Walrus Hunter WIP- fittings, fluting, browning

I haven't done a WIP in a while, figured I was due for one. I built an oosic hunter last year, and took an order for another. I shot a series of phone pictures for the customer as I built, and thought I'd put them up here as a WIP. The main things you might pick up are a few tricks on fluting, scoring, fitting, and browning fittings. Other than that, it's a stick tang hunter

The blade on this one is W2 with a hamon. I didn't take pictures of it until after it was ground, heat treated, and polished.
[video=youtube_share;NrE6BbSmDTg]https://youtu.be/NrE6BbSmDTg[/video]

The plan for this knife includes an oosic handle and mild steel fittings. Here's a picture of the fittings rough fit.... like rough.

There's a few things to notice in this next picture. If you're going to build a knife with a bunch of handle parts, particularly if the parts have to be blued, browned, or etched, you've pretty well got to use hidden pins. Here's a shot of the spacer stack showing the guard, two spacers, and pins. I typically use brass pins during setup. I like them because they swell and bend a bit, forcing the stack together. Hardened pins, or drill bit pieces, etc, work good for final assembly because things stay looser and slide together right. Another thing to notice here... the stack has to stay in the same order, and the parts have to stay oriented the same way. I typically will punch witness marks. In this case I did one, two, three, punches in the top right quadrant of each piece. The stack goes together in 1-2-3 order, with me looking at the marks as they go on the stack.


Here are a couple of shots of things ground to shape and fit up. Not much to note here, except to say that if each piece of the stack isn't flat, you'll have gaps. Disk sander comes in handy. Also, here's a shot of the preliminary guard fitup. There's still a tiny shoulder gap in the pic that I wasn't happy with.

Next came a few hours worth of fluting and polishing fittings. Back when I was a decent knifemaker, trying to make the turn toward "good", John Horrigan told me that the blades get easier and the handles get harder. It took me a few years to figure out that he's right.

Here's a shot of my fancy fluting jig.... Yep, a vise and a chainsaw file. The spacers are 1/4, so I used a 5/32 file. The parallel jaws of the vise serve as good visual indicators of parallel, and help you keep things centered with your micrometer eyeballs. Took about 45 minutes per spacer to cut the fluting, if I remember right. After the first cut, I wrapped the file in 400 grit paper and polished the flutes, then 600 grit. Having challenges with carpal tunnel on occasion, I did these fittings over a couple of evenings.


Here's a decent trick. When I want to put a score or cut in my spacer instead of full-on fluting, I use a dremel disk in my drill press. You can adjust the height to be where you want it, put the guard piece flat on the drill press table, and cut the score by hand. Doing it this way takes away your instability in one dimension, and allows you to make a straight cut all the way around the guard, parallel to the guard face. Turn the cutter at the highest speed your press will go, and wear safety glasses (duh!). Incidentally, this technique works reasonably well for cutting a nail nick on a slipjoint.

Here we are at the end of the first night. Notice, I added a stainless spacer in there, in between the mild fittings that'll be browned later. I didn't shoot any more pics of this stack prior to browning.


Fitting the butt cap is basically the same. I used two guide pins and a stainless spacer. Here's a shot of the butt cap in place, all polished and ready to etch. I had not planned on cutting into the coloring of the oosic. Although this piece was stabilized, it was darn chippy on the corners. I had to modify the plan a bit to grind out a chip in the handle. Half of making a knife is fixing screw-ups so that they look like you meant it that way


Here's a shot sequence of getting set up to brown the fittings. "What do you brown those fittings with, Jason?" I use Birchwood Casey Plum Brown. "How do you to it?" I follow the directions on the bottle. Genius... One thing to note here, I put a piece of wire in each fitting, so I can pick it up. You do the browning when the steel is around 300 degrees, and you also don't want to touch the fittings themselves. Everything gets cleaned in acetone, then washed with dish soap and water prior to the first application.



It says "approximately 275" degrees. I found that 300 or 325 works better on these small parts, as they start losing heat as soon as you pull them out of the oven.

When they first are treated, they're ugly. Wash off the oxides with water, no soap. It takes 4 to 6 applications to get the color even.


Here's a shot of the browned fitting stack.


Here's a shot of the final guard fit. "If it does not fit, you must acquit!"


Here's a shot of the blade after I etched. I wasn't too happy with the activity, although the placement of the line is about right. I guess if you nail one, you don't have any incentive to make the next one...

I did a two stage glue-up, because I didn't want the tiny finial holding all the pressure. I glued up the guard, spacers, and oosik to the blade in one step, then did the butt cap, spacer, and finial in a second step. I didn't take many pictures, because seriously, watching glue dry... If you don't have a furniture clamp, you need one. Dirt simple, cheap, works for the job.



I fileworked the butt cap and finial a little, because, well, why not? Really though, the butt cap would have been the only piece that wasn't fluted or something. It needed to be worked to balance out the texture. The finial needed a few scores so you could grip it to tighten.

Here are the mostly final pictures. I still lack a bit of superglue in a tiny gap, and sharpening. I also have to figure out some sort of sheath for this one. With the oval guard, heavy handle and short-ish blade, it's going to be a tough one to hold in a sheath.





So there you go...

Questions and comments welcome. Sorry for the crappy phone pictures.

Again beautiful knife and an inspiring wip, Thanks Ed

Nice work,that happens to be one of my favorite handle materials to work with !