Uh, oh! Not a knife, yet.

[Will Leavitt]

Lorien, instead of a drawing of a ninja turtle on there how about doing a stylized tortoise shell look? you know how the plates of a shell look?

 

[Keith Montgomery]

I'm impressed with what I've seen so far.

 

[atakach]

Lorien, instead of a drawing of a ninja turtle on there how about doing a stylized tortoise shell look? you know how the plates of a shell look?

i like that idea, then maybe blue it, and buff off leaving the pattern nice and dark, or just the opposite, leave the lines shiney, and the rest blued

 

[Hmathews]

Lorien, I sent you a pvt. message.

 

[Lorien]

Thanks Harry:thumbup: You're a helluva guy!

 

[Will Leavitt]

Uh ohhhh Harry is involved.. there's some serious carving afoot... err aknife.

 

[Lorien]

I have gotten so much good advice that my head is reeling with it all!
I can't wait to finish these two knives so I can start the next two.

 

[dlfleetw]

So is the heat treating done yet? How about now? Now?

Can't wait to see this piece complete.

I've been filing on the file I got over the week (6+ hours I think now) and now I think I am down to getting all those damn scratch marks out from where I wasn't keeping the file clean enough.

Might have to stick some pictures up. Now I have to find another reason to start a fire to anneal some more files so I have more to practice on. O and find a belt sander that won't make my wallet cry.

 

[Lorien]

A couple of filing tips:
Your grind line should follow the cutting edge. That way you maintain the same bevel/angle all the way from the ricasso to the tip. A change of angle becomes very visible when the blade is polished. I scribe this line into the steel with a scriber. Take care not to go over this line, it is difficult and time consuming to correct.

I use a chainsaw file for setting the end of the grind at the ricasso. Unlike the rattail files, it is straight and gives you an even radius. This generally looks better, and will make for easy sanding. I file this groove to about 90% depth while the blade is still flat. This gives you a defined starting point for the grind line. I blend in the remaining 10 % while filing the flats. This will prevent the little dip that that can result when cleaning up this area.

When filing the actual "grind" file the entire blade length in one direction. Place a light perpendicular to the file marks, this will make the file marks show up white. To ensure your file work is flat, file the entire blade in the opposite direction, your file marks now show up dark. This will show you any areas that may need correcting.

Until you are experienced enough to “feel” what your file is doing, lay the file down on the area you are filing and make sure it is laying flat. This will help to maintain the correct angle. This is a little difficult to describe, hope it makes sense.

Filing from left to right will remove material faster, but results in coarse file marks. Always finish filing from right to left. Make sure that all the final file marks run in the same direction, meaning that all previous file marks have been removed. It is a good idea to do this for all the work, since random file marks make it difficult to determine what you are actually removing. It will also make the initial sanding much easier, since you will only have to sand in one direction to ensure all file marks have been removed.
Wolfgang

this one is a good one.

 

[MValborg]

this one is gettin good!

 

[Lorien]

Well, beyond thinking about the knives and ruminating on some great nuggetz of advice, I learned how to do a multiple quotation post. No physical work done to the knife, lots of bike repairs though...
I want to be well rounded in my skillset, (get it, DH?)

Cruel? Perhaps... not for me to judge.

Lorien, if you take that file and chunk of stock and make a decent blade out of it, I promise you won't regret it. You will remember the sore muscles and the goofs you WILL make and you'll learn a lot about blade geometry once you get it finished and heat-treated and beat the dickens out of it. That, friend, counts as "paying your dues", even if you never attempt another project.

If you decide that kind of work isn't for you, that's fine too! If everybody made their own, where would us knifemakers be?

I'd really really really really make a sen. Did I mention making a sen?

Have fun. Keep that one sell the 20th you make

Loren one good thing about making a knife this way, especially your first knife, the mistakes you make are going to be slow ones. Gives you more time to recognize them and get them corrected. Have fun, don't get in a hurry.

Lorien, here's a free tip for you. You'll go through fewer hacksaw blades and files if you remove that gray stuff on the outside of the bar first. If you have an angle grinder, that works great, or you can soak it in acid overnight.

On the other hand, if you want to enjoy learning all the fine points yourself, forget I said anything.

I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Canadian hacksaw resistant

Phillip.... shouldn't the new guy learn what that "funny black stuff on the steel" is on his own?

Lorien, vinegar works also if you don't have acid.

Be careful Lorien, this stuff is very addicting

if you use the draw file method, be careful when you start to get an edge so you dont slice your finger. to keep from getting cut, cut a slot in a small block of wood and fasten it to the file between your hand and the edge. use chalk to keep the filings from loading the file up.

 

[Lorien]

The real value in this thread is in the input its garnered. I am more proud of the good stuff this thread has spawned than I am of the knife I'm trying to make. I am humbled by the generosity shown all around, thanks!

No wonder your shoulders hurt! That freaking vise is pretty high. My vise is a little over waist high. If I want to raise it I actually have 2 barstools of different heights that I sit in depending on how I want the vise positioned.

I've got some 2000x paper for the final finish if you want me to send you some.

Lorien, as per our conversation, here are some pic's of the home made scribing gage.The body is 3/8" thick and measures about 3/4" X2". I simply drilled and tapped for set screws for adjusting and tightning the bar and scribing pin. The scribe is an old sharpened dental burr, but a sharpened drill bit will work. The round body piece is drilled for the adjusting bar, I simply switch the bar and screws to this one for scribing in tight curves, which can not be followed with the rectangular body. Steel will work best, but brass would do as well, would just not wear as well.
Wolfgang

Yep, 1084 is just full of eutectoids, that's what makes it a great steel. Now to take full effect of the euctectoids you need a special molecule smooshing hammer (please pardon the technical jargon and I just so happen to have some molecule smooshing hammers for sale). Using the special hammer to break the eutecctoids into smaller molecules is the key to getting a sharp edge.

Sorry....

Joe, you missed my "tang stretcher" comment in post #94.

The ninja monkeys are on strike. They're not happy with me hitting metal poles with their almost completed work I'm having a crate of bananas delivered tomorrow.

Looking great.

Hey Ding Dong, you better not send that to me for heat treat with a handle glued on it!!!

It's coming along really well Lorien

(glad you didn't need any guard shoulders filed in.... ROFLMFAO ).


If you decide to put fullers in it, you can rough it in with a dremel tool, but to get them really consistent and smooth... You'll need to make a tool to clean them up. It's a lot like the sen that Will mentioned. You'll want a HSS square ground tool bit that's the same width as the fuller you want.

You can get HSS square tool bits from just about any tooling supplier (MSC, Enco, Travers, etc.)

You'll have to grind the end of it on a bench grinder to the radius you want your fuller to be.

Rig it up like an edge scribe so that you can drag it along the spine, or a fixtured plate, or some such thing, and get a repeatable motion.

The HSS will cut into soft 1084 like butter.

maybe so easy even "monkeys" can do it

 

[NickWheeler]

Lorien's blades arrived, and they really are as nice as they look in his pics!

Oddly smaller than I envisioned though. The camp knife blade is only 3 inches long!!!



I've had thirteen hour days at school this week so far, but I'm going to get them ready and headed back to Canada asap.

 

[Will Leavitt]

Soooooo a Nick Whirler ASAP is when? Late May?

Edited because I'm wondering if people knew my comment about breaking eutectoids into smaller molecules was a joke. I forgot to put the after the sentence. If you didn't know it was a joke I'm selling my special molecule smooshing hammers at a good price

 

[Lorien]

Oddly smaller than I envisioned though. The camp knife blade is only 3 inches long!!!



I've had thirteen hour days at school this week so far, but I'm going to get them ready and headed back to Canada asap.

Yes, I'm that small

Good luck with the schoolin, you must be gettin near done for the year eh?
Finals?:barf:

 

[Lorien]

I've done a little research and I've decided to etch the ferrule. When I was in school, I took several printmaking courses and did lots of intaglio and lithograph printing. It's really fun, negative space type stuff, and my cold feet over embellishing the ferrule have warmed up some.

This is a bit of a relief, because I was thinking I was going to carve or engrave something, and my Dremel is a little unwieldy for that.

Once I am able to start scribing accurately, and I have a bit of ferric chloride or hydrochloric acid and some printing ground, I am going to screw around with a piece of dummy steel and dial in the technique.

I carry the ferrule in my pocket all the time, pulling it out from time to time and just generally hoping that some creativity will flow between it and me. I still haven't settled on what is going to go on there, but I've run the gamut from native to celtic art, to text to stylistic patterns. With etching, a topographical contour style pattern might be really neat, but I'll have to experiment a bit and see if what I have in mind can become reality.

At any rate, I keep hitting up that ferrule with files and paper, and it's starting to look very nice as it is.

If you folks like, I'll post some pics of my dummy etching. I'm hoping tomorrow to get the stuff I need to make this happen and maybe get some photos up next week.


P.S. I picked up some toilet cleaner today, with about 23% hydrochloric acid. The pure heavy duty stuff is really nasty and fumy, so I'm expecting that it just might be a time sacrifice to get the etch I want. I need to find a ground, and the closest I could find is roofing tar. I figure I might be able to cut it with methyl hydrate to get it to a useful consistency. But I don't know, it would be so much easier to get the right stuff, it's just not available locally

 

[Will Leavitt]

Keep that ferrule in the other pocket from the EDK

 

[Lorien]

on paper, I have a good idea of where I want to go. Here are some ideas.
I'm going to prepare a dummy piece of steel and start experimenting!

 

[atakach]

:thumbup:i like the bottom drAWING , but it will take some serious flying of the freak flag to pull it off.........lol

may the force be with you:thumbup:

 

[Lorien]

my freak flag is always flying high, Andrew

I think I will need The ForceTM to get this knife completed the way I want. I'm putting myself under the gun a bit, too. I don't want this to drag on forever, I'm just itching to get another project underway. I don't expect perfection on this knife, but I do want to make it to the best of my current abilities. The whole point of making it is to develop my eye, hand and knowledge, so that the next project will be better and fuller.

And, I've decided to take your advice and choose door #3. Amorphous shapes- gotta love em! And, I can make them from roofing tar!