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

My ADD works in mysterious ways, so I always seem to have knives in various stages of completion. My work doesn't compare to a lot of the awesome stuff that has been posted here... but I figured I may as well add what I could to this thread. Here are some of the "notable" ones I've got going now:

This one I actually managed to complete. It was made using scraps from other knives, in downtime... waiting for my oven to heat up or epoxy to dry and all that. Built my etching machine and got stencils in, so it also got to be my first test dummy! This one is 15n20 with Maple from Mark at Burl Source.

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This next one is one that has been taking up most of my time. It's an 8" western style Gyuto in 52100 which my cousin commissioned for his girlfriend as a Christmas gift. I live in the city and haven't found proper/affordable shop space yet, so most of my work is done at my parent's 45 minutes away... thus, my shop time is very limited these days. Since I'm running pretty short on time at this point, and snow has turned the 45 minute drive into 1.5-2 hours... I brought some sandpaper and set up a little makeshift sanding station with some steel, micarta, and clamps, hanging off of my nightstand.

It's my largest blade yet, so it's been quite a challenge. Quite a few firsts in there for me as well. Here it is at a clean 800 grit. Note that I did leave some "meat" in the choil area and above the tip, as I'm still pretty new at this, so that is not the final profile :P

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Next one has been sitting on my bench for a while. "Tactical" blades and American tantos are not my thing, and I told myself I would never make them... but my best friend is in the Marines and requested one that happened to be both, so I had to make an exception (I tried to convince him otherwise). This one is a thick piece of CPM-154. As much as I dislike the knife, the compound grind and recurve have been a nice test of my abilities, and I'm fairly happy with how they turned out.

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The next one... I quite honestly have no idea where I'm going with it. I wanted to try my hand at a both forging and a hamon... and have this image of something halfway between tribal and Japanese style in my head. I have no idea where I'm going with it beyond this point, beyond copper fittings that I've mostly completed, so I'm kinda just hoping I have some sort of epiphany. Kind of thinking some dark wood with some hemp wrap mixed in. Maybe someone here has some ideas?

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And last but not least, I have this little bushcraft knife here. Some people on another website had expressed interest in knifemaking, so I offered to put together little free "kits" for them. I basically just profiled out some 1084 blades, drilled some holes, rough shaped and drilled some micarta handles, and supplied some corbys. The plan was for them to file out the bevels, and send them to me for cleanup and heat treat, then they'd put the handles on and shape them.

Unfortunately, of the 4 or 5 I sent out, only one of them did anything with it. Took some major cleanup, but I was happy he at least tried! The whole thing did cost me a bit of my own money, but I figure if I help even one guy get started, it'll be worthwhile. I just sent it off to him, so I'm hoping to see a completed knife soon :) I suppose this will be my first "collaboration," haha.

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Willie71 said:
Which one? :) The 15N20 kitchen knives will be file worked as well before HT this week.
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Haha, the bottom kitchen knife is looking great. ;)

Weebus- you're also doing good work. I'm not a compound grind kinda guy, for the most part, but that looks great.

I really like the handle on the first knife.

I think it's really great of you to do the bushcraft kits for your friends. It's a fun introduction to knifemaking that doesn't require a huge investment (from the person putting it together) in time and resources. :thumbup:
 
Ok, this one is completely shaped and ready for HT. I decided to try my hand at a old handle feature I saw in another forum recently.

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I know I'm slow, but this is the first one I made from blank steel. There were a lot of blanks to fill in. :D
 
Playing with the vacuum pump again. :)

This time I put in a wood spacer at the handle and under the blade, to see if I could get a final form right out of the bag instead of having to go back and reform after vacuum molding to make sure the edge doesn't rub on the way in and out.

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I finally got the correct stuff to seal the bag as well, now I don't have to create a tape monster every time I make a sheath.
 
Nice as always! I really like the rounded bottom side of the handle and wood / liner combo.
 
Good stuff guys! :thumbup:

Here is the latest in my shop.

Did the pre-HT grind on the Confessor. I don't grind very much so I loose a lot of muscle memory between blades. :( Quite a pain. :(



Wanted to try tapering the tang using the SG for the first time.

The way I did it is by putting 2 shims (15thou each) under the tang and grinding that side.
That worked ok. (don’t mind the overheating spots, pictures were taken after I was done)



Flipped the blade and used only 1 shim this time.



Didn't work so good. I have no idea why. It overheated badly. Something wrong with the whole clamping setup maybe? As you can see in this (blurry sorry) pic, it overheated to the point of actually bending the tang. :(



If anyone has an idea on how to fix this, I'd be very grateful.
 
Patrice,

I recently bought a surface grinder and I have been thinking about trying the same thing. This is how I have thought about doing it. First I would place one 15 thou (or whatever size) shim under the very end on one side, then grind that side. Then I would flip the blade and put two 15thou shims under it and grind. The first shim would bring the tang back level, and the second would raise it 15 thousandths. This is basically what you were doing, only reversed. I don't know if it would have made any difference or not. I'll give it a go on a blank this weekend and see.

-Adam
 
Thanks Adam, I was wondering if doing it the other way like you said would make a difference. Looking forward to your results. :thumbup:
 
Hall that is the same thing we do with making holsters. I take a wood dowl long enough to go between the sites and tape that to the gun. When vacuum sealing the holster it creates a channel for the sites to not catch on. Ofcourse this is only one method. Works really well though. Should work for your knives once you get the thickness required.
 
quint said:
Hall that is the same thing we do with making holsters. I take a wood dowl long enough to go between the sites and tape that to the gun. When vacuum sealing the holster it creates a channel for the sites to not catch on. Ofcourse this is only one method. Works really well though. Should work for your knives once you get the thickness required.
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It ended up working pretty well. I also cut out a thin slice of wood as a spacer under the blade, so the knife doesn't tilt as much under vacuum, and it gives the mold a bit of extra definition in the blade area.

This sheath was a horizontal/vertical carry for one of the three XHP EDCs I just sold on the exchange. I was going for a bit more even brown, but I dampened the leather too much before dying it, so I ended up with a bit more antiqued look. Oh well.


(lol not the greatest job ever lining the stuff up in the bag, got the important alignment correct at least)
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Holy cow Don. I know I commented on your handles already but *man* those are nuts. I think someone said they are stealth fighter like and I have to agree.

Not sure I've ever seen a taper like that either.

Outstanding. I'd love to slice up some fish just for the experience.
 
weebus said:
The next one... I quite honestly have no idea where I'm going with it. I wanted to try my hand at a both forging and a hamon... and have this image of something halfway between tribal and Japanese style in my head. I have no idea where I'm going with it beyond this point, beyond copper fittings that I've mostly completed, so I'm kinda just hoping I have some sort of epiphany. Kind of thinking some dark wood with some hemp wrap mixed in. Maybe someone here has some ideas?

View attachment 400835
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I realy like the look of this blade.
How about maple burl to lighten the package up a bit?
I like the top kitchen knife as well
 
Turned out pretty good Hall. Much easier then doing it all by hand IMHO.

One thing I think I mentioned before, once you have it vacuume sealed, I use a piece of cocobolo that I normally form the leather with and run it around the edges and what not. Can do it after you take it out but I usually like to do it while in the bag. I just go around the edges where I want more definition. Doesnt take but a minute or two literally. Then I take it out of the vacuum after about a couple of hours (not sure yet of the best time required to be in there) and I take the wood forming tool to it one more time really quick. This gives it the look of a nicely formed piece but only takes a few minutes tops.

For even color I have not found anything that works better then an airbrush (sure you already know that, I cant remember), it doesnt penetrate as much but the color is great. Not to mention you can get alot of cool effects with the airbrush as far as shading and having darker borders and what not.

I have scene some guys that will use the dauber or brush method to get full penetration of the dye then after its dry come back over with the airbrush to get the nice even texture/look but I have not really tried this yet. Usually dont need to.
 
HallHandmade said:
Patrice, what kind of passes are you taking on the surface grinder? Is it possible to hook up coolant?
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Very light passes, 2-3 thou at most. Thing is, the messed up clamping made it so it got deeper and deeper as it went towards the blade which is contrary to what should have happen and most likely responsible for the overheating. It should work without coolant and I am not really setup to add some anyway.
 
Forgot to add, sometimes if you oil the piece then let it sit overnight, then dye it you can get a more even dye coloring when using the brush or dauber method. I have had good results with this as well but usually want to get it dyed right away or am just impatient (whatever you wanna call it).

One more thing, Ive also mixed the pro oil dyes with turpentine which not sure if its the best for the leather and it does smell for a while. It seems to apply more evenly. If you try that test it on some scrap first. Usually you wanna keep fossil fuels away from leather however turpentine has been used for various leather working chores for a long time. I just dont like the smell all that much.
 
Well the last of my major equipment purchases just arrived. My 75 lb. Iron Kiss Hammer. Now I just got to figure out how to get it off the shipping crate and plumb it up.


 
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