Hunting Knife

I'm very proud of this knife. It's by far the most complex knife I've made. Also, this is my first venture away from kitchen knives. I make kitchen knives because I love to cook and bake. However, I wanted to venture outside of my comfort zone a little bit and expand my skills. I mean...that's why we're into making stuff, right? To learn and expand?

The hunter is the bottom one. The top knife is a tanto...and not quite finished. This is right before heat treat.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

Consider this as a bit of a public service announcement.

If you EVER show an allergic reaction to a wood species, get it out of your shop. Every piece. Every scrap. Every damned speck of dust. Get it out.

This applies more to tropicals, as I don't know of too many people showing allergic reactions to domestic woods (though it's possible...I think I heard of people being sensitive to pine). Anyway, I use several tropical woods. They make great handles for kitchen implements.

A few years ago, I had a strong reaction to honduras rosewood. It was bad. I broke out in hives and had respiratory issues. I've been fine as long as I didn't work with it. Several weeks ago, while working with Bocote I had a skin reaction. "Bummer," I thought. I like that stuff. Last week I made the stupid mistake of making a knife handle from a piece of mystery wood. There was only two things it could have been. I'm allergic to both of them. I should have stopped and thrown it away.

Red, swollen, don't forget the hives!!! This arm isn't as bad as the other. The thing with these allergies is that they get WORSE each time you're exposed. It hurts like hell and itches even worse. This picture is a week after the initial reaction.

Random Knifey Stuff

My day job has me hopping like a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Luckily I'm getting better at utilizing my time to work on projects.

Thought I'd make a keychain shaped like a cleaver.

Quiet But Not Unproductive

The last week or two I've kept myself busy in the shop until nearly bedtime every night...or at least until it's time to watch Science Channel and fall asleep on the couch. Concentration has been on knives...

1850 degrees!

New Gauge Out The Door

Thanks, Ralph for another opportunity...

This time, we're copying the actual slope of one of Ralph's wooden gauges, instead of using something standard like 1:7. No problem. I estimate the pitch of this gauge to be a little closer to 1:4. This is a more dramatic angle.

Work Rest For My Grinder

I got most of the work done on a special work rest before being called away on my day job...I'll be able to finish it later this week.
The idea is to be able to grind a slight taper onto each side of a blade...as opposed to just a flat blade with a primary bevel. It'll all make sense once it's done. I hope. Or I've wasted a lot of time, and aluminum.

The center of the rest has a 2 degree ramp milled into it. The far side is .070" above the main surfaces.

EERF...(some details)

Here's a few bits that were glossed over along the way while I built my EERF grinder.

Tension spring. This is a pretty important detail. Too much tension and the belt is over stressed. Not enough tension and the belt will wander. A little research and I found that approximately 40 pounds was the right amount of tension.