First WIP on " Just Makin A Knife "

Steven Long said:
backtines, great WIP! Do you use any adhesive or solder for your bolsters, or do you just attach them "dry"?

Thanks for taking the time to do this and can't wait to see the finished knife.
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Hey Steve,
No solder or adhesive . I just peen them in place. After the scales are pinned and epoxied in place. Everything just locks together nicely.
 
Thanks Mike. I have been contemplating this and everyone seems to do it a little different. This way seems to be the way to go.
 
New day here and Im outside working the scales on my 4x36



I go slow during this process. I dont want to get the knife too hot, it may mess with your temper .. Take your time and go slow ..


Now I move to the 2x72 grizzly workin out some of the heavy scratches


After Im done on the belts , I move over to hand sanding the scales starting at 400g and moving up to whatever your satisfied with . I took this one up to 3000g. I wet sanded this handle. You need to be careful wet sanding your handles . It depends on what type of wood your using . To me wet sanding works best on really hard dense woods or stabilized woods. If your scales are pourus and soft, you may later find that your scales shrunk after the everything dries out and thats a pain ! You'd go grab your knife the next day and find that the handle was'nt as smooth as the day before . The pins and tang are higher than the scales due to the scales shrinking. So be careful with that.



I also forgot to add that Im sanding over the bolsters too , trying to blend everything together.


After your satisfied with how your handle looks and feels , I take it over to my buffing wheels and bring it to life.. I use the same two rouges with the same two wheels . Green and pink . (I dont know much about all these different rouges so I just stick to what works for me). I go over the whole handle with the green . Dont push hard and go lightly over the bolster. Then I move over to the pink and that just makes everything pop !


At this point I also wanted to mention that there is no edge on the blade yet. the last thing I do is put an edge on the blade then sharpen .. Be careful using these buffers, I got hurt a few times using this tool . Always work the lower half of the wheel !!


Then I sharpen .. I start off on my belt and finish up using the Wicked Edge Sharpener . It works great for me as you can see.. ( You'd think I'd learn by now )






Here we have the finished job .. Hope you enjoyed it .









So this is how I make a knife , It may not be the way you guys do it , but its been working well for me.. Im always open to any suggestions you may have to make this process easier and maybe better . Thanks for looking..
 
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redd1981 said:
awsome work!! is that just oil on the handle in the last pic that makes it so glossy?
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Het Red , that's not oil on the handle. I hand sanded the wood up to 3000 grit sandpaper and then ran it lightly under the buffing wheel with pink rouge.

Thanks
 
Great job on the WIP. Thanks for doing it.

In the fouth picture down from the start, what size is that small wheel you are doing the finger groove with. I need to order one and I didn't know what size to go with. Is there one size you do most of them with or do I need to order a couple of sizes?

Thanks again,
Doug
John 3:16
 
doug adams said:
Great job on the WIP. Thanks for doing it.

In the fouth picture down from the start, what size is that small wheel you are doing the finger groove with. I need to order one and I didn't know what size to go with. Is there one size you do most of them with or do I need to order a couple of sizes?

Thanks again,
Doug
John 3:16
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Hey Doug ,
The wheel that you see me using in the picture is 1". I personally have a few different size wheels for all different knives, but I almost never go bigger than the 1" for the finger groove. Hope that helps.
 
great wip tines, love to see how different every one does things to get to the same end. the jig looks cool i just put one on pay it forwad.
that knife is really cool love the bolsters they go great with the scales!!!
 
franklin said:
great wip tines, love to see how different every one does things to get to the same end. the jig looks cool i just put one on pay it forwad.
that knife is really cool love the bolsters they go great with the scales!!!
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Thanks bro for the nice words. I think the knife came out pretty nice but taking all those pics and trying to capture all the steps is not my cup of tea. Ya know when you get into something and you don't like to stop ? That's how I get when I'm in the zone and then I forget to take some pics along the way. Anyway it was my first WIP , I think they'll get better .if I decide to do another one lol. Thanks again.
 
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