The Safari knife W I P

Von Gruff

KNIFE MAKER
On the Africa Hunting forum a member posted a test that was done on a number of knives for the safari huner and the resuts were quite mixed, but there were over $5000 worh of production knives tested with most having issues of one sort or the other added to which the sheaths came in for criticism as well. The testing started in his back yard with only 4 knives going on to be tested on US based hunts then going to Africa and spending a lot of time in the hands of hunters, guides, and the hunt staff who all treated them to as many every day tasks as would normally be expected a good knife to perform from cutting sticks to roast the lunch time meats to skinning animals and cutting fine cigars. There was use and abuse and some very definate ideals were concreted on to a wish list. The Esee camp lore was the most ideal but didn't have removable scales as the guys wanted the ability to remove the scales to possibly replace them with bone, tusk, horn or antler from thier own trophies as time and or hunts provide and the sheath was not suitable for what was needed. Others tested were rejected for one reason or another so after consulting with Troy, I have started on a 6 pack of the knives today after confirming the design and cutting a patern from some 15N20.

Steel is to be 4mm O1 HT to 59-60, with scandi grind in a horizontal carry sheath to be worn on the off side hip. Scales are olive canvas micarta secured with brass torx screws (2 only) and a lanyard hole. They have excellent reasons for each of the design criteria I will send the first one to undergo the same series of tests that the other knives went through so am looking forward to seeing how mine stand up against the others.



 
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Very cool. I like the looks of the blades so far. Looking forward to seeing the progress on these.
 
It was my hunter design with the birds beak taken off the rear of the handle and the front of the finger notch tightened and lengthened a little to suit the criteria that was et as the rsult of the testing that was done. With as many knife makers as there are it is enevitable that there would be a similarity in design when we are looking to serve the same purpose.
 
With most of the group buy knives paid for and in the post I was able to start looking at the safari knife again.
When I built the grinder, I made an adjustable jig to do the main bevel on the various sized knives, but for the safari knife I decided to make a fixed jig for the accuracy from knife to knife for the scandi grind they will have.
A piece of some resin type compound made a suitable base after I ground a 13 degree bevel on it so the piece of angle aluminium could be screwed in place. A channel was cut down the face so one side of the carbide faced file jig would accurately locate the blade to be clamped in place for grinding and a couple of bolts threaded into the base will be the handles to guide the jig on the tool rest of the grinder.


 
I got to try out the jig today, getting the profiled blades ground. I checked that the jig was at 13 degrees and set into the main grind with a 60 grit belt and finished with 240 before a 360 hand sand and stamping thier serial number on the handle. They are at about 01 edge but with the scandi grind I think I can get away with that for heat treating but time will tell on that. I can't go any further with them till the torx screws turn up but hopefully they will arrive this week.
 
The handle hardware and some more micarta turned up today so I was able to work through the process of drill sizes for the different needs of the connectors and screws to get the first one assembled.
(correction-second one #1 needs a little "adjustment")
I just have to figure out the edge radius and whether to contour the sides or leave them flat but they are 7/8" thick which is a bit much to my way of thinking.
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Have had a successfull day in the shed but it did require a trip to the city to get a some screws to replace the brass ones in the connector units for the handles. The brass is so soft that the torx head will chew out after a couple of assembly tries so I got the only 8x32 threaded screws I could find and they are inch long stainless ones. I had to make a jig to shorten them but by lunch time I was ready go have another try at the handles. There is still some finish shaping to do but I am happy enough with them at this stage so will get a couple more done tomorrow and then will HT the blade and look to finishing them.

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Have been through to see a friend with a rockwell hardness tester with 4 safari knife blades and a couple of my other hunter types. I will have to lift the tempering heat by 25 degrees as with three tests per blade to ensure a correct reading he found that one was at 62 and the rest were at 61 which pleased me in one respect as I wanted to test for consistency of my heat treat as much as anything else. To hit the projects required 59-60 I can get there by raising the tempering heat by 25 degrees.
 
The first safari knife has been finished so will send it off to Troy who iniated this project for his impression and testing
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I got some very welcome feedback from Troy today on the prototype knife I sent for his evaluation with two areas of improvments to be attended to. The belt loops will have an extra security system with being both sewn and having a chicago screw on subsequent sheaths but the main area of concern was the bevels as it seemed I had born down more on one side than the other in the final sharpening and had altered the equality of the angles by a small amount so I have got one of these NZ made sharpening systems heading my way so that I can guarantee a perfect edge angle on the production blades.


Expensive at $510 but worth it to make sure I offer the best knife that I can. There is a good video of how it operates in the link.

http://www.scarysharp.co.nz/
 
Expensive....but ACCURATE!! Good choice.

Say VonGruff...A few years back I had to do a lot of G-10 fiberglass work. I had to break the holes a bit and a countersink worked terrible. I took brass rod and split it a bit on the band saw and then slid a chunk of SkotchBrite in the split and ran it in a drill press on a fairly high speed. By how big the wad of scotchbrite was I could control the edge of the hole. It doesn't give a chamfer but a small radius and looks rather nice. I thought perhaps it would be of help on you military looking handles.

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The pic shown is for cleaning the "valley" on some plastic pieces I make. on hole edge breaking the skotchbrite would be flush with the brass and maybe 1/4 bigger in dia.

Hope this helps!
 
I know I could build that in a week. And it probably would work as good....or I could do what I know how to do and buy it after a day and a half of work. I have taught myself this over and over....and over. If I have a revenue stream it's probably better to do that than re-engineer something like that and possibly miss a subtle point to the design that has already been solved by the MFG.

I do not speak for Von Gruff but I notice his knives disappear pretty quick....perhaps he's making knives to buy this rather than build this on his own?

The ol' bird in the hand....
 
Exactly Ted. I was told about the sharpening system with the rider that " you could probably fold some stainless up and make one yourself". The problem with that is I might spend days (and days) in doing so and in the meantime I might have made another coupe of knives (without the frustration that making this tool might involve) that would pay for the tool so with no agravation to myself I can easily solve a small concern.

On the lanyard hole I simple drill through and countersink either side but may look at the scotchbright idea so thanks for that tip. These will probably not ever have a lanyard installed as it is not necessary for withdrawing the knife from the sheath.
 
I have had another think on the concept multiple carry option and have come up with this to give the ability to carry left side horrizontal carry, right side vertical carry or left side multi angle canted carry. All this from the one sheath. Would be interested in any feedback, opinion, critique or otherwise on this new idea to make the safari knife more universal in use. Those buying this knife/sheath combo would have to nominate whether they were right or left handed but that is fairly standard for almost every type of sheath anyway.

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