Working in batches: How do YOU do it?

J

jawilder

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Jun 27, 2006
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Which steps do group together in your batches?

I've been doing the following together but wonder if I can be more proficient and still give each knife the attention it deserves.

Which things do you do together and which things do you take your time on, making sure that each knife gets enough attention?
 
When I do neck knives, I usually do a batch of 4 or 5. I profile all of them, then scribe the center line, drill pin holes, and grind to pre-heat-treat thickness as a batch. I then do heat treat on all 5 one at a time, and then temper as a batch. Hand sanding makes my hands hurt sometimes so I may hand sand one or 2, then fit the handle scales and hand sand the others after gluing up the first 2. Once I get the handle glued up, I generally finish that knife before moving on. Then I may do the sheaths as a batch too.
 
I usually work in batches of 15 to 20 blades at a time and group my steels together for heat treat. CPM 154 in one batch, CPM D2, 3V, D2 in another batch, etc.

First I cut my stock to length for the knives, then trace out my designs on the barstock, then rough cut the profile with the bandsaw, finish profiling all of the blades on the grinders, drill holes in the tang for pins, weight reduction, etc.

Next step for the batch is to have all the blades surface ground so they are good and flat. After that I get an initial bevel grind on the batch, about 10 degrees per side just to set the bevel, then the batch gets sent out for heat treat.

When the blades get back from heat treat I usually use the blasting cabinet and blast out the jimping on any blades that have it to remove oxides from the grooves, then I profile the entire batch on the horizontal grinder to 180 grit.

At this point I'm finished with all of my "batch" work. From here on out I pick blades one at a time and complete the bevel grinding, swedges, blade finish, etc. then do handles, sheath and sharpening.
 
rwn2000 said:
When I do neck knives, I usually do a batch of 4 or 5. I profile all of them, then scribe the center line, drill pin holes, and grind to pre-heat-treat thickness as a batch. I then do heat treat on all 5 one at a time, and then temper as a batch. Hand sanding makes my hands hurt sometimes so I may hand sand one or 2, then fit the handle scales and hand sand the others after gluing up the first 2. Once I get the handle glued up, I generally finish that knife before moving on. Then I may do the sheaths as a batch too.
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This is pretty much how I do it also. I pick about a half dozen designs I like and lay them out on a bar of steel. However many I can get on that bar is how many I work on at a time.
 
I had been working on batches of 10 for awhile, but then noticed that a batch of 20 was faster, then noticed a batch of 50 was faster, lol its a down hill road:)

with 50 folders at a time,its more about not getting board drilling the same hole 250 times!:0

inspect
drill holes
ream holes
match frames
match blades
flatten everything
ect...

Same thing for one knife, just larger scale. Instead of doing it once you do it 50 times.
 
Ive done batches as high as 10, but i am really liking batches of 4 lately. For me it isnt worth it to fire up the forge for just one. But forging 10 out and grinding that many gets boring and it seems like i never get anywhere with the batch.

Right now i have 6 batches going, in various stages. I try to be as efficient as i can , while one batch is tempering, i can be grinding another batch kind of thing.
 
So it seems to me that most will work in batches up until the point of assembly and fit/finish, then each knife gets its own individual attention until the end.
 
jawilder said:
So it seems to me that most will work in batches up until the point of assembly and fit/finish, then each knife gets its own individual attention until the end.
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Pretty much, except I generally build handles two or three at a time. Mainly because mixing up epoxy for one seems sort of wasteful, but doing more than three gets too hectic and messy. Once they're set up, I can grind down all the bolts a couple passes on each knife, move to the next and rotate through 'em like that to keep things from overheating. (scorched rings around pins/bolts/tubes will make you say very bad words). Then when everything's flush and roughly shaped, each knife gets finished individually.

We work on sheaths 2 or 3 at a time too; when all the stuff is laid out and ready, it's more efficient to build a couple at a time. My wife doesn't like that so much though, because it makes for a lot of hand-stitching all at once.
 
Like many here I work with 4 or 5 at a time. It works out well for each step of the way. I get tired of bandsawing after the last of the batch and belts tend to wear down at end of each run. My Paragon HT oven can hold about that many blades. Working with batches better manages time and resources. Doing more than that tends to get tiring and repetive. I remember working with a set of 12 steak knives, it became long and tiring- too repetitive.
 
I seldom have more than a few hours at a time, but I'll try to get a couple at the bandsaw, a couple on the grinder, and definitely try to optimize the heat-treating.

This week I was working on putting handles on two at once and didn't like that, but couldn't force myself to focus on just one. Part of it is time pressures in the last few months. I'm pretending that January will be easier...

At the moment there are half a dozen ground blades ready for hand-sanding. That drawer seems to be the holding pen...
 
I keep trying to work in batches cause I'm cheap and really really hate inefficiency, but I find that knives will stall if I try to start too many at once. As inefficient as it is to heat up the heat treating oven/forge/kitchen oven for one or two knives, or even change out the bits in the drill presses, it's worse for me to have a knife stall and just sit on a shelf.

Recently I've been focusing on starting very few at a time and getting them out the door. Right now that's the most effective for me. I plan on bumping up the number or doubling it every once in a while to see if my new processes can handle it and keep things moving. I'm still finding better ways to do things and every six months or so my overall process is considerably different that is was before.
 
Mike Fennessy said:
I'm still finding better ways to do things and every six months or so my overall process is considerably different that is was before.
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That's a really good point. Appropriate planning and processes depend on a lot of things, not least of which is how many knives do you need to make, and why? Are they for fun, to fund a hobby, or to pay the mortgage?

Are you taking true custom orders, focusing on one or two of your own unique designs, or a mix of both? Are you open to using any steel you can get your hands or do you prefer to stick with one or two specific alloys?

No matter what the answers to those questions are, it's vital to re-examine them and re-evaluate your approach periodically. I think that's part of the fun, honestly.
 
On my stockers I am a 5 at a time guy. Profile if not water-jet cut, then drill the handle holes, bevel and grind up to about 400 and ten start giving them more individual attention. By then I know the little things that have developed and get everything just so. Then I will take them up to 600 and harden and temper. Spent time on each one doing the hand sanding etc. Then I will pick scales and set each up marking them. After glue up it is pretty much one at a time. For every batch of "standards" I have on special Damascus knife that I work on. Get bored with those, I spend some time working on the special project. Kind of works both ways. That practice keeps me from just doing specials and motivates me to do the standards and the specials keep me from going nuts doing the standards.
 
My lots start big and get cut in half and half and half again. I might cut steel and machine 25, grind and heat treat half of them, finish grind half of those after HT and then assemble and finish out knives one or two at a time from that point. By the sounds of it that is a fairly common approach.
 
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