A quick look at one of my projects...

Okay....a few more pics. But first, I want to point out that this is only a brief look into the way I do things. It isn't the right way or the wrong way, or the best way or the worst way. Definitely not the fastest way. But it's my way. In fact, I spend about half my time walking around my shop muttering to myself, "There HAS to be a better faster way to do this!" :p

I start out with all my handle pieces, including the wood perfectly flat, square, and with all sides parallel. This adds a considerable amount of time to the process but it's much easier to keep everything 'right' if I do that. With a knife with this many different parts, the precision is a must for me. If something is 'off' I can check every part against every other part and see where the issue is. It's just easier in general to keep everything straight and true.

So, back on track:

Here the blade is all finished ready for fittings. I use blue shop towel and electrical tape to protect the blade from scratches and scuffs and protect my hands from cuts. The blade is not at it's final wicked sharpness yet, but from finish grinding and sanding and etching, it's plenty sharp enough to slice me open.


This particular knife has a little spacer before the actual main guard. So I lay out a center line and two lines parallel to it with my height gauge, marking the width of my guard slot. I use black sharpie rather than layout dye. Just easier and cheaper.


Next I lay the tang across the spacer and make a small mark where my tang will go to mark the ends of the slot.


Use the height gauge to make those marks true.


The spacer now has the complete location of the slot laid out.


Next It's chucked in the mill vise. An undersized end mill is used to remove the bulk of the material, leaving enough room to hand file the slot for a perfect press fit so that there are no gaps whatsoever.


More to come later:
 
After roughing the slot out with the end mill, and some careful hand filing, I have the first piece fit just like I want it. Nice and seamless.


Then the same process gets repeated with the next piece in line. I fit each piece as carefully as possible so there is no extra 'slop'. The goal is to lock everything up tight by having it only be able to go in one exact spot.




And here's the hand filing I was talking about to make the slot's rectangle and nice and crisp in the corners. A good set of safe-edge and safe-face files are a necessity here.


Then the next piece. This keeps repeating until I'm out of pieces. :)


And the goal is to get a nice stack going like this:
 
Hey, J. Its looking good! So you send a lot time in the shop muttering to yourself too?:3: My wife calls them the little voices!

She will say, What are the voices you are talking to saying today? I laugh, and say, you don't want to know!
 
Some of those pictures look like your using micarta or G10. Do they require a softer touch than stainless or nickle/silver?

This is going to be an awesome knife when finished, keep up the pictures please.
 
I have been wondering how you make those beauties of yours. I check this thread at least twice a day. Thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks guys. :)

Brad Lilly said:
Some of those pictures look like your using micarta or G10. Do they require a softer touch than stainless or nickle/silver?

This is going to be an awesome knife when finished, keep up the pictures please.
Click to expand...

Hi Brad. No micarta or g-10 here. These are all steel fittings. I think what you're seeing is the black marker I use instead of layout dye.

But to answer your question, g-10 does file and sand a LOT easier than steel, (even though oz. for oz. it's just about as strong, go figure) so you have to be lighter on your file strokes. I've had some wonder if using g-10 was an easy way out. That's not the case at all. When I use it, it definitely has some particular advantages in certain cases, but as far as fitting, it takes as much care as 416 or damascus to fit properly. It has no give whatsoever so your filing has to be dead on to not show gaps.

I don't use micarta for any fittings. Just black g-10 occasionally.
 
Now we're getting to some fun stuff. It's time for the hidden alignment pins. These are small 1/16" hardened steel dowel pins, precision fit. These guys add a considerable amount of strength to the whole knife making sure there is no twisting, but also make sure everything can be located back in exactly the same spot, ensuring repeatability and precision. These are NOT a sloppy, 'good enough' fit. They are drilled with a 1/16" bit, which will NOT let a 1/16" pin through if your bit and pins are good quality. Then the holes are reamed out with a .063" reamer, that's a 1/2 thousandth oversize. Just enough to let the pins through without fighting them but no extra movement.

First I take one of the rear spacers and punch my holes more or less anywhere I want. One note, the placement of these pins has to be thought about carefully. You'll need to be able to think about the finished knife and all the details before you punch your holes. There is a lot to consider. The pins have to be hidden, you have to make sure you leave enough room for filework if there's any and not cut into your pins exposing them. you have to make sure you have enough meat in your wood handle that it won't break or chip out when you drill the holes to extend the pins in your handle. That kind of thing. You pretty much need to know the finished shape and dimensions of your spacers and handle and what embellishments you're going to do so that you can place these properly.

Let's assume that I already thought of all that. :D So I've punched my holes in one of the spacers. It will now become my template for all the rest of the pin holes in the other parts. Two holes is probably plenty, but I like 4, especially when I have the extra room. I tend to overbuild things.


Next a few drops of superglue will be applied and the spacer will be pressed to the back side of the guard while it's in place on the knife, thereby capturing it in place.


Now I can pull both pieces off together and drill through the spacer and into the guard.


Separate the two with a razor blade and I'm left with the hole locations spot punched on the guard.


Then clean up the superglue residue and now I can pin the two parts together with the pins and have absolutely zero movement. These two pieces are held together just with the 4 pins and they cannot be moved. It feels like they've been machined out of a solid piece of steel.
 
All the forward pieces are fit and in place and pinned together using the methods described above. Once you have all your parts pinned, you are now free to start shaping your pieces. That's exactly where I'm at now and I'll probably be some considerable time doing so. This is probably it for pics today.

 
Amazing wip....thnaks for showing, it is very interesting to learn from one of my favourite makers!!!!!
John, i noticed from the pics, it seems the first slab of the spacer has "pinched" edges... is there a chance they are safely outside the finished dimensions? It could also be only some black residue from the magic marker, perhaps?
It is something i hate when i find sheared stock in bad shape....i wish i had a surface grinder....i had a corner of a soldered joint showing because i hadn't trimmed the pinched stock far enough, without realizing.
 
Last edited:
stezann said:
Amazing wip....thnaks for showing, it is very interesting to learn from one of my favourite makers!!!!!
John, i noticed from the pics, it seems the first slab of the spacer has "pinched" edges... is there a chance they are safely outside the finished dimensions? It could also be only some black residue from the magic marker, perhaps?
It is something i hate when i find sheared stock in bad shape....i wish i had a surface grinder....i had a corner of a soldered joint showing because i hadn't trimmed the pinched stock far enough, without realizing.
Click to expand...

You are right. It's a hammer mark from forging the fittings. I surface ground the main part flat and stopped when I had the thickness that I wanted. Yes I took care to make sure that it would be outside the area that I needed for the spacer.

Good eye and you are right to think about that kind of stuff ahead of time. It can burn you for sure. ;)
 
John
I am also following along. Thank you for posting this up. I know it takes just as much time to post the WIP as it does to do the work. You are a good fellow for sharing it with us.
DeMo
 
A lot of grinding and filing.......and still more to go. But we're starting to see some things take shape.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top