I Party Hard On Friday

Not really.
I just plug away in the shop like usual.

Hmmmmm....my newest micarta had a delamination problem on the top couple of layers. I will have to investigate. The rest of it is solid. I don't know if it was a resin failure (if maybe I didn't put enough on) or if the paper itself resisted the resin.

A New Handle, And Then Some

I wasn't sure how much I'd get done tonight. I hemmed and hawed over a handle for a paring knife and finally went for it.

This paring knife is getting a knit micarta handle. The first time I tried making a handle from this piece it didn't go well. I don't know if it was the epoxy, or just me getting used to using a yarn based handle. Anyway, tonight I found that a little bit of finesse should make it work. We'll see the finished product tomorrow.

Time Consuming

Tonight's task were slow movers! It doesn't look like much, but it took a while to get there. Combined with a trip to the gym and we have limited shop time. But first...

...destructive dimple die testing! I decided to destroy the work piece to see what my dimple die could endure. Mine is better than the purchased one! Not a scratch, nor a ding. I need to call the manufacturer and get my money back! Also, I learned a bit from this process and now know exactly what I need to make the die do what I want. I'm going to make another one with a different angle.

Last Night's Knives...Today!

Basically, I'm at the point that I wanted to be last night. My pair of copper/mahogany Outdoor knives are sitting on the bench right now...curing. Let's see how I got there...

I usually rough saw the handles a bit...the rest will be done post glue-up. I traced the blade onto the copper liners so I could...

What A Day!

I was pretty productive today. More shop cleaning, more knifemaking, more food. It was the last day of my holiday vacation, so I made the most of it.

Moving on with the little folder. I decided to carry on with the blade and make some carbon fiber scales. Here I am marking out for a filler piece for the butt end of the handle.

Another Morning Update

I had unexpected dinner company last night, so instead of writing the post, I enjoyed some food and drink until the late hours. What did the day have in store? And what have I already done this morning?

Work continued on my little fixture. My standard vise setup ended up being too tall for the drilling operation, so I reset with my tool maker's vise. I need the holes to be drilled straight relative to the angled face.

Yesterday's Update, Today!

I wasn't feeling it last night, so I didn't do any writing. I just hit the chair and poured a glass. Let's have a look at what went down!

Took a break from knives to start work on a new project. I'm collaborating with a friend to make some new stuff. Anyway, I needed to do some angled milling. Here I've got my tilting table with the vise mounted to it. Getting everything straight!

Just a Few Things ...

Not a bad Tuesday, if you're in to Tuesdays. I'm more of a Saturday guy, but a day is a day. Two new knives finished, and some notes about making laminated handles. Let's get this party started, shall we...

Last night, you saw them roughed out. They are now complete!!! Micarta scales made in-house. Two Outdoor knives ready to take on the world. Made from a charcoal Dickie's work shirt! Upcycle? Recycle? Reclaim? I dunno. All I know is that the longest lasting work shirts ever made can be made even more durable with the addition of epoxy resin!

Lots Of Grinding...(and more)

So, last night I got the flat work done on eight new blades. Tonight I ground the bevels. I also got some other work done. To the pictures...

The blades from last night have been ground! After the bevels, they go back over the flat grinding platen to take the scratches out.

Completed A Pretty Cool Knife

I finished my secret squirrel project tonight. I wanted to make sure the idea would work before putting it all over the internet:

A Small Outdoor knife with hand knit burlap micarta! A friend of mine does knitting and crochet. She was kind enough to pass some scraps my way for this idea. This is why I made the micarta press. We'll probably talk about the press tomorrow.

Thursday Night Action

Thursday night hasn't been too bad. Got plenty done...

I actually finished this one a few weeks ago. I'm delivering it tomorrow. I played with the etch a bit...by "a bit" I mean that I changed it entirely. Just trying out new things as I go.

Sunday Funday

My day in the shop:

I started by pulling my cherry/brass layup out of my little press.

A Productive Morning

So, last night we left off with tossing a few blades into the kiln to be cooked. The new recipe worked great. Early this morning, I threw five more through the process. All of them came out as straight as they went in. I'm relieved! I'm definitely on the right track here. My paring knives were about 50/50 before. That's just not very good at all. On to the pictures...

One thing I wanted to do was fix this wheel. There is no spacer between the bearings, which meant that I couldn't torque up the axle bolt as much as I'd like. I decided to take care of that while the kiln was running.

Removed one bearing and got a measurement for the height of the spacer. In this case, it's OK to make it slightly long, but too short means that it isn't actually doing anything. I shot for a few thou over the nominal measurement.

Ready to reassemble and mount back onto the tooling arm. Notes on the process follow...

I still haven't finished my lathe. Mostly because I'm lazy. This needs to be done on the mill. NOT the way one would normally make this part, but that's life. As we said in the Army, "adapt and overcome."

To drill the hole, I put the spacer into my toolmaker's vise. My hold down clamps use two leveling screws each. Previously I had stainless socket heads. That's actually not a good idea, as they will score the mill bed. I switched them out to brass tipped set screws.

All clamped up.

The leveling screws lift the back of the clamp so that the clamp can provide the required holding force to hold the vise down. The actual block doesn't touch the bed.

Using the coaxial indicator to find the center of the spacer.

Always start with a center drill.

There's a part under there somewhere. You have to work your way up to the 1/2" drill, it's not practical to just power through.

As I finished up the spacer, blades were ready to come out.

I allowed three blades to cool in air, like normal. The two paring knives were quenched between the large aluminum blocks. It's amazing that there's enough heat energy in those two small knives to heat those blocks up within half a minute or so. They get nice and warm, which is sort of welcome this time of year when the basement gets a little chilly. The idea is that they cool the blades a bit faster than air, and can help to keep them straight too.

All of these were heat treated last night and this morning. All came out straight and like I said above, the change to my process seems to be what I needed. Nine blades that need to be finish ground and have their handles put on. I should have a fun week!

Inertia

Inertia says that an object at rest will stay as such, and a moving object will stay moving. That is, until they are acted on by an outside force. I'm getting better at staying moving once I'm there. I'm using inertia to keep my lazy butt focused on getting things made. As long as I don't park on the couch, I can keep going until the neighbors complain about the noise.

A quick demonstration of what my grinding gauges do. Same shape blade, same wheel, same thickness. The top blade had a .125" gauge, the lower one a .063". You can see how the grind goes further up the lower blade, and is steeper on the top one.

A Good Evening

Well, it's good if you look at the end result. Fact of the matter is that it was an evening dominated by sawing. As good as it is to have a band saw, it's the worst part of ANY project. Tool steel tends to wear blades pretty quick. I need to search out a source of decent blades that won't empty my bank account. This is compounded by the fact that I use a 64 1/2" band saw. Not the best. I can only afford what I can afford, though.

Alright! That's what I'm talking about. Two of each pattern. I'm making a third Small Outdoor knife with this batch so that I can have a permanent metal pattern. It has grown to be a favorite of mine. From left to right: Small Outdoor knife, Large Outdoor knife, Modern Paring knife, and Hunter. All sawed, shaped, and flattened. They're ready for their bevels. So that's eight total knives and one pattern. A lot of grinding! A lot of tool steel! I need to find my market and start selling these suckers or something...this is an expensive hobby and a house full of knives will just make people think I'm a serial killer.

 

Hodge Podge

So, as I wind down my vacation...here's the details from what got accomplished last night and today. I think I can squeeze in a few more things tonight, but I'm pretty much ready to give myself over to the fact that I have to go back to my day job.

Grinding gauges. I use these to set up my belt grinder. I may have mentioned them a while back...can't remember, but I felt like talking about them because of how handy they are. Each one of these has a different step cut into it. The idea is that the step represents a dimension equal to or greater than half the thickness of the knife being ground. This allows me to reset my grinding rest to the same position every time. For example, a 1/8" blade needs a step of 1/16" or more. The closer to half, the less steep the grind...making a finer edge. The larger the step, the grind gets steeper.

Let's Make a Knife, pt 5

Let's see if we can wrap it up here in part 5! I took a ton of pictures, and probably made it seem over complicated, but what the hey! More info is good info. It also made me think about what I was doing.

This is an upside down picture because, honestly, I don't feel like editing it at the moment! Anyway, stuff laid out to fit the handles. Acetone to clean the blade, loctite for the nuts, epoxy, a cup, and a brush.

Let's Make a Knife, pt 4

OK...we're on step 16. Working on finishing the blade and then on to installing the handle.

Now that the blade is cooled after being heat treated, it can be cleaned up. For this one, I'm going to run it over 120 grit, and 320 grit on the flat belt sander.

Let's Make a Knife, pt 3

Picking back up with Step 13...

Heat treating foil is important! Since mere mortals cannot afford to have controlled atmosphere kilns in our homes, we can wrap our parts in foil for the heat treating process. It forms a barrier between the part being heated and the air around it. This stuff cuts reasonably well with a pair of quality scissors. Wear something to protect your hands, it's sharp stuff.

Let's Make a Knife, pt 2

Let's continue with this little beastie....

Step 7: We left off yesterday with a 50 grit grind. Tonight I brought it up to 120. You don't want to go all the way to an edge, leave it dull...just a small flat along the edge of the blade.