Small fighter

Leeco

Well-Known Member
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This blade was forged from 5160 round stock.
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Here is my drawing I plan to go buy, but some things may change.
 
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Grinded bevels last night.
I was debating to add a false edge on blade. Is it more traditonal to have a sharpend clip or false edge being a fighter? Almost all the ones i see have it. So thats got me stuck to false edge or to not false edge.
 
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It is important for me to have the recoso flat from spine to edge so when my gaurd slot is milled there will not be a gap at the top or bottom. Its within 1 thousands of a inch so that is close enoph
 
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Did some work on the tang,

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If you can see i added a small radius to the tang were the gaurd will seat. I used a small round needle file to do so.

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The reason for this is to prevent any stress risers, this is the weakest part on a hidden tang knife. So eliminating any sharp corners helps strengthen the knife. And also helps to prevent any problems in the heat treat process.
 
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Gonna make the gaurd, ferrule, butt cap it is mild steel

Laying out the gaurd.

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Laying the gaurd out on the height gage, gonna make it .250

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Cutting gaurd down to .250 on the mill

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I get the gaurd within a few thousands and switch cutters to get a cleaner cut, i use the carbide fly cutter for heavy stock removal, and the hss cutter for clean cuts

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After I take it out the mill its over to the surface plate, i take 220 grit paper taped down to the surface plate to remove mill marks and to true it up.

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Got the gaurd laid out to mill the slot.

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The way i mill my gaurd slot is with a 3/16 tapered end mill i think it is 3 or 5 deg. I mill from the front of the gaurd that faces the blade first, after i get the slot milled thru i mill to my layout lines checking with my calipers to get it the rite size.Once i got it within 2 thousands i flip the gaurd over, spray the inside of the slot with layout die, find the center and keep lowering the end mill removing material looking at the dye and stop about 1/16th of a inch from going thru and changing the the size of the face on the gaurd

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Got some more done on the small fighter last night,

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Now i need to use a needle file and clean up the round sholders on the gaurd to almost square because i slightly radius the corners of the tang. Then hammer gaurd down into a press fit.

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And all my center lines match up which thats perfect.


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I made a wooden mockup of my gaurd, ferrule, and handle, so i can work out any size issues. To me the handle shape is a very important part of a knife, so on alot of my knives i make a wooden mock up of the handle and hardware. The handle should be very comfortable in the hands and with a fighter it should be comfortable in many configurations, as with a reverse thrust or a over hand thrust. And imo a fighting knife should have some contour to help lock it to you hands so its not easily droped. Wile a hunting knife should be more rounded and not to small to prevent fatigue from holding it for long periods, wile it does help in some cases to have the bolster areas of a hunting knife thin so it can be comfortable in a pinch grip, but from experience your hands fatigue quickly in this grip.

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Here i am using the mill to square up my block of handle material.

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I think i am going to use unstablized dark walnut, but i may use zebra wood, i have some nice zebra wood but i have put it on my last 3 knives so i wanted to go with something different. Time to buy some handle material!

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And here i set my disc sander to 5 deg and put a angle were my handle meets the ferrule.
 
Ok i ended up making some changes to the design of the knife it will not be having a thru tang, or a buttcap. So on with the blade
Here i glued the ferrule to the handle block, at this point i have already fitted the tang into the handle block.

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Now i layout my handle shape using surface plate and a jig i made to hold a pencil

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Here is the layed out handle

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