New knife pictures, throughout the process.

Pedro G.

Well-Known Member
I've started making a knife, I will post the pictures here as I go along, I will try to take as many as I can. Please feel free to post your opinions!
-Pedro

This is the knife design I will be working on. I might change it up as I work on it But overall it will look something like this.
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This is the bar stock I'll be using. It's a 1/4"x1.5"x8-9" 1084 steel somewhat flat bar kindly given to me by Rex McClellan. It is a bit thick but I can work with it.
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This is my first time using a band saw which you can see in another one of my posts. So this is a very rough cut but it did justice to my first time (1/4" o_O)
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Alright well this is the finished cut with the band saw. It is pretty rough but it came out alright. Now what left is to clean it.
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My 4" belt sander isn't the best at getting into small spaces so files are always handy! I did go overboard and didn't pay attention a couple times during this part but it turned out alright either way.
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This is the knife blank cleaned on the edges and one of its sides. I made a magnet to help me grind sideways from a tutorial. Cleaning the sides of the knife is taking longer than I expected but not too bad. I just have to clean the other side now!
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You did good on profiling that knife. One thing that I would change is to get something like a small chain saw file and round the bottom of that notch where the ricasso joins the tang at the guard. Sharp angle are stress risers that can lead to breakage and need to be avoided. With that 4X36" sander you will find yourself using files a lot. Just remember that it's the end product that counts, not how you get there. Do what you have to do to get the job done. A good knife done slowly beats the heck out of junk knife done quickly.

Doug
 
Thank you Doug, I will see what I can do about a chainsaw file. I look one up and see if HF has one. I will keep that in mind!
That is exactly my plan, I'm working more psychologically than physically on this knife. I keep trying to hold myself back from trying to get things done faster. I've been doing alright so far.
I have one question if you don't mind, I will be gone for a week next week and I can't work on the knife this weekend, how will I keep this knife from rusting while i'm gone. It's been a day and it's already yellowish in some areas, especially the top and bottom (I live in AZ so theres not a lot of moisture in the air).

-Pedro
 
With the amount of work remaining to be done on that knife, I wouldnt think a week or ten days would hurt it if left inside the house wrapped in a dry cotton cloth. You could wipe some gun oil on it before wrapping it up. It should keep quite nicely. Just wipe the gun oil off before working it again. You could even put some gun oil on the cloth. Here in Northern Indiana our summers are usually quite humid. I've used Tri-flow gun lubricant in a spray can on my blanks when they are going to be sitting for a while and have had no problems at all.
 
I live in northern (NW) Indiana as well, and can attest to the humidity.

I typically just spray my steel down with some kind of rust inhibitor/lubricant until its fully coated, and as long as it's left undisturbed I typically don't have any issues.
 
Alright so I finally got to do the bevels. I decided to make it a full flat grind. It was going to have maybe a 1/4" area left untouched but I messed up and continued. Sorry for not being able to post earlier and not getting more pictures throughout the process but long story short I forgot :p

This is what it was supposed to be until I messed up.
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This is what I have now.
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Other side..
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Before I continue i'm going to try to find a way to fix the point. I made it way way too thin for heat treat. Pretty much what it should be AFTER HT. I posted the question here on this forum. But next i'm going to sand till mirror finish and then HT.

-Pedro
 
So i've kept on working and as I was getting ready to hand sand I noticed that the knife looked kind of plane compared to what I wanted it. So I thought I'd add a little spine file design. I didn't want to make it the whole spine+handle. Just the 1" from where the curve starts on the blade to the ricasso.

I had a big roll of masking tape and my vise is very rough so I thought i'd add extra protection besides my cloth that I stick in between. It also gave me an idea to where I was working so I wouldn't mess up so much.
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This is the file design I decided to stick with. I'm not sure if I saw it somewhere or not but i'm sure it's been done. It's a pretty even fitting pattern and it fit perfectly between the 1". Btw i'm sorry about the blurry picture. My camera wouldn't focus.
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Now i'm not sure how i'm going to get the inside of the file designs to a mirror finish. For shine and so it doesn't rust too easily. If you have any tip I would love to hear them! Thank you in advance!

-Pedro G.
 
Looking good, Pedro! The rust might just be flash rust from your slack tub/dip container. A dash of baking soda and a few drops of dish detergent will keep the flash rust down and make the particles in the water sink to the bottom so the blade comes out clean when you cool it.
 
Looking good, Pedro! The rust might just be flash rust from your slack tub/dip container. A dash of baking soda and a few drops of dish detergent will keep the flash rust down and make the particles in the water sink to the bottom so the blade comes out clean when you cool it.

Thanks for sharing this tip, it's a problem that's plagued me as well.

And the knife looks like it's coming along nicely!

Forgot to add, perhaps some compound rubbed on a kite string could polish inside those file grooves...
 
Alright so I got back on track. After sanding it to 220 grit and getting every scratch out I went ahead and drilled the holes. 1 for a lanyard hole. 2 for the mosaic pins I made. and 3 for the bolster pins. For some reason my bits on my drill press bend whenever I put it against something. It made the pins look a little uneven. I hope it won't be too noticable later on.
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So far i've come to realize this knife will look very different than my drawing :p
-Pedro G.
 
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Pedro,
You are doing GREAT! Maybe over thinking and over working things a little, but that is the learning process, just keep it up! For future reference, the upswept designed blades, while they look cool, have very little functional use. They also are terrible on leather sheaths, otherwise this one is looking great! With that said, make what you want to make, what you are "feeling", let all of your creative juices flow all over your work, and don't worry about the end result not looking like what you planned. I make mistakes.... I mean design changes all the time! And sometimes when I'm making a particular design that I've drawn up, while in the middle of forging or some point, I'll "SEE" something different, that's what I call the steel talking to me, telling me what it wants to be. Creativity is one of the things that drives me, it is ART, no matter what anyone else may think, and the artist has to express himself, has to feel what he's making, for me, that is when I do my best work. Or may be it's when I'm having the most fun, either way it works! Keep on buddy, you're doing fine! Rex
 
hey pedro if you dont want the grind lines that high flat grind both sides or surface grind both sides and that will bring them back down and with a 1/4 inch you got plenty of thickness to work with keep it going looks great. i forgot the drill bits i get that flex or bend when i dont center punch my holes first when i started doing that the flex went away.
 
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I actually like it now! It made sense that if I didn't have a big enough bevel the knife wouldn't cut too well since it is pretty darn thick and i've come to like it. :)
Thank you for the tip though, I will definately keep that in mind!
I center punch it but it still seems to flex..
-Pedro G.
 
Alright well the voyage continues!

With this picture I have a lot to explain so bare with me :).
I finally sanded the knife to 220 grit and I went ahead and took it to the forge outside (There's some pictures of it on another one of my recent threads about HT.) I bought some of those instant light briquets which worked pretty well surprisingly, I'm not a big far of briquets but these worked fine. I lit the forge and took about a gallon of canola oil and set it aside right next to the forge. I heated the blade till it was a dark orange-ish which was the point where the kitchen magnet wouldn't stick what so ever and I dunked it for a little and took it out, and I repeated the dunking untill it was touch safe, but just to make sure I did it right I did it again. This time I screwed up and put the tip too far into the forge, (didn't have very good pliers to hold on) and the tip turned yellow and folded over). I wasn't thinking so after I dunked it once I though I should straighten it, I tapped it on a brick and the tip broke off. So I finished the HT and tempered it in my kitchen oven for 2 cycles at 450 degrees for 1 hour each. And I let the blade cool off for 30 minutes before touching it after it was out of the oven. Then I fixed he tip and moved on!
This is the blade after all that, with the junk still on it.
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This is the picture of what I had to grind when fixing the tip. Also you can see the blisters left from the HT, I forgot to take pictures of the knife after I was done sanding it but lets say its a mix between a sub mirror finish and keeping the blisters (They look nice).
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Then I wrapped the blade in some masking tape to keep it from scratching, thank you again Rex for the supplies! And I fit the bolsters on to check if they were snug.
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But then out of sheer stupidity I tried to use my band saw to cut wedges into the left over brass to make it easier to file off so I wouldn't ruin the sanded handle and the saw sucked up the knife and nicked it pretty bad. But I just cut that part off and made it straight and continued forward.
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After shaping the brass to the new form and shining the top I decided to at liner material to it and because the brass is so dang soft I am hand sanding the liner so I don't ruin the shape of the brass. (It's pretty thick liner.)
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I decided to add one more line of liner material to the handle to accentuate some more colors into the handle thus making somewhat of an L shape with the material.
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Then came the peening, it is pretty difficult if you have very long pieces of pin material but I had perfect amount to I didn't bend. You can see it's my first time since it looks pretty sloppy but it kept the bolsters very firmly in place.
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Then I lightly ground the bolsters to make the pins disappear!
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Next I cut out the rough shape of the handle on a piece of walnut slab, Again thank you Rex! and glued some liner material on it. I flattened the sides I was going to stick the knife on and I used my band saw to cut the slabs from a block of wood a couple mm bigger than what I want so I can sand it back down later.
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Next I took some 60 grit sandpaper and roughed up the tang of the knife, I also took a box cutter/utility knife and made some markings on it with that too just to make sure. (Preparing for the gluing of the slabs).
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I did the same with the wood and liner but since I coudn't see the 60 grit marks very well I decided to also use the boxer cutter to mark the knife.
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This is what I have so far, right now i'm gluing the first slab on the knife and I will have more pictures later tonight!

-Pedro G.
 
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