WIP Update, NEW PROGRESS!!

[oldwolf]

Hey Jonnymac,

Pinole is not too far away from me. If you go to the mountains you probably go right past my place. I'm right off I-80. If you need help or just want to talk knives, drop by.

Ken

 

[jonnymac44]

Hey Jonnymac,

Pinole is not too far away from me. If you go to the mountains you probably go right past my place. I'm right off I-80. If you need help or just want to talk knives, drop by.

Ken

Hi Ken,
My in-laws have a place in South Tahoe and we are up that way quite a bit. I went to Sac State years ago and am pretty familiar with the area. Where are you located? If I can get some free time, I would love to see your shop one of these days:thumbup:

Thanks for the offer,
Jonny

 

[oldwolf]

I'm in a little town called Alta. You go by it on the way up the hill. Gold Run, Dutch Flat and then Alta. Your welcome most anytime. Just pm or email me and I'll give you my Tel #.

Ken

 

[jonnymac44]

I'm in a little town called Alta. You go by it on the way up the hill. Gold Run, Dutch Flat and then Alta. Your welcome most anytime. Just pm or email me and I'll give you my Tel #.

Ken

Thanks Ken, will do:thumbup:

 

[jonnymac44]

Ok, I could be wrong.......and I hope you guys will tell me if I am, but I think I may have gotten my first blade finished enough for heat treat. It's the little two finger wharnie. Bevel is hand sanded to 400 and I left the rest with the raw look because I like the contrast. I wanted to focus on that because of the three blades I've ground so far this was the first one where my grind was straight enough that I didn't have to take the grind all the way up to the spine!! You can see in the last pic that I kind of botched the swedge a little bit, but it's all about learning, and this one is going to be just for me anyway. Any last words of advice or does this one look like it's ready to go to Pennsylvania??

Thanks!

 

[richard j]

it looks good to me. are you going to put your name on the blade?

 

[SBuzek]

countersink the holes in the handle and you will be ready to go.If you don't have a counter sink just use a drill bit about 2 sizes bigger than your hole.
You want to do this to lessen the chance of crackin.
Stan

 

[jonnymac44]

countersink the holes in the handle and you will be ready to go.If you don't have a counter sink just use a drill bit about 2 sizes bigger than your hole.
You want to do this to lessen the chance of crackin.
Stan

I do have a countersink, are you just talking about a very slight counter sinking? I will be using medium 3/16 corby bolts for the handle and they are already not what I would call snug in the holes, so I'm assuming I don't want to widen them out too much, right? I will be using epoxy as well, so it should set up pretty strong.

it looks good to me. are you going to put your name on the blade?

Thanks Richard, I would really like to mark this one and I have a design but haven't set myself up for etching yet so the first few may not get marks I guess I could use a sharpie and write "PROTOTYPE" across the blade! I've spent enough cash for a while on stuff for the shop in the last few months and haven't saved up enough for a personalizer yet, so......

 

[SBuzek]

yep just a touch maybe .015-.020.You really just need to break the square edge.
Stan

 

[jonnymac44]

yep just a touch maybe .015-.020.You really just need to break the square edge.
Stan

Ok, holes are countersunk, and I finished up pre HT work on the second of my three blades. Two down and one to go. Ironically, the only blade that's not ready to go out yet is the very first one I started

 

[james terrio]

You're really cookin!

Any and all holes should be countersunk just a touch, like Stan said, to relieve possible stress. It also gives a little extra surface for your epoxy to grab onto. Some folks bead-blast or drill shallow divots all over their tang for more epoxy-gripping-area.

I can't say enough good things about Peters' HT in PA. Keep in mind that they start with a basic fee and then charge by weight, so if you send several blades of the same type of steel at a time, it will come out cheaper per blade. Ask for cryo treatment. Let them know the steel name and Rc hardness you're looking for. I asked for 58-60ish and they all came back tested at 59-60. :thumbup:

I recently got a batch of CPM154 (very similar to the ATS-34 you mentioned) blades back from them and I'm really pleased. I took the edges right down to .015" on some of them. I was afraid that was way too thin but they all came back straight as can be.

They use some sort of fancy vacuum furnace process that leaves NO scale, just weird oxide colors from the heat. The oxide sands off easily. The upshot is, you can finish your blade just about as fine as you want before HT because you don't have to grind scale off after. My batch was 400, next time I'll go to a higher grit.

Bear in mind, this is referring to air-hardening steels. Oil-quenched steels like O1 and so on may not come out as clean.

 

[jonnymac44]

Thanks James!
That sounds really good. I knew I would save a little money by sending in several blades together, so even though I was excited I cooled my jets and didn't throw the first one I finished in the mail. I think I'll get these three done and send them in. I've seen the divot covered tangs and maybe I should give that a try as well.

Unfortunately I can't get much done today. I have a big qualification exam for a new job I'm trying to get and I'm supposed to be studying:grumpy: On the bright side, If I get this job it should mean more money for buying knifemaking supplies

You're really cookin!

Any and all holes should be countersunk just a touch, like Stan said, to relieve possible stress. It also gives a little extra surface for your epoxy to grab onto. Some folks bead-blast or drill shallow divots all over their tang for more epoxy-gripping-area.

I can't say enough good things about Peters' HT in PA. Keep in mind that they start with a basic fee and then charge by weight, so if you send several blades of the same type of steel at a time, it will come out cheaper per blade. Ask for cryo treatment. Let them know the steel name and Rc hardness you're looking for. I asked for 58-60ish and they all came back tested at 59-60. :thumbup:

I recently got a batch of CPM154 (very similar to the ATS-34 you mentioned) blades back from them and I'm really pleased. I took the edges right down to .015" on some of them. I was afraid that was way too thin but they all came back straight as can be.

They use some sort of fancy vacuum furnace process that leaves NO scale, just weird oxide colors from the heat. The oxide sands off easily. The upshot is, you can finish your blade just about as fine as you want before HT because you don't have to grind scale off after. My batch was 400, next time I'll go to a higher grit.

Bear in mind, this is referring to air-hardening steels. Oil-quenched steels like O1 and so on may not come out as clean.

 

[jonnymac44]

Well, to start...I realize this thread has transformed from a WIP on my very first attempt at making knives into more of a general WIP covering my experiences in general as a new knife maker. Probably better to have all of my WIP material and questions in one place anyway so I don't clutter up the forum with a bunch of different threads.:thumbup:

Anyway, the first three knives have been boxed up and are ready to go to HT at Peters in Penn. tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I profiled out two more blanks based on the medium sized of the first three I ground out. I still haven't perfected the design on that one yet, but as you can see in the first picture, the one that hasn't been ground yet has a much slimmer handle shape that I think I'm going to like the most. The final version of this knife will probably be closest to that one.

Also here are some pics of my latest grinding attempt. The first couple of knives I ground were going to be full thickness at the spine, but my first couple of tries were pretty tough and I ended up having to take the plunge all the way to the spine because my grinds were just too wavy and eneven. Going all the way to the top of the spine was the only way to hide that

Finally, on this most recent attempt, now that I've got some practice under my belt I was able to finish the initial bevel grind on this knife and was able to leave an unground section at the top like I wanted to from the start. Thanks to lots of good advice from you guys I was able to grind smooth and steady, keeping my lines nice and straight! I'm really pleased with how things are progressing. Thanks to all those who have encouraged and offered advice so far!

By the way, how do you guys protect the tip of the blade when grinding the bevel? So far my knives have all turned out to be a bit shorter on blade length than planned. During grinding I'll look up several times and notice that the tip of the blade is gone!, then I have to grind down the spine a bit to make a new tip.

More to come........

 

[james terrio]

By the way, how do you guys protect the tip of the blade when grinding the bevel?

Just leave a little extra "meat" on/around the tip when you profile it. It's very easy to make it shorter and touch-up the shape of the tip after the bevels are set the way you want. Same thing with bringing the spine down to the final shape you want; get it close, do your bevels based around the edge, then clean up the spine.

I do the same thing when tapering tangs. Leave a little extra length, so if I goof and round over the back end, a few seconds bringing it down to finished dimensions results in a nice clean "square" butt. Makes it look like I know what I'm doing

Don't forget that it's also possible to clean up those flats and get a crisp straight line, again AFTER the bevels are set. Just flat grind the whole tang and let the grind continue along the blade till you get the width of flat you want. It takes a bit more care with a tapered tang and/or blade, since the flats on the blade won't be in a straight plane wit the tang. But you get the idea.

Whether or not they're the same on both sides will tell you real quick if your bevels are even.

The masters can skip this stuff and get it right the first time, or so I'm told

 

[jonnymac44]

Thanks James!

I was hoping to do more grinding tonight but on a new machine, but no such luck Today I got good news and some BAD news!

I recently sold off a hefty chunk of my knife collection, mostly production pieces, in order to buy a new KMG. Came across this beauty here on the forums and ponied up. My wife called me today at work and said what the hell did you do now?!? A delivery truck had dropped off four very large and VERY heavy boxes. I couldn't wait to get home and check it all out, but unfortunately when I sorted through everything I found that the tension wheel and some hardware had been lost in transit!!! No fault of the seller's, one of the boxes looked like it had been dropped and tore a bit, probably gave it just enough room for the wheel to slip out. Thankfully Troy packed everything with lots of cushioning and all pieces that made it home are nice and shiny! Now I've got to give Rob a call and wait a few more days I guess, but man was I looking forward to playing with this thing tonight.

One more thing, if you notice the placement of the new KMG it's just to the right of the belt on my Grizzly. I'm working with limited space and it's really the only place I have to set up the new grinder, but should I be concerned about grinding dust from steel or handle materials getting into the KMG motor? I was thinking that I could make a dust cover for the KMG motor for when I'm using the Grizzly.

Just leave a little extra "meat" on/around the tip when you profile it. It's very easy to make it shorter and touch-up the shape of the tip after the bevels are set the way you want. Same thing with bringing the spine down to the final shape you want; get it close, do your bevels based around the edge, then clean up the spine.

I do the same thing when tapering tangs. Leave a little extra length, so if I goof and round over the back end, a few seconds bringing it down to finished dimensions results in a nice clean "square" butt. Makes it look like I know what I'm doing

Don't forget that it's also possible to clean up those flats and get a crisp straight line, again AFTER the bevels are set. Just flat grind the whole tang and let the grind continue along the blade till you get the width of flat you want. It takes a bit more care with a tapered tang and/or blade, since the flats on the blade won't be in a straight plane wit the tang. But you get the idea.

Whether or not they're the same on both sides will tell you real quick if your bevels are even.

The masters can skip this stuff and get it right the first time, or so I'm told

 

[jonnymac44]

Well, while waiting for the new Tracking wheel to show up from Beaumont after UPS lost the orig. in shipping, I've kept myself busy doing the rest of the set up process. Spent a little time putting together this quick dust collector that hooks up to the shop vac with a hepa filter for the time being. Hoping to be able to try it out soon.

 

[farki]

...... but should I be concerned about grinding dust from steel or handle materials getting into the KMG motor? I was thinking that I could make a dust cover for the KMG motor for when I'm using the Grizzly.

What are you talking about?

I see no dust over there!!

 

[jonnymac44]

What are you talking about?

I see no dust over there!!

Just got done cleaning up, I swear!!

 

[SBuzek]

That looks like a TEFC (totally enclosed fan cooled) motor,you dont' need a cover jut blow it off every once in a while,if you really do get any dust made
Stan

 

[BChou-E29]

Wow, that is the sweetest beginners setup I have ever seen