my first two knife builds any comments aprechated

these are my two first knife builds i used 440c stainless steel one with camel bone and one with cherry burl wood all comments will help in next builds thanks. steve

First off you should understand, that if you use pre-ground blades you should be clear about it. There is a difference between buying a blank and those who put their blood and sweat into working steel. Nothing wrong with scaling blanks, I don't have the shop that allows me to make my own blades so I work with old knives, blanks, and hopefully in the near future collaborations with other makers. But full disclosure shows respect for both the community and the customer. I'm not here to bust your chops but rather to help with friendly advise.

On to the scales, the cherry burl looks like you got some epoxy beyond the front of the scales and the handles look pretty chunky. Also you need to use pins if you used internal pins you should say so, that way it avoids unnecessary comment, if not they are an important structural component.

A quick tip for dealing with epoxy squeeze out after you attach a scale to one side of the tang and clamp. Have some solvent a rag and bamboo skewers handy, after clamping take a rag with solvent and use the skewer to get it right up into the seam and get all the squeeze out. As far as shaping goes you need to spend some more time there, fortunately much can be done on the knife and it is typical to do it that way. You don't have to spend a ton in tools and equipment to do a good job. If you give me a rundown of the power and hand tools available to you I'll give you a rundown on how they might be used to refine the shape of your handles. Good luck and have fun, soon you'll have some dead sexy knives.

I would gather when someone said a knife build that it was a kit or built upon a blank. I concur the handles look chunky. I don't know if that is by design or a lack of contour or beveling. If you're just getting your feet wet and having fun, more power to you. Enjoy and stick with it.

On a separate note, JW, "Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy." Your first paragraph seemed like there was something distinctly underhanded about building a kit knife. I don't see "full disclosure" as being necessary to ask for constructive comments about the build of a knife. It seemed more pious than friendly. Tone it down a touch and you'll have smooth sailing in this forum!

Building a knife from a finished blade is more traditional than starting out with a piece of steel and a block of wood and creating a knife. Back in the day of guild rules, a blacksmith would not be allowed to do anything but forge the blade. It would then be sent to a grinder, possibly returned to the smith for heat treating, sent to a polisher, then sent to a cutler for assembly. BTW, cutlers were usually considered to be the senior guild.

Steve, as the others have said, you problem lies with the fit and finish. You didn't mention whether or not you were dealing with a stick or full tang, though with the camel bone scales I would suspect the latter, so I don't know how much leeway you had in shaping the handles. The handles do need more rounding, reguardless. Pins to hold the scales or block really add to the structural integrety of the knife. They help protect the handle from popping off after a shearing force is applied to the handle as with a blow or a hard drop. The best way to deal with stray glue is to wipe it away immediately after glueing. WD-40 is great for wiping away stray epoxy. Use Q-tips and paper towel to with it. After it dries you are going to need something like a brass scraper. That said, you actually didn't do all that badly for first knives.

Doug

Rock said:

On a separate note, JW, "Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy." Your first paragraph seemed like there was something distinctly underhanded about building a kit knife. I don't see "full disclosure" as being necessary to ask for constructive comments about the build of a knife. It seemed more pious than friendly. Tone it down a touch and you'll have smooth sailing in this forum!

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Sorry I came off that way, both to you and the OP. It wasn't my intention. I don't think its underhanded at all, if I did I wouldn't do it, LOL. I really just wanted to help the OP avoid some of the pitfalls I've seen others make, made a few myself and I guess a few more. Again I apologize, it can be hard to strike the right tone in text and my honest intention was to help.

Its easy to be misunderstood when limited to print. IRL, I am beloved by all. Online, some folks think I'm a mook. Go figure. I too, only wish to help. KnifeDogs is a fantastic community. Much of that is the support we show for each other and the members' personal integrity. Its rated G, family friendly, but hasn't been neutered by PC run rampant. Speak your mind, brother. Its all good.

I happen to think these babies are wonderfull, everyones hands are different and what fits good in your hand may fall out of mine! I think they resemble folders. Are they? If not they should be! I am not an accomplished maker but am trying and obviously so are you! Nice work!

I was thinking that maybe some pictures would help. I had a customer who picked out a blank and some horn scales and asked me to put it together for him. The scales were a little short so I couldn't match the bevel angle on the scale to the choil and he really wanted those specific scales but it still came out alright. It is a similar blade with blocked scales and I can go through what I did for shaping the handle after they were on the tang. I used @@@@@@@ files a fine flat and a half round med. With the blade protected and in the vise I worked along the spine with first the flat side of the medium then the fine. I brought the scales flush to the tang and then rocked it over the corners to round and put a very slight taper to the flat of the scales. I used the half round to do the notch at the belly and a 1" dowel wrapped in sand paper to smooth the handle was hand sanded and buffed with 0000 steel wool and polished with pumice and neetsfoot oil. The horn was then cleaned of oil and wiped with tung oil and beeswax. I did all hand tools on this knife because of the problems with heat and horn and another set of horn scales wouldn't do for the customer, so no do overs if I hit a problem.

I thought this might help serve as an example of how these knives could be tweaked for under $20 in tools most of which are likely found in your average garage.

I remember that my first knifes where real bad pieces of steel nobody (beside this forum and all and each one of you tought me a thing about knifemaking) A good friend and Knifemaker in Spain once he found out about my new venture come to my help adding more information and gave me some "classes" now I am looking foward into making some more knifes good enough to be exposed in this forum