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Split down a piece of Randy Haas HHH Knives Ladder Damascus and am making 4 1 piece fixies, no handle scales. They will get ground, all edges rounded off spine and handle wise and then coated with some of Matt Zyla's clear ceramic coating. I learned my oven gets to 1500 in about 35 minutes, but needs to soak longer to get the whole oven up to temp. First attempt coated in ATP641 didn't harden fully, 2nd coat without the ATP didn't harden, but I had the blades closer to the door. 3rd time was the charm, thinner atp641 coat, longer soak before adding blades and I pushed the blades further into the oven and they came out nice! Cleaned them up on the contact wheel like a surface grinder up to a ceramic Trizact A30 and a quick acid etch!

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Finally played with the 12" contact wheel I got last summer! Bigger wider blade in .200" 80crv2 to see how far the grind would go up the thicker blade and playing with swedges. Then a Nitro V 1/8" thick blade, made it into a clip point and did a swedge, too. Brought them up to 400 felt backed finishing belts. So much easier to hollow grind vs flat grinding! LOL. Got into the groove pretty quickly.
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Taz said:
Split down a piece of Randy Haas HHH Knives Ladder Damascus and am making 4 1 piece fixies, no handle scales. They will get ground, all edges rounded off spine and handle wise and then coated with some of Matt Zyla's clear ceramic coating. I learned my oven gets to 1500 in about 35 minutes, but needs to soak longer to get the whole oven up to temp. First attempt coated in ATP641 didn't harden fully, 2nd coat without the ATP didn't harden, but I had the blades closer to the door. 3rd time was the charm, thinner atp641 coat, longer soak before adding blades and I pushed the blades further into the oven and they came out nice! Cleaned them up on the contact wheel like a surface grinder up to a ceramic Trizact A30 and a quick acid etch!

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Finally played with the 12" contact wheel I got last summer! Bigger wider blade in .200" 80crv2 to see how far the grind would go up the thicker blade and playing with swedges. Then a Nitro V 1/8" thick blade, made it into a clip point and did a swedge, too. Brought them up to 400 felt backed finishing belts. So much easier to hollow grind vs flat grinding! LOL. Got into the groove pretty quickly.
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Luv me some swedges!!!!!......👍👍👍
 
ScarFoot said:
I’ve been going down the polishing rabbit hole again… I think I’ve about got a new system worked out that goes against conventional knife polishing wisdom. I stopped hand sanding this one at 600 grit and it never touched the buffing wheel. I’m working on some different tooling that I think will make it better but for a first try it’s already probably the best mirror finish I’ve ever achieved. This knife is “S” ground and other than looking at the plunges you can barely tell it. It does freak out the focus on my camera though.
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Edited to talk through my method:

Well, the short answer is, I used power tools. There was a discussion about mirror polishing on here a few months ago and it got me thinking. I had some exposure to polished injection molds in my younger days because a lot of my friends were machinists. After polishing, the mold finishes were essentially flawless mirrors. Often on odd shapes which is even more impressive. With that in mind I started looking into how professional polishers do it. They pretty much use oscillating and rotary tools exclusively. What I’m starting to see is that’s not just about speed/efficiency. There is belief that the scratch patterns need to be erratic because it prevents the surface metal from “smearing” and developing ripples. Essentially it’s better to sand in every direction at the same time.

So, I made some leather and rubber backed sanding pads for my oscillating tool and sanded to 1500 grit with it. That took about 10 minutes. I also made some felt buffing pads for the oscillating tool and started using powdered abrasive slurries. The weird thing that happened at about 3000 grit was all of a sudden old belt and hand sanding marks started to show up. I was shocked by that. As far as I could tell under multiple light sources and magnification the 600 grit surface I started with was perfect. Anyway it only took a few minutes to touch those areas up. After that I went to diamond paste on small felt buffers on my Dremel tool (yes I know) just to see what happened. It worked fine but I want to work out something to cover more area. I’m looking at a mini die grinder that I found on a mold polishing website but it’s a bit pricey just to experiment with. I’m also looking at a vibrating edm stone holder.

When it was all said and done I ended up with a 100,000 grit finish that takes micro scratches if you touch it with your finger. I don’t personally have much use for mirror finishes but one afternoon of experimenting with this method all but retired my buffer. I guess I’ll still use it for handles.

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The picture above is a reflection of the smooth side of a piece of leather. The fine detail isn’t blurry at all. It is very slightly distorted because of the concave grind in the center of the blade. If you zoom in at the very top of the blade near the spine you can see where I’ve been rubbing it with my fingers and various cloths to see how badly they affect the surface. This blade has a differential heat treatment so the top of the blade is much softer than the rest which obviously makes it more susceptible to scratches. I haven’t finished the ricasso area near the plunge line at all.
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I think I followed you down the same rabbit hole.lolIMG_9553.jpeg
 
Rough ground the bevels and drilled the pin holes of these Magnacut blanks. Need to drill some weight reduction holes, and then send them down to Peter's Heat Treat. My oven only goes to 2000F, and I'd like to try the Magnacut at a little higher hardness than I'm capable of achieving, so off to the pro's they go. Hoping for something in the 62-64 range.
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evergreensSequoiaseucalyptusandOaks said:
Have these three on the bench and they've been there now, going on three weeks, maybe longer - there is no reasons for me to be in a hurry - do a little here and a little there, it's not a business it's a hobby and fortunately, never anything too urgent - going to probably start forging and fiddling with something new before even finishing any of these too - having diabetes and frequently tired more than not, basically get busy when the body and mind says go, and the energy's there - "smile"

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Beautiful..👌 What's the #'s on that top one please. OAL, BL etc!!! Thanx!
 
I’m suffering thru knife-making withdrawal syndrome or KMWS, for short. Wife has us on a week long vacation during spring break and I’m away from my shop, metal and paper to draw ideas. I’ve got one lone pocket knife that I’ve been fiddling with to keep me sane. Thought I had lost it earlier and was breaking out in a cold sweat til I realized it had fell down onto the floor board of our van here in Branson. Now it’s either back in my hand or pocket.
 
evergreensSequoiaseucalyptusandOaks said:
you are from Arkansas - only stories have about Arkansas is that my grandmother lived there for a time, on a farm where they grew corn - this was the same year Bonnie and Clyde were robbing banks and tearing up mortgages and stealing money the law was chasing them everywhere as everyone knows this story from the movies and newspapers and historical significance - anyways Bonnie and Clyde once took cover in the corn one time when they were running from the law - this happened sometime between 1932 and 1934 - I never knew what town she was staying at, her nephew, my third Cousin Louis Owens was a Professor at University of Davis on Native American Studies, wrote some books on Family Genealogy and Native American Novels of our Cherokee and Irish Roots in one of these books believe he told this story - My grandmother was born in Palestine Texas so why and what she was doing in Arkansas - never heard about - she had the maiden name of Brown - Betty Jean Brown - married my grandfather and became Betty Jean Valla - "Valla" Italian Name
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I’m honestly a transplant from Texas. Moved here when I was 15. Took up blade making after being encouraged by Jerry Fisk after making a knife for myself and a few friends. I went into the knife store in silver dollar city to get my fix but got to picking apart the “custom” knives on display in my mind and ended up leaving. My wife says I’m a little OCD.

Oh and Arkansas has some of the greatest knife makers per capita than almost any other area on the globe…or so I heard…😳
 
Nate’s Knives said:
I’m suffering thru knife-making withdrawal syndrome or KMWS, for short. Wife has us on a week long vacation during spring break and I’m away from my shop, metal and paper to draw ideas. I’ve got one lone pocket knife that I’ve been fiddling with to keep me sane. Thought I had lost it earlier and was breaking out in a cold sweat til I realized it had fell down onto the floor board of our van here in Branson. Now it’s either back in my hand or pocket.
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You gotta get away from it every once in a while. I have times I’ll go for a couple of weeks and never touch or think much about a knife unless I’m using one.
 
ScarFoot said:
You gotta get away from it every once in a while. I have times I’ll go for a couple of weeks and never touch or think much about a knife unless I’m using one.
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My problem is I have all these ideas and designs and they drive me crazy til I get them out and made. Then it’s on to the next one. It’s like an unending roller coaster…plus my wife says no knife talk…hard not to talk abt tolerances and steel and chamfering, etc etc.

I understand what you are saying, though…but I’m only at year 2 and working on year 3. How many years have you been at it making blades?
 
Nate’s Knives said:
My problem is I have all these ideas and designs and they drive me crazy til I get them out and made. Then it’s on to the next one. It’s like an unending roller coaster…plus my wife says no knife talk…hard not to talk abt tolerances and steel and chamfering, etc etc.

I understand what you are saying, though…but I’m only at year 2 and working on year 3. How many years have you been at it making blades?
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Only 5 or so making them. I’ve been around metal working, metallurgy, and fabrication in one way or another most of my life. I hadn’t given knife making any thought until my oldest son asked me if we could make one. It seemed easy enough (famous last words). I haven’t stopped since. I don’t worry about my output. I drive myself nearly insane over minute details. My local knife making buddies all give me a good natured hard time over how much time and effort I put into a knife I might end up selling for a couple hundred bucks. All that being said, It’s mainly stress relief for me. Over the last 8 or 10 months I’ve really only been focusing on various techniques for finishing, grinding, layout and just generally pushing myself to do everything better.
 
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