WSK/Tracker Design Help/WIP

[coldsteelburns]

Did you grind/sand away all of the scale and debarb on the part(s) of the knife you tested? It needs to be taken down to clean steel below the decarb layer since the outer layer is just burned carbon. As Karl Andersen put it (well sort of ), think of your knife as a piece of toast, which just happens to be your last piece, but you end up burning it. However since it's your last piece, you have to make due, so you take a knife and scrape away all the burned surface until you get down to where you have a piece of perfectly toasted, well, toast! lol That analogy is mainly for when you are forging your blades and get a ton of scale and such.. but even on stock removal blades you need to deal with the decarb after you heat the steel up to such high temperatures in an open atmosphere.

Anyway, hope you're able to figure it out man!

~Paul

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[NeilJBorja]

Possum, that's a problem I constantly have to struggle with, especially considering that I'm already a bit behind for the customer. But thanks for the kind words. Coldsteelburns, I'll have to take that into account next time! I have been getting pretty inconsistent results with the tester (not that I really know how to use it I just sneak into the lab and use the electronic tester!), so perhaps my heat treat process is coming out better than the tester is telling me! I think next time I'll just go for the higher temperature and hopefully I'll both get hardening and no decarb if I use the anti-scale compound. Clamping to a piece of stock and tempering took out most of the bend, and I very roughly put an edge on the blade using an 80 grit 1x32 and a cone abrasive stone on a die grinder. I'm definitely going to pay for rushing it in more hand sanding :foot: I really should have taken everything closer to a zero edge at the filing stage. Anyways, I took the chopping portion and the carving portion to 1000grit on my Lansky, and sharpened the quarter rounder with a cheap tapered diamond rod. Then I made a mess on my room's floor with a scrap wooden plank. I've never had an outdoor knife, but it could carve up and chop wood and then shave (very wet, sweaty) arm hair so I was pretty happy. It's a small knife though so even when hanging back on the handle, it doesn't exactly make the plank explode.

Time to clean up all my sanding gouges from the 80 grit "sharpening" . . . . Seems like the complex geometry of this knife means I'm not out of the woods yet.

 

[NeilJBorja]

Decided to try some cardboard. The carving portion zips through no problem, but I think I need to work on my sharpening technique for the quarter rounder. I'll try wrapping some sandpaper around a dowel. The chopper is a bit too fat to handle the cardboard easily. Then i decided to just go through the whole plank. I really should have worn some hearing protection. I'm impressed with the lack of rolling or chipping, and how the carving portion handles light chopping quite well.

 

[NeilJBorja]

Took the blade to 400 grit. There were some pin holes at 120, probably from heat treating, but I think you'd be very hard pressed to find them amoung the 400grit lines. I need to talk to the customer about what he wants engraved on it. Then it's onto temporarily attaching the scales for handle shaping, off for cold bluing, and then back together for final fit up.

 

[jdk1]

That looks beautiful. I hope everything works out and really appreciate letting us follow you throughout the process.:thumbup:

 

[NeilJBorja]

Temporarily attached scales for shaping. The temporary pins were held to the tang with super glue, but the scales themselves are just press fit onto those pins. Took the handles to 400 grit, next step is to punch out the pins, touch up the blade with some more sanding, and engrave it.

I was surprised how small the handle turned out, even though I tried them out every step of the way. I wear medium gloves I think, and any smaller and this handle would be uncomfortable.

 

[vilePossum]

well it looks really cool by now, great work. i can't comment on the technical side like hardening, but handle and blade seem to be coming together nicely.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

I would be quite proud of that. I was watching "naked and afraid" last night and the guy on the show had a crude wsk that looked to be based on this design. I would much rather have had your example!

 

[NeilJBorja]

As always, thanks for the compliments guys!

After a couple nights, I finished it up!
Knocked out the temporary pins holding the scales on and used cold blue on the blade.

I made a jig for it using some scrap aluminum and used a carbide engraving tool to put my name on it. I was very nervous at first, but it looks like the carbide bit into the hardened steel just fine, and I didn't deviate too much from my initial CAD model.

There was a little bit of trial and error with the Z offset to get it to mark all the letters without gouging fat letters into the high spots. Quite frankly, I was really proud of the bright cut steel's contrast against the blued steel. I was prepared to blue the engraving, but the contrast really surprised me! I also marked the recipient's name on the top of the spine using the exact same process.

After making a huge mess covering everything in epoxy and then cleaning everything up with acetone, I ground the pins flush and took the handle back up to 400 grit. Unfortunately, the handle scales cocked a bit, since the final corby pins and thong tube were slightly different from the temporary pins I turned. Doh! It's not the worst thing ever, but it makes it feel like a badly CNC'd fixed blade with out of spec handles. Blade taped up for sharpening.

I finished sharpening it with my Lansky right as my morning wake-up alarm went off for a photo finish. I'm still not super happy with the sharpness of the quarter rounder compared to the rest of the knife because of my inexperience with sharpening gut hooks and the like. I put an adjustable reflective lanyard on it too.

Hope you enjoyed my little WIP! Apparently the recipient (customer is one of my university shop mentors who wanted a birthday present for his brother) is an Apache pilot, so I hope this knife is cool enough for his ride Again, thanks for the advice and support throughout!

 

[jdk1]

I love it! The 1/4 round looks awesome and that's not an easy section to work. The whole thing looks fantastic.:thumbup:

 

[coldsteelburns]

Man that turned out great! .. How many knives did ya say you've made now? .. Love that you blued the blade, it really takes it to another level and goes great with the scales and white liners (perect how the white liners flow right into the "white" edge of the blade like that). Congrats on finishing it and following through to the end and learning from every small mistake, now the next one ya make will be even that much better :thumbup: And thanks again for keepin the thread goin, till the end also. These types of threads really help others learn along with ya and who knows how many makers it'll help in the furure. :thumbup: :thumbup:

So you gonna make a sheath for it now?

~Paul

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[NeilJBorja]

Thanks for the support throughout the project, jdk1!
CSB, it's my 8th knife, if I count my first "prison dagger file knife" and non-hardened damascus letter opener as half knives Yeah, bluing has worked pretty well for me so far! I'm considering upgrading to some Oxpho Blue once my cheapo Birchwood Casey cold blue runs out. Yes, definitely a big learning experience.
Things I learned:
Interrupted grinds are hard! I'll be back to FFG for a while I think!
Thick blades take more work than thin blades, especially with a file. This definitely wasn't my usual 1/8" folder.
Indexing handle scales so they're removable is a big pain in the butt!

As for the sheath, let's just say that I was really glad that the recipient said from the get go that he had a sheath ready for it already!

 

[coldsteelburns]

Hah! I think we've all had a prison shank or two that we'd rather not speak of But that's a damn good job for your 8th knife!

Are you using the BC cold blue that comes in the square bottle like tru-oil does (the liquidy stuff), of the type that comes in a containter shaped more like a toothpaste container (the thicker stuff)? I've only used the paste type so far and have been wanting ta pick up some oxpho blue myself. However, my dream (well one of them) is to have a hot blue salt tank set-up to get that beautiful deep, chrome/mirror black look, but it's a bit too caustic and messy and seems like a PITA to keep up, plus it would take up too much space for my small shop.. therefore it's VERY unrealistic at this time and place :thumbdn: lol

So I forget, was it your original intention to have removable scales? Cause I'm sure there are a number of tutorials out there for doing so. Or do you just mean being able to get them 95% done so you can blue the blade without sanding it off of the spine etc. during handle shaping? If you're gonna use corby bolts, maybe get a few sacrificial pairs (even thought they are a bit pricey) to use just for the shaping process, then when they are flush with the scales use a dremel with a cut-off wheel to cut a groove on the face so you can unscrew them, then reuse them on another blade that will have a handle around the same thickness, and have a few safrificial pairs for differnt thicknesses. Even if you planned on using more than two bolts for the handle you would only need two to keep it secure while shaping.. Just a thought, and possibly a dumb one lol ..

Anyway, I hope ta see some more WIPs from you on your next knives, you did a great job on this one taking pictures of the processes as well as explaining what was goin on in them. :thumbup: I would be great if the Pilot was able to send ya some pictures of the blade in use, that would really top off this thead Take care man

~Paul

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[NeilJBorja]

I'm using the liquid cold blue in a bottle, not the paste type. I know that rust and hot bluing are a lot more durable, but the safety and time, respectively, issues make them unappealing to me right now. I planned on having removable scales from the start, both so I could blue the spine, but mostly so I could engrave the spine after bluing. I have seen other makers use sacrificial corbys, and it's something that I considered, but I think if my temporary pins were more precise, it would be just fine. I definitely like doing these WIPs since they give me motivation to work and feedback for improvements. And yes, I was thinking the same thing about the picture, I'd definitely post it here if the pilot sent me a pic of it!

 

[stabman]

Snazzy.

 

[A.McPherson]

That's pretty awesome man! I'm not a huge fan of the style, but awesome execution! 'specialty for #8!

 

[jdk1]

Thanks for the support throughout the project, jdk1!

Neil, Thank YOU for taking us along with you. It was really interesting to see your thought process, problems, and how you ultimately over came them to create such a stunning blade. You should be very proud:thumbup: Please do us a favor and keep posting your projects. Take care buddy!

 

[knoefz]

...

Hope you enjoyed my little WIP!...

Wow, that turned out amazing!
I just stumbled up on this thread today so my compliment is a bit late but very sincere.
I'm a big fan of the wsk design and your version looks very wel executed and ergonomic.
Very nice grind transistion in the quarter round. And I love the high grind on the draw knife portion.
Hope your cutomer is as exited as I am
Thanks for the well documented building process, enjoyed it very much.

Oh and it was a nice surprise to see the Esee WSK photoshop mockup I made a while ago posted by Chris Claycomb on the first page of this thread

 

[NeilJBorja]

Your compliments are still very appreciated, knoefz! Thanks! I'm actually packing right now to go home for Thanksgiving break and just stuck my mild steel Tracker blank and my spare O1 blank in my checked bag. I don't think I want to make another big (for me) blade like this by hand anytime soon :ambivalence: but I would like to make one for myself again sometime! I was actually thinking about the quarter rounder recently and I think the only really elegant way I could think of for having a consistent curve would be to use some sort of endmill with the proper bevel on it, and sweep it across the quarter rounder. Maybe something to keep in the back of my head until I get a CNC shop of my own like Aaron Gough has Thanks for the kind comments.

 

[Broken-Tengu]

This is incredible ! Been trying to solve the Riddle Of The Gut Hook for a while . Now i'm inspired to go for it . Beautiful stuff , Neil !!!