DanF's KITH WIP

I will have to admit that I have never made a curved hidden tang before, in fact, I have only done a handful of hidden tangs period so that may be the reason I ask this question if it ends up being a stupid question. How do you intend to drill a curved hole in your handle material? Will you hollow the material then fill it back with epoxy? Burn through? Maybe drill a straight hole then do a burn through for the curved part? Or are you doing a through tang and will drill from both sides? Am I close on any front? Sorry if its a dumb question but I may need to do a curved hidden tang one day.
 
The answer to this one is the 3 piece handle, similar to how you'd do a 3 pc coffin box style handle. If the curvature were not as pronounced, I'd use a clevis pin/hinge, drill straight in from ricasso end of things, then angle drill from butt end. On this one the three piece handle will give me an accent material where a full tang would normally be. If I didn't want a three piece I could do a 2 piece and mark the tang on one side, mill out an exact fit for the curved tang at half the thickness of the tang and then do the same on the other side for a perfect fit over the curved tang.
Hope I made sense of that.
 
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Both blades ground down to 220 grit, ready for heat treat after I drill a few holes. There is enough tang on both to make a threaded through tang if I decide to go that route.
I tapped the tang on the forged blade one time too many on the horn, it sits about a sixteenth" lower than the stock removal tang. I'll correct that also.
 
Did I mention plan C?
There is something bothering me about these two, will have to think on it a bit.
 
Well, looks like a fast month flew by since my last post for my kith :(.
Finally getting my work caught up and had a bit of time to move this one forward a bit.
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I put the knife in the filing guide to give me a squared up reference for the brass bolsters
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Bolsters roughed out, all edges squared, clamped onto the ricasso/tang area and first pin hole drilled clean through.
20180926_160957.jpgBoth pins in place now.
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Located a small piece of Gaboon ebony for the spacer and cut out enough for this knife using a fine tooth, thin-kerf pull saw.
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Using a flycutter to flatten and true-up the spacer.
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I have drilled a hole center line with the tang that will allow me to file the tang slot with a mini-file to just undersized for the tang on my next session. Will also be identifying the handle material from my stash.
More to come..., .
 
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Using a flat needle file to start fitting the spacer to the tang. The drilled hole is a smaller diameter than the tang's thickness, so I will need to work all four sides of the drilled hole to fit.
 
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I'm approximately halfway up the tang. Here is where I need to go slow, take a stroke or two with the file and keep rechecking the fit to make sure I don't take out too much and make the spacer to tang a sloppy fit
 
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Spacer and bolster in place, nice fit.
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Next time I'll select the appropriate size oval for the spacer's shaping. Ready to heat treat now.
 
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Plan C
I could never come to accept the shoulder on the tang that I botched while grinding too many different styles on the same day so I have started over, same profile and style but a full tang.
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Bevel rough ground to .040 at 50 grit, switching to 120, then 220, clean up the plunge lines and look for .025 at edge, then heat treat.
 
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Getting the bits and pieces together. This piece of Thuya looks to be a better piece of wood than the amboyna or presentation grade desert iron piece I have.
Ready for h.t.
 
Those aren't knives Kevin, they are albatrosses. I make four knives a year, the rest allow me to make those four.
 
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Kith knife heat treated (third in from right).
All the rest are what remains of my taken orders. That is the last I will take. From now forward they will be what I want to make, the way I want to make them and then put up for sale. I believe I can put out a better, and higher quality knife that way.
Tempering as I type.
 
"
All the rest are what remains of my taken orders. That is the last I will take. From now forward they will be what I want to make, the way I want to make them and then put up for sale. I believe I can put out a better, and higher quality knife that way.
Tempering as I type."

I agree. I've has some requests to make a certain type of knife but it seems to take the fun out of it for me.
 
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