 

[Lorien]

I'm soldierin' on with this bad boy. Thank you Harry for your kindly advice and insight!