Couple of slip joint WIP

Awesome Thread Ryan. I got to spend a few days with Don Robinson from Brownsville and he tried to help me build a liner lock. It is still unfinished and it is not going to be very pretty. It is not Don's fault its just that I am a knuckle head.

Your a lucky man, I'd like to spend a few days down at his shop.

Thanks for the comments guys. Tomorrow I will be posting more pictures and leading us all further in the wrong direction. :D
 
The last few steps I was getting the spring to the right length.
Next I try to get the closed, open, and half stop position close before I have the knives heat treated. There are jigs for this, and I'll buy one someday. For now this is how I went about it.
First with the knife in the open position I don't want the broke back or the opposite humped up position. I want the line to be fairly straight across from spine to spring.
Here's the humped up way I dont want it
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Here's what I was looking for the spring is thicker, but it's parallel and I can grind off that minute amount when assembling the folder

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From the open position I draw a line under the spring I removed it for this picture. You can also see it in the above picture
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Next I put the knife in the half stop position and take note of the spring in relation to the line I drew.

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and now I put it in the closed position and take note of how it fits against the line in that position
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Now I'll show the parts I removed to get it to line up. I realize after heat treat these areas will be have to messed with, but for now I'm trying to get close.
If when in the half stop you cannot see the line because the spring has moved down take material off of this point. Not just where the pointer is but evenly all the way accross.
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If you can see a large gap between the line and the back of the spring when in half stop position take off material evenly at this point. You can use sandpaper and a hard flat backing. I was amazed at how little material removal moved the spring.
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Ok now put it in the closed position. If you cannot see the line because the spring is covering it up take off material with a sandpaper and a flat sanding block here or use the granite, sandpaper, and square block method.
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and for the record I noticed if i took material from one area, it might possibly affect a different position. You might have to play with all three to get it to line up on the line in all three postions.

Next I started removing the kick some to drop the blade into the spring more. When the spring is under load this changes some, but again I'm just trying to get close.
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You'll notice here I get up against the spring. I removed material from the tip of the blade because I had a bit of a flat spot in the curve anyway.
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WOW ---- This is exciting ! It's almost like watching a slow motion birth and you know the item is going home with you as soon as the Doc. releases it.
 
Well maybe that's how it feel for you... :D But it's just as cool for me to be watching this. I'm digging it to the max. Thanks for a great WIP Ryan.
 
When Ryan has finished this tutorial & the knife is del. I'll start the same on the gold inlaying and engraving ----- this thread will continue.
 
Ok now for some more. I got the knife to where it was close in all three positions to help save some frustration later on :rolleyes:

I did my nail nicks differently. I used fine silver thumbstuds on the knife. I've seen makers use a dremel to cut the nail nick with good results. I can't pull it off, and don't have a mill. I also don't want to put too much side load on my drill press by cutting them in with the drill press. Thus the studs came about as necessity and I really like it because it's a bit different. Mr. Hurst is doing some gold work on the knife so we decided to go with gold wire.

First I placed where I wanted my studs. I'm still playing with this part. On the first knives I used only one size. On these knives the middle stud will be bigger. To get them in line I dye chemed the blade then scratched a line against a straight edge. Using a light feel with a punch I'm able to actually feel the scratched line letting the punch fall into place. I marked the center hold first
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Using a number 52 bit I drilled the center hole. This will fit the 14 guage wire
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Next I spaced the outside two holes 1/8" from the center hole
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Using a real light touch with the punch you can feel it fall into the marks you've made. I then tapped it with a hammer. I found on the smaller number 60 holes if your dent is too big, bits break easier. Here it is all drilled out
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At this point I sent the knives out for heat treat. I do the rest of my grinding and what not after heat treat. But I already have these knives from heat treat. Tomorrow I will show the pivot lapping I did as well as the sanding flat.
 
Got some more pictures. It's gonna be a couple days before I post some more. I have a birthday dinner with friends and family tomorrow, and I'm working on 3 of these at the same time. 2 are going to Mr. Hurst and the third is the trust ole back up lol. I am going to catch the other two knives up to this point before posting pictures.

I drilled the nail stud holes and sent them off for heat treat to Paul Bos. Now my next step is to start flattening. I pmd Todd Davison for some help on flattening, so I'll pass along what I learned from him.
Here they are back from heat treat.
http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l263/doublearrow/?action=view&current=knives681.jpg
In the top left of this picture you can see 2 of the 3 I am working on
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I start with an 80 grit blaze belt, mainly to work through mill scale and the dips and bows from the steel has.
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I run the belt at approximately mach 1 to begin with. After that I loosen the drive belt on the motor and drive wheel. What this does for me is, if I put pressure on the platen while flattening grinder belt will stop, or I can put enough pressure that the belt is litterally just creeping. The drive belt is slipping, but I feel this gives me more control over what I am trying to do. I place the part (spring or blade on the platen with about half hanging off the top of the platen like so
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From here I use my other hand and drag the part down onto the platen. For some reason this helps me stop leading in with one side of the part or the other. I can get it laid flat on the platen doing this. I get it down on the platen and move it around it helps not too eat too much off each end.
I take it from 80 grit blaze, 100 grit ceramic, then onto a 220 grit ceramic. When I get to the 220 I really lay into it. Seems to get rid of the irregularities from the previous grits. The whole time I'm going through the grits I'm constantly checking the width on the calipers. Mr. Davidson told me to just worry about the measurement from one end to the other. I was able to keep it within .001. If one end gets to thick or one spot use your fingers and just apply extra pressure.

Here is the knife after 100 grit. In this picture you can see where I rubbed it sideways on 220 grit paper and granite plate to check high spots. You can see around the edges where ate off with the belt more, laying into it with 220 grit got rid of most of this. The rest I flatten on the granite later. I got into it and forgot to take a 220 grit belt picture, big difference in flattness.
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Once it's at 220 grit I start my barrel lap. I do this from the Tony Bose tutorial off of his website. I use phosporus bronze bushings. I'm going to try some later with just a pivot pin and washers I got from Mike Miller.
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I start with 600 diamond paste and lap until there is a tight fit with the bushing.
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Then I got to a few passes on the barrel lap with 800 grit, from there I do something different than Tony Bose.
Using the part that holds cutting disc in a dremel I put my bushing on it.
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I load up the pivot with 800 diamond paste
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Then I put the screw through the bushing and into the disc mandrel
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From here I just lap the bushing by hand. I sometime take them to work and while I'm waiting for guest I'll turn the blade until it's turning smooth on the pivot. Right or wrong it's the way I did it on the two I've done with busings. lol
 
I know work on fitting the bushing width. I still don't have the blade to the exact width because I'm going to mirror finish and I'm only at 220, but I want to get ready to start fitting it up. To do this I use a bushing lap I bought from Bill Vining.
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That orange piece of paper is .001" thick you place the blade pivot with the paper and lap the bushing. I lapped it on 800 grit paper, and with the paper it measure .001" thicker than the blade. I'll be doing this again later, like I said I just want to start rough fitting.
Another thing I do at this time is polish the inside of the spring, I just concentrate on the area the blade rides for now. To make sure it's perfectly square I use my carbide file guide and some stones from DMT that are garanteed flat. I clamp the guide to the diamond plate like so.
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In this picture you can see what I'm trying to accomplish. I run the spring up against the "fence" and I know it's square. I take it from 320 to 1200 grit.
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I also do the half stop position of the blade.
One other thing I did at this point was round the corners slightly on the tang so that it does not dig into the spring. I started with a 600 grit belt then using the same fence and diamond plate technique I polished them. Hopefully this shows the slight rounding
knives697.jpg
 
Now I have the parts to where I will start cutting liners.
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Over the next couple of days I'll get the other two to this point and the liners drilled and shaped. I know some guys might take their blades and springs to a higher point of finish before making liners, but the reason I didn't is because I want to make sure my holes are lining up square. If there is a problem I still have enough material I can remove on the belt grinder to help line things up.
 
Thanks Ryan. Have a good time at your birthday celebration and getting the other knives caught up. We'll be waiting to watch this some more when you're ready. I sent a note to Bill Vining to see if I can snag a bushing lap, but he's not listing them in his tool section yet.

Does anyone know of an alternative source? Just working to get geared up. :) I have to try this!

Thanks a million Ryan.
 
I don't know of any alternative sources Dave, but he didn't have them on his website when I ordered mine. Everyone kept telling me to order one of his website, but it said coming soon. I thought I was losing my mind.

So far have I kept it able to follow or is it getting to jumbled?
 
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