WIP, Tactical Dagger, 5/32" S35VN & G10

[HallHandmade]

This is a commission for a good friend who is a firefighter. He wants a heavy duty fixed blade for self defense and rescue. His requirements were full tang or through tang, and he absolutely insisted on the fuller, which I will be doing with a 3/16" carbide ball mill. The handle will be clamshell construction fully contoured black G10, with the tip of the tang protruding as a glassbreaker. He would like the dagger blacked out, but I'm not sure how I'm going to approach that yet.

This will be done on the 10" wheel, so the bevel will be a slightly hollow scandi type grind. He wanted the dagger to be narrow but thick, and insisted on the fuller, so this is the best compromise I've come up with for his wishes:

This isn't really my personal style, but I still like some tactical knives for what they are, and look forward to completing this project.

 

[Perrin]

That looks challenging. Good luck.

 

[TacticallySharpBlade]

Nice concept. Looking forward to the finished piece.

 

[AVigil]

If that is California use you might want to check the legalities of "Daggers" would not want you or your client to get in trouble.

 

[HallHandmade]

If that is California use you might want to check the legalities of "Daggers" would not want you or your client to get in trouble.

I told him I was only comfortable with sharpening one side, at least until I knew for sure that it was legal. According to my father in law (20 yrs county sheriff) it is legal to carry just about any fixed blade, double edged or not, as long as it is not concealed in any way. He did mention that some counties have additional regulations.

Definitely better to err on the side of caution. Don't want any customers or myself in trouble.


Milled out the decorative fullers today. Not a huge fan, but I suppose they can look ok sometimes.

 

[HallHandmade]

Got the blade ground and sending for HT tomorrow with my other shipments, so this one is on hold for about a week. I think I did pretty well for my first dagger, not surprisingly I have tiny bit of tuning to do at the tip. I decided not to fiddle with it any more, and leave for hand finishing. Its only a few thou on one side so I didn't want to risk a goof to try and machine finish it.

 

[jwesthurl]

Love it! Those grinds look perfect. I can't wait to see this one finished.

 

[FixedFiend]

super clean, cant wait to see it done. Do you plan on giving it a cerakote of some sort or maybe an acid wash?

 

[HallHandmade]

Going to be finishing the dagger this weekend. I still need to decide on blade coating though.


I scribed the scales using the height gauge, to guide me while I mill the tang pockets.

 

[Alicia LeCroix]

Oooooo i like this WIP Alot Very Much looking forward to the finished Product

 

[HallHandmade]

Thanks!

This post is going to be a picture dump, the dagger is basically finished besides a couple small bits.

Milling the tang pocket with a carbide end mill.

Checking fit

After the picture above, I clamped the tang into the pocket and drilled the screw holes to match. Then I tacked the scales together with quickset epoxy while on the dagger, slid the tang out, and sanded/polished all of the chamfers on the front and rear of the scales.

I took an old drill and reground it to cut flat-bottom holes (also called a counterbore).

I machined some threaded spacers from brass (will probably remake in stainless), and did initial assembly. Then I cut the rough contour out on the bandsaw, and rough sanded it with a sanding drum (wish I had small radius wheels for KMG, would be so nice).

I sanded in the "pinches" on the handle on the KMG, then rounded out the handle by hand sanding with strips.

I do the flats by clamping the blade to my bench. This is after middle grits, around 320, testing balance and overall feel.

After final finishing on the scales, I disassemble to clean the parts.

After a gentle buff (will expose the fibers if you buff too much), I oiled and waxed the handle, to bring it out to a medium satin finish.

Showing the handle contour. The customer requested a slim handle.

All that is left is to beadblast the blade, and either duracoat it, or cerakote, something of that sort. I also will be regrinding the glassbreaker, but I'm not sure how yet. I'm thinking of matching it to the tip, just a bit blunter. I think it would probably look pretty nice.

 

[leifjl]

Very nice! I like the slim look.

 

[Alicia LeCroix]

Love it

 

[HallHandmade]

Thanks for the comments.

I found a friend with some black duracoat, but I have to go pick up an airbrush. I need one anyways, I suppose

I'm hoping to have this thing totally wrapped by the end of the week, have to etch the maker's mark, go borrow a friend's shop to beadblast, and then do the black coating. Oh, and probably regrind the glassbreaker as I mentioned above.

 

[mccandmatt]

That's damn nice man!

 

[chad2]

Wow that is an awesome dagger man

 

[HallHandmade]

I just finished this guy up and delivered it to the customer. Unfortunately we've had bad weather here for a few days, so I wasn't able to get final photos on this one

Still pretty happy with how it turned out, a lot of firsts for me on this one. One of the edges is false, and I ground off the duracoat on the ricasso edge so that the customer could have an extra visual reference.