Work in Progress............heavy on pics.

[tntbegg]

We wanted to share a wip, and was told this is the place we should do it. I know that some of you are familiar with Todd's work, but there are a whole lot of you who are not! So, hopefully this thread will give you a little peak into our shop, and how Todd made this particular knife....the Yautja.

This particular knife was built in five days...Todd was given 120hrs from start to finish which includes posting final pics, to build a knife. Luckily for Todd, I am his shop lackey so I took the pics and posted for him, allowing him to maximize his time in the shop. The materials to be used were limited to the following: stainless, carbon, Damascus if forged in alloted time by maker, wood of choice, g10 any color,micartas or Titanium. That is it.

I tend to post a lot of detailed shots, I try to make the reader feel like they are in the shop with Todd, so hopefully you will enjoy and learn.

The first pics are of the materials we started with, cpm 154, D-2, and Ironwood.
We have a cnc, and Todd spent about 8 hrs programming the geometry and tool paths.This knife required six programs, and five fixtures that Todd had to make specifically for this knife, before he could start making chips fly.

 

[tntbegg]

The two primary blades are machined out and then Todd is preparing to mill down the thickness of the mid blade, the back bone of the knife.

 

[tntbegg]

Profiling the mid blade and milling out the weight reducing pockets.

 

[tntbegg]

Here Todd is,milling down the thickness of the Ironwood on the Bridgeport mill.

 

[tntbegg]

Now he is machining the Ironwood handle inlays, and the handle frames.

This is it for day one, about 12 hrs of actual shop time, this does not include the programming hours. Tune in tomorrow for day two.

 

[Joss]

Tanya - thanks for this.

If I may give a small piece of feedback, it would be much easier if you uploaded those pictures on a separate server and then link to them directly in the message. The way it is we have to click on each pic one after the other to open them, and that's slow and tedious.

 

[tntbegg]

Joss, I would be happy to do that, but alas....I dont know how! I tried to do a search here..but the server keepscoming up overloaded or something?

 

[Joss]

Tanya,

The server is struggling right now, not sure why.

The way it works is that you first upload your pic to a server - maybe a folder on the server used for Todd's site, but there are also some free services where you can upload your pic.

Then each picture will have a URL address - e.g.: http://servername.com/foldername/photo1.jpg

Then you can directly embed the photo in your message by surrounding the URL with the relevant tags, e.g.:
[img]http://servername.com/foldername/photo1.jpg
[/img].

That would show the image directly in the post, full size.

 

[tntbegg]

I know I am showing a lack of computer savvy here...sorry!!

how about this:http://picasaweb.google.com/tntbegg/Fixed08BuildoffD1

 

[Joss]

Tanya,

No problem. This will not work to embed the photo in the message, although the slide show is nice. To be able to embed, you need to get the url of each picture, which ends with ".jpg", and then surround the url with the tags "img" and "/img" in square brackets.

Let me see if I can link directly to the image on Picasa - can you guys see that:

 

[tntbegg]

lets see if I can do it!!

 

[tntbegg]

By Joss!!! I love it when I learn something new!!!! thank you so very much!!!!!

 

[Joss]

Yep - that's perfect.

 

[RogerP]

By Joss!!! I love it when I learn something new!!!! thank you so very much!!!!!

Cool. Now you're ready to rock and roll. :thumbup:

Roger

 

[joeshredd]

Man it's good to hear y'all are back into the swing of things and that Todd's back to health!!!
Any chance y'all are gonna be in Eugene this month?

Keep up the pics, Tanya - this is great seeing the guy in action! :thumbup:

 

[tntbegg]

Hi Joe!! Long time no speaking! yes we will be in OKCA, see you there!

So we have day 2's work starting out with using an EDM stone to polish out the flutes

He is grinding off the tool tabs here.

 

[tntbegg]

Using a 220 belt to get the machining marks off the periphery.

Using a black marker so he can see his scribe lines better.

scribing his center line

using his handy dandy height gauge for the scribing.

Todd likes to keep a close eye on things.....

Todd is setting up the table to grind on the two inch wheel.....he is making a special riser block with that micarta.

riser block is working great, he is grinding the top bevel.

 

[Joss]

How does that riser block work?

 

[tntbegg]

a pic of the riser block...it raises the work rest to the wheel.

satin finishing the grinder marks out of the top bevel with a two inch wheel.....Todd is against belt finishes in principle...he believes they are the knifemaking equivalent of a comb-over.

grinding the top swedge on the back of the blade

one blade down, one more to go

surface grinding the blade.

reaming the holes in the d-2 handle scales.

 

[tntbegg]

surface grinding the mid blade....our surface grinder is a POS...I expect the wheel to explode one of these days....

he doesn't enjoy surface grinding...and under normal circumstances(ie. not in a buildoff) I might be doing this operation!

Here are all the parts, before ht.

this is the first assembly of all the parts....everything seems to fit! Thats it for day two's progress...it may not seem like a lot was accomplished but there was. This was a 13 hr day. Some of you may remember Todd was diagnosed with a serious disease a couple years ago, nearly killed him. We are happy to report he has been in remission, but he can not put in the 16-18 hr days he used to.....even still a 13 hour day in the shop is a long day!!!