WIP-Integral Hunter by Ray Kirk MS

Gary Mulkey

Gary Mulkey

Joined
May 14, 2001
Messages
1,414
I recently had the pleasure of spending some time with Ray Kirk MS in his shop in Oklahoma. During my visit he showed me his process of making integral hunters and thought that you may be interested. [This one had a full tang but he has dies for stick tangs as well.]

Some shots of his shop in Tahlequah:

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[Note V-8 powered roller mill in foreground]

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He started with some 1/2" round bar of 52100. Here is the first press using his custom dies:

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A close-up of the dies:

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Forging the blade & tang:

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Using second set of dies to align blade & tang:

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A close-up of the dies:

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Profiling the blade:

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Removing scale w/ angle grinder:

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Grinding blade w/ small wheel attachment:

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I wasn't with Ray long enough to see this one to completion but here is one made the same way:

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Ray certainly has the integral thing down and said that he would be willing to build others a set of dies if they wanted to get started. Hope you enjoyed the WIP as much as I did my time in his shop.

Gary
 
That was my thought as well. :) I guess that we all have our own little nitche with knifemaking and since he has almost a mile of 52100 round laying around his shop, he found a way of using it to it's best advantage.

Gary
 
Nice pictures, Gary.......I got one of those from Ray when we were at the ABS Hammer-In here in Topeka last fall.

It's a superb integral and exceedingly well done....mine's 52-100 and scalpel-sharp. I'll get some pictures of it and post them later.
 
Nice WIP. I made a set of the straightening dies exactly like yours several years ago and they make a huge difference. Think about modifying them so that they also make the bolster evenly distributed side-to-side.

-M
 
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