What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

Today I started shaping the handles of this damascus mini cleaver, made my 2nd ever leather sheath, put a hair shaving edge on it, and I am trying my first ever CA finish. This cleaver has been a pain in the but since I started it. I didn't have enough damascus to do a full exposed tang so this is a half hidden tang. The top is exposed to show off filework and the bottom is covered with bolsters and a one piece handle. It took a lot of trial and error but it is coming out half way decent.
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Just found out Lisa ordered some Hitachi blue from Aldo :D cant wait to go a round with that stuff..:thumbup:
 
Finished this cleaver and made a kydex sheath for it. My second sheath out of it and I love how easy it is to work with.
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I’m going to try and be an active member here. With that here is what’s going on in my shop.

I started making knives in 2000/2001 and by 2003 we moved to Montana and I found some real shop space. However later that year I got derailed and either sold it or packed it up. In Dec 2014 I decided to restart. So here I am trying to make it work out of my garage. My biggest hurdle is it being winter and trying to park two cars in a two car garage. So with some very tight restrictions on space here is my current shop.

I packed up my reloading equipment so I could unpack and mount my grinder, one of my buffers and get my kiln up and running.

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Next was purchase a new 15” drill press so I could use my x/y vise and not have a smaller drill press come out of square due to weight. Then add some of the vacuum accessories I had stored and built a new Air Filtration box.

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I figured out a way to get my cooling tank up and running in a temporary way, so I can grind and keep things cool. I have a small pond pump hooked in a 5 gallon bucket and an in line filter to keep metal grindings out of the pump so I can have cool water run over my parts.

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Finally the best part I got my shop stereo out of storage and got it hooked up so I have loud music again. Now I can hear music while I grind, yippee.

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While I was trying to get a shop up and running I also had 3 knife orders to get out for Christmas.

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Amboyna
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Elk
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Desert Ironwood
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Elk
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I got myself a new HF portable band saw for Christmas and built a stand for it. The stand was super easy to build based on some threads and pics I found on here and is made with a couple of scrap 1x1s, a piece of mild steel and a piece of plywood I had laying around. It's rock solid and 1000x better than cutting everything by hand like I've been doing. The work rest is made from a scrap piece of wood laminate flooring JB Welded to the small work rest that came with the saw. Surprisingly this stuff makes a great work rest. It's very hard and smooth on top but very easy to cut and work with(and I've got a whole case of the stuff the old home owners left here that I can use). This was the best $70 I've spent in a while. I'm not expecting this thing to last a lifetime but it gets the job done and saves a bunch of time and energy. I did go ahead and get good blades based on everything I read that was most important. Only downside is that the saw is incredibly loud. Not sure if that's common for all portable band saws or just this model.
 
Here are a few knives I've finished up recently:

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This is a little EDC I made for myself. I cut the profile out last year but just got around to finishing it. It was patterned after a small folder I saw that I liked and the blade is 1/8" O1 and handle is ebony.

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My first attempt to make a somewhat antiqued finish on a knife. I did a little bit of finishing work after this pic. 1/8" O1 steel, cold blue and bleach finish, eucalyptus with red and black liners on the handle. This was mainly just a test knife I was going to keep(hence the eucalyptus wood handle) but me nephew really liked it so I gave it to him for Christmas.
 
First one off the bench for 2015

A nice skinner in 1/8" AEB-L with a Rockwell of 60.

Blade full flat grind and is 4" to the plunge and 1.25" wide at the ricasso. It has a nice machine satin finish.

Handle is Gabon Ebony with red and black liners and has a nice aggressive tapered tang.
I made the Loveless bolts for the handle with Nickle Silver and brass bolts.

OAL is 8.75"

Thanks for looking

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Three kitchen cleavers in process, already hardened at 58RC, Bohler N695 (440C)

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Pablo
 
AVigil said:
First one off the bench for 2015

A nice skinner in 1/8" AEB-L with a Rockwell of 60.

Blade full flat grind and is 4" to the plunge and 1.25" wide at the ricasso. It has a nice machine satin finish.

Handle is Gabon Ebony with red and black liners and has a nice aggressive tapered tang.
I made the Loveless bolts for the handle with Nickle Silver and brass bolts.

OAL is 8.75"

Thanks for looking

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Click to expand...

Love the look of the tapered tang.
 
Finished up this 52100 Bolo chopper for a customer recently. Its a complete monster. Came out a little under 3/16th thick with a 13.5 inch blade.

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aslink, I just caught a look at your shop tools and work. I believe your folder work will go well. I hope to be able to help guide you all the way through. Frank.
 
well as usual my own shop is rather more like my kitchen...it is in fact! anyway here is whats going on in my kitchen lol




dry run after roughing the scales, I will assemble the knife some time in the next few weeks hopefully!
 
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