Wheeler's Steel * Stuck in the metal with you

[Mike Quesenberry]

Quit teasing I gotta leave for the weekend at 10:00

 

[Lorien]

Lorien here; sorry for the delay folks. I just got a call from the post office so I had to run over and pick up a package from Sweden



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This sketch was an attempt at showing why I don't cut the guard shoulders in until I have the blade sanded up near its final grit. It's too easy to roll the corners/sharp edges of the guard shoulders if you do a bunch of hand sanding AFTER cutting the guard shoulders in. If you do roll them, the guard will not fit as well. It can create shadows that will make it look like a bad fit, even if it is a good fit. IMHO ;

I've gotta' sand the small burr off created by cutting the shoulders (and a little bit of oxides left over from differential tempering. This sketch is to show how important it is to lift up at the end of the sanding stroke, and not let the block roll that corner;

Sanding the burr and the oxides off the spine;

It's kind of hard to see, but there's a small burr created when cutting the guard shoulders in. That has to be sanded off, or it will interfere with the guard fit;

Sanding that burr off;

Here's my high tech method for figuring out how much guard material I'm going to need ;

Cutting the 416 stainless steel barstock with the horizontal bandsaw;

Here's what most 416 looks like when you buy it;

If there's ANYTHING in my shop that I would consider "cheating" it would have to be the surface grinder. ;

This is why, after one quick pass on the surface grinder, the 416 is this clean;

 

[Lorien]

Checking the thickness of the ricasso with a Starrett micrometer;

Going to the decimal chart to show where the approximate thickness of the blade is, compared to the size end mill I want to use to mill the slot. It's always better to use an end mill under the final size you want, and then mill the slot out to your desired dimension;

Just for kicks, I wrote out the simple math you have to do to figure out how much extra material I'll have to mill off in addition to the diameter of the end mill itself;

Here's my high tech guard lay-out technique! LOL You could get really into this, machine the 416 square, use and edge finder to make sure you mill the slot EXACTLY in the center of the material, etc. But I'm "making parts for parts." So I don't need to do all of that. I just need a slot that is a precise width, close to the length... and close to the center of the material;

Milling the slot;

I mill the handle side of the slot oversize, so that I don't have to fit the entire thickness of the guard to the blade. It looks quite a bit off center in this photo, but it was only off by 0.005" which is not going to matter as this progresses;

I flip the guard over, and mill the top side of the slot. Here I'm checking the dimension with a Starrett inside micrometer;

This is the slot as machined. Machining it this way, I have a 0.030" thick area to fit, rather than the entire 0.370" thick guard;

Here's one of my doo-dads. This is a block of micarta with a center post machined into it, and two rare earth magnets. I use a few of these. They allow me to hold the guard material securely, and make it easier to exert even pressure;

The magnets work very well! This is one of the many reasons I like 416 ss, it's magnetic ;

 

[Lorien]

Sanding the guard face on a granite surface plate;

Here's one of my guard files. It's a small file that's been ground down narrow, and it also has two "safe sides" where the teeth have been ground off;

A little bit of filing...

With a little care, you can make that machined slot have square corners;

This sketch is to show what can happen if you drive a thin guard on with a narrow driving tool. It really doesn't apply to this guard because it's so thick... but using a solid driving tool is a plus for any guard thickness;

This is what can happen with a thin guard... you can drive the center down, create an arch, and not get the sides in full contact with the guard shoulders;

Here's how I prefer to do drive a guard on;

Here's the tools I made/use for driving a guard on;

I like to use this heavy block to ensure I get even pressure on the guard as it's driven on. The block is machined from 1-1/8" square stock;

Driving the guard on. This shows why there is a slot in the driving tool, it allows the curved tang to go through the tool;

 

[Patrice Lemée]

See I would never have thought to leave so little thickness to fit.

This is priceless stuff Nick. I don't know how to thank you.

 

[irbailey]

This thread just gets better and better.:thumbup::thumbup:

One thing's for sure, if you buy a Nick Wheeler knife you clearly buy a knife that's been made with a LOT of attention to detail...in fact make that unbelievable attention to detail - impressive stuff.

Thanks for sharing this fellas, very interesting indeed. That adjustable hand sanding fixture is superb. After seeing that I think it's time my piece of 2" x 2" walnut and g-clamps were retired!

Looking forward to the next installment.....

Ian

 

[Lorien]

First fit... that little bump you can see is indicative of an area that needs to be filed down a bit;

Gotta drive the guard back off;

I'm trying to show where the guard is hitting. It's easy to see in person, but I'm not sure how well it will show in this picture;

It's getting closer... this is a lot of back and forth. Drive it on, take it off, file, sand.... repeat/repeat/repeat;

Closer yet;

And a little closer. There's a lot of stuff going on in between this photos, but it's just similar steps as those leading up to the first fit;

Even though it looked pretty good from most angles, there was a TINY bit of shadow at the corner where the guard meets the blade. Hold it up to the high output light, and the gap slaps you in the face;

Took it back off, did a little filing/sanding... and there it's seated tight, no more gap. ;

 

[Mike Quesenberry]

Nick, the bump on the face of the guard on post #207 is caused by what? I get those every now and then. Is it a burr left on the tang, cause I sure don't feel or see it. I thought it might be caused from driving the guard on a little crooked in the initial drive. Just wondering , keep up the great work.

 

[NickWheeler]

I tried taking some pics showing the guard fit after I was happy with it, but I had to dump the photos from the memory stick. And I decided grabbing 2 hours of sleep was a pretty good idea too. Whewe! Good as new! (which wasn't that good, LMAO! ).

Mike, I have a theory, but I could be wrong. As you know the end mill leaves the slot with round ends. I mill that undersize, so that I HAVE to do some filing on the ends of the slot so the guard will go back up to the same spot every time.

I file the ends of the slot, then do that first trial fit, and ALWAYS have a little that needs to be filed off. Which is the area I circled in this pic. I THINK that the little bumps are simply some of that extra guard material being displaced (it's gotta go somewhere). I tried to get a good picture of it (and wasn't successful) but there were 4 bumps around the guard that all corresponded with those areas that needed to be filed down.

Those areas can be a real issue with a differentially hardened blade, because if the ricasso is really soft on such a blade, the guard material will keep its shape, and displace the blade steel instead!!! And that's a real bugger to fix.

 

[Matthew Gregory]

The more I peruse this thread, the more I'm convinced that only a robot could maintain this type of work ethic and attention to detail.

...hhhmmm. I wonder what kind of robot you'd be...

 

[Robert Dark]

All of these "seemingly" little "file-and-check" - "sand-and-check" - "measure-and-measure-again" techniques are what distinguishes Nick's knives from mine and many others.

Attention to detail creates each piece that stands far above most that I have seen.

Keep it up Nick. You do some great work.

Robert

 

[st8yd]

The more I peruse this thread, the more I'm convinced that only a robot could maintain this type of work ethic and attention to detail.

...hhhmmm. I wonder what kind of robot you'd be...

I don't know about robot, but I don't see how he gets anything done for keeping the shop so clean. :thumbup:

 

[Lorien]

After dicking around with it, I got it to where I was happy with the fit. I distinctly remember the days when I was shooting for no gaps in the fit, but as you get more practice in the goal turns into wanting absolutely no black lines or shadows in the fit up. I'm not sure how well it shows in the pic, but this one is tight as a drum and I'm pretty happy with it;

Now this is a million dollar trick that Tim Hancock and Mike Vagnino taught me, and I'm pretty sure (don't hold me to it) that Buster Warenski told Tim about it. I'm not trying to spread rumor or misinformation, just give credit where it's due ;

Okay, so that last pic didn't make sense right? Well I hope this one will. When you're dealing with precision ground surfaces that are parallel, and centerlines for lay-out and reference... you don't want your guard to be off of square. If you hold a mirror flat (and firmly) on top of the guard, then eye down the spine of the blade--- If the guard is square to the blade, then the reflection of the spine will be perfectly in line with itself. If the guard is canted, the reflection will kick off to the high side. Yay... this one is square ;

Time to fit up some spacer material- thin copper and black G10 from my friends at Alpha Knife Supply. ;

This need to fit well, but there's no super precision required here, so I just lay-out the lines with a ruler and the tang width/thickness as a guide;

Got our lines all drawn in;

So I have fought, and fought, and fought with how to cut and slot spacer material. Most of it will tear the teeth off of a bandsaw, and getting the slot in the center can be a ROYAL pain. I've tried things like various dremel bits, drill bits, fixturing the pieces and machining the slot, etc. Then I bought this el-cheap-O jeweler's saw off of ebay for like $20 with the blades. It is like a miracle for cutting spacers!!!

Drill a quick pilot hole in the corner of where you want the slot to be;

Sawing out the hole. Of course you have to take one end of the saw blade out of its clamp and feed it through the hole, then clamp it back down before you can saw anything. It cuts this stuff like it's butter;

Here are the slots sawn out... it took me far longer to take these pictures than it did to saw these out. A few light passes with a file and they'll be golden;

 

[Lorien]

Marking stuff like black G10 for cutting can be an exercise in frustration. Here's my super simple fix--- slap some brown paper tape on it. Then use the copper spacer as a pattern;

Little bit of filing to true up the slots;

Running the spacers over the rotary platen real quick to take off the burrs;

Quick sand on the granite surface plate to make sure the spacers are flat;

 

[NickWheeler]

Uh oh... here come the robot jokes! :foot:

I would like to add, for someone that is usually quite particular about spelling and typos, I sure have done a botched up job on the captions I've sent along to Lorien!!!

Another thing: one of my buddies was giving me a hard time about taking SOOOOOOO MAAAAAANNNNNYYYY pictures. Something along the lines of, "I'm surprised you didn't take pictures of you eating lunch and taking a leak. "

Like I'm wasting people's time by showing all these little silly things that EVERY knife maker does in his or her shop. Which really surprised me, because that's actually part of the idea here!

I wanted to show that custom knives don't just happen. You don't wrinkle your nose or hit a magic button and have a knife.... I don't want people to look at this thread and think I'm trying to act like I'm special because I do all these things. I want people to look at this thread and realize that ALL CUSTOM KNIVES ARE SPECIAL because we all do a ton of tiny/monotonous/frustrating things in order to end up with a knife to send to someone or have on our table at a show.

If anything I'm kind of opening up the flood gates by showing how slow I am and how I worry about things that really probably are not worth worrying about.


So if you had been looking at this and thinking like my buddy Joe (who is not a knife maker by the way), then please try to take a look at it with what I just wrote in mind. Thank you very much

 

[Lorien]

can't make everyone happy my friend, but you can always bet that the unhappy folk will have their say while the happy folk quietly enjoy your effort here.
Keep up the good work, botched captions and all!
:thumbup:

 

[stickfigureforge]

The only problem I've had with this thread thus far is that it's really helped me to realize that I don't, and never really did, have the first damn clue as to what the hell I'm doing. But that's a great thing, because now I have all of these great ideas and methods to go off of and use to only get better. And holy shit, it's free! This is a great thread, and that is beyond magnificent work.

Hat's off.

 

[h2ostx]

Too Many Pictures?!?!?!????

You can't have too many pictures! I'm loving this Nick.

THANKS so much for posting such a detailed pictorial of this knife being created. I'm learning so much about how to get things square and a tight fit.

Great job! I can't wait to see this finished.

Kelly

 

[Mike Turner]

Nick I love all the pictures and have picked up a few tricks and will be making some of your jigs.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

 

[mike deibert]

Nick,
Thanks so much for taking the time to post this WIP. It takes a lot of effort to take such great pics, write captions and then post everything not to mention the greater task of keeping your mind on the knife itself. I'm loving this whole project and am learning a lot as well.

Lorien,
What in the world are you going to do with all these cool knives? Does your wife know what you're up to? I'd like to see a pic of your latest collection when you get them all in one place! Lovin' it.

Mike