New Dabbling in KNIVES...

Ratdog68

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So, a few months ago I see an ad in a Rockler Woodworking mailer. They've added DIY knife kits, and offered a how-to class. I missed the chance at that class, but it sparked my interest. I few rabbit trails on YouTube since then, and Rockler sends out another mailer with another class offered yesterday morning.

I got there early, my buddy shows up at start time (he's not looking his best, been fighting the cruds). The store Mgr. is putting on the class. Most of what he's presenting is right in line with stuff I'm learning in my studies. These are a nice little kit, reasonably priced too. The kit comes without scales. The blade is shaped, hardened, polished, and sharpened. It includes a fair leather sheath (machine stitched, but the stitches aren't bedded), and scale pins. One knife is coming out of the vise when I get there, scale blanks glued/pinned, ready for shaping.

The class starts with opening a fresh kit. Shows us the layout/cutting of scale blanks from billets. Next, cutting pins to length and drilling the blanks for glue up. While that one's in the vise, he shows off their rendition of a band/disc sander to shape the wood, then gives everyone a chance for some hands on. One of the guys took a rather long turn... and got ahead of himself, trying to contour before getting the edges of wood meeting the tang metal. He kind of garfed it up a bit, touching the bolster to the belt... but with some careful work, could be finished up ok.

Many filter out as he's pulling the second knife from the vise. Now there's three of us, my buddy, me, and one other guy. The third guy loses interest and isn't interested in taking a second turn, so my buddy and I take turns. Tool's platen wasn't in place, so the belt had no support backing, and the table wasn't installed on the belt side of the tool. But, the disk sander had its work table.

I started there by flattening the scales/pins. Then, laying the scale face on the table, begin taking the wood down to meeting the tang. For work down near the bolster, I had to hand hold the work (no table in front of the belt) to shape the wood near the bolster. Once I had one edge shaped, and the area around the bolster, my buddy takes a turn shaping the other edge, following my lead on technique.

Class over, my buddy and I are the last two there... and got to keep the two knife kits! I managed to score the one that didn't get garfed! I decided to buy an unopened kit of a different model knife, mostly as a template. I'll make Masonite templates from the blade blank before doing that kit. My plan, take a billet of high carbon steel (m'be O2, or 1095) stock, shape the blade profile, bevel the blade/drill the tang, harden/temper, polish/hone the blank, and then repeat my efforts on these two kit knives. No forging, just material removal technique. I already know my capabilities for making sheaths, ready to learn more.

The knife is rough shaped, I can finish working the scales/tang by hand. After making my templates, I'll do the second knife kit to completion to further refine my scale making technique.

For now, this is what you get in the kit, this is the kit I bought for a template baseline. The blade is 440 Stainless. The pins are aluminum. The sheath is Veg-Tan leather, riveted and machine stitched. This kit cost me less than $20.


5e4986e487d8.jpg


This model is the knife I'm now working, sheath does not come dyed black, looks like the one in the package above. I'll take pix before I proceed with work on it. For this knife sheath, I'll rip the stitches, cut a groove in the stitch line so the stitches are bedded, and do a hand sewn saddle stitch on it after I oil/dye/finish the leather.

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Ratdog68

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Chopperdrvr

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I've been playing around with making my own blade out of a used lawnmower blade. I've gotten it to the point of heat treating, and have just been covered up with other things to finish it up. (also, I'm a little scared of what can happen during the heat treat process.) It looks great right now and I want to enjoy looking at it before I screw it up.
 

FrankT

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Nice RD, you need another hobby and so practical too...will go nicely with your leather work
 

Ratdog68

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KIT ROUGH-IN, Baseline

Here's the sheathed knife. Bare leather, machine stitched (laying on the surface).

RoughKit001_zpsvs2m5ki7.jpg


The scales are Canary Wood. Instead of using the supplied pins, the presenter opted to cut wooden dowel stock of birch, to emphasize the ability of the epoxy to secure the scales... and, to expedite the rough-in shaping. He didn't get a good/tight joint between the scales and bolster. I may/may not tinker with that.

RoughKit002_zpsjbjzbv9l.jpg


There's still a bit of a lip between the scales and bolster, will bring that down by hand after wrapping tape around the bolster and blade. I had to free-hand that work with the belt since the work table was not installed/available.

RoughKit003_zpscdj0y5qz.jpg


Scale contour work to follow by hand, but the rough-in shape is done.

RoughKit004_zpssf2ltcg2.jpg


This is the back side of the sheath. Later, I'll rip out those stitches, cut troughs on the stitch line for each side, and saddle stitch it after oil/dye/finish is applied. Should appear cleaner after they're bedded below the surface.

RoughKit005_zpskmbodhnq.jpg
 

Ratdog68

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Close up pic of the back side of the machine stitching.

RoughKit006_zpsf2a69bgs.jpg
 

Ratdog68

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I've been playing around with making my own blade out of a used lawnmower blade. I've gotten it to the point of heat treating, and have just been covered up with other things to finish it up. (also, I'm a little scared of what can happen during the heat treat process.) It looks great right now and I want to enjoy looking at it before I screw it up.

If you still have some of that steel scrap on hand, I'd do my heat treating tests on pieces of that... then do what works with the knife. For example, heat it to about 1500F (dull cherry red, just a little more when a magnet no longer sticks to it), quench it in some peanut oil, then tempered in a 400F oven for an hour (twice, allowing to cool between cycles). The test before the tempering is to see if a file's edge just skates across the hardened surface. If so, it's hard... if the file bites in, it's not hardened. Or, the quench may need a quick dip in water before the oil quench... or water quench only may be what's needed.

The use of "mystery steel" complicates things when you don't know what type of steel it is, or the quenching procedure for that steel.

My homework suggests that you do not sharpen the edge until after hardening/tempering. The fine edge can crack if sharpened before hardening/tempering... and to use a known composition when starting out, so you don't have to guess on the hardening procedures.


Nice RD, you need another hobby and so practical too...will go nicely with your leather work

LOL... Yeah, always wanting to learn new skills for my paws. Gonna get my feet wet, one step at a time.
 

RattlesnakeDan

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I dabbled a bit in knife making. I gave a few away and have one I use daily when welding for cleaning my welding nozzles. It's fun to do when you have time. RD, you have creative skills, it's good that you use them!
 

Ratdog68

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Yup, wanna make some for others, and see whether I've got a talent for it. Got pix of your efforts? Did you forge, or material reduction?
 

RattlesnakeDan

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I made them out of scrap metal, heated with torch with a rosebud tip and dunked in used oil from diesel so real black and thick. Tempered in my countertop oven thing, so they smelled like cookies! haha
I mostly took good quality knives and put new handles on them, elk antler, wood etc...was going to make some micarta (sp) but didn't get around to it.
 

Oso Grande

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Very cool guys!!!

I love seeing what you guys come up with!

I messed around with the idea of making a few blades from bar stock that I bought at a local knife supply store, but never did end up getting to the point of hardening them. I was just never happy with the shape of the blades. However I did have some fun adding new scales onto existing blades that I had.

I love my ESEE knives, but was never happy with the screw on scales... They just never fit my hand well, so I epoxied some Ironwood blanks on them and spent some time with a el cheapo Home Depot bench belt/disk sander and worked them until they felt great in my hand.

4&6-1.jpg 4-3.jpg

Next up, I've got a few Old Hickory kitchen knives I'm going to give the same treatment too.
 

RattlesnakeDan

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I like that bottom one the best. All are nice..good job!
 

Ratdog68

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Nice work on those new scales. Bofe-'em lookin' good.
 

Ratdog68

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Grumble-grumble. Forgot one little detail. After lovingly sanding down to 2000 grit, buffing with the equivalent of 0000 steel wool (3M pad, between coats of hand rubbed Tru-Oil), that's like hitting it with 400 grit sandpaper. LOL... lesson learned. But, it's coming along quite nicely for a first attempt.
 

Oso Grande

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2000 grit!?! wow you're really going for the polished shine! I never took those two handles past 600 grit.

No question doing what you're doing is a labor of love, patience is definitely key...

Ratdog, you and this thread inspired me to get off my ass and do some more. I've been wanting to do some kitchen knives with a good carbon steel. So I picked up a few Old Hickory blades to remove the cheap ill fitted scales and replace them with some good looking burl. My impression is their steel and heat treating is pretty good, it's their cheap scales heals on by cheap press rivets that make them so inexpensive. Have you guys had decent experiences with them?
 

Ratdog68

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Ain't nuttin' wrong with Old Hickory knives... 'cept, like you say, their scales are cheesy.

First two coats are dry, third coat this afternoon.
 

Ratdog68

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For the sheath, I first ripped out the machine stitching. Next, I plowed a trough along the stitch path (front/back side) to allow the stitching to bed into the leather. Next, The edge of the leather needed to be beveled to soften sharp edges from being cut. With that done, the leather was oiled with Neetsfoot oil. This helps to soften the leather a little, and prepares the leather to accept the dye. I used Saddle Tan dye. After it dried, more Neetsfoot oil, and finally some hand rubbed Neutral colored wax. With that done, I re-stitched the sheath with a saddle stitch, using artificial sinew.

CanaryKit001_zpszjboolm0.jpg


CanaryKit002_zpssjzwptl0.jpg


If you go back to the first set of pix, at the point where the bolster is, on the tang side of the blade's spine... a spot on the metal needed some love. The metal was proud in that spot, and I set to work taking it down to being even with the remainder of the spine/tang. 120, 220, 400, 600, 1000, and 2000 grit on a sanding block. Also, looking from the top, the bolster flared from the tang side (narrower) to the blade side (wider). This too was blended to become more even with the plane of the shape of the scales. All was done in the same manner. Each time I started a finer grit of paper, I worked the metal/wood in a perpendicular direction from the previous efforts. By doing this, I was able to SEE when I had sanded away the scratches imparted by the coarser grit used.

CanaryKit003_zpsuyajgk32.jpg


The next phase was to hand rub the scales with Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil (for gun stocks). Between coats, it was buffed with the 3M pad equivalent of 0000 steel wool. I learned to use the 3M pad to avoid the chance of bits of steel wool coming off and getting imbedded in the finish and rusting later. Thankfully, my buffing was light enough that I didn't scuff my metal working efforts. After the 4th coat dried, I hit it with 2000 grit paper, rubbed it all with Wenol Metal Polish, and a couple of coats of wax. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

CanaryKit004_zpsklsfqld1.jpg


As for the small gap between scales/bolster... I'm contemplating working in a little product to fill the gap. Haven't made up my mind on it though. I wish the class presenter would've gotten that joint a little tighter when he fitted the scale billets before drilling for the pins. But, a small price to pay for a free knife to learn on.
 

Ratdog68

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Dang RD that looks really nice. You can fill the gap with some blood and guts. Eventually they will harden and become part of the knife. (character)
I have some new-in-package insulin syringes that were scavenged from an abandoned storage locker. Contemplating injecting some epoxy, or something else. Need some solid pigment for it too I'm thinking. The gap is so small, even considering black RTV silicone schmooie.
 

Chopperdrvr

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I would go with the epoxy. Even if you don't color it, the gap is so small, it should reflect the color from the scale and bolster that it won't be as noticeable as an air gap. Just force as much into the gap as you can then clean it off before it has a chance to get too hard.
 
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