Dirk WIP w/ 1-piece Bolster/Frame

[Erin Burke]

This is a bit different profile than what I've been making lately... more dirk, less Bowie/fighter. I wanted to try something new, so will be trying a 1-piece bolster/frame. I'm guessing it might be entertaining to watch me struggle through that milling operation. :biggrin:


PHOTO 1

First, here's the original sketch. The knife will be fairly narrow, and I'm not planning a hamon, so I grabbed a tiny bar of 3/16" 1080 out of the rack.

PHOTO 2

Here I have started profiling on the belt grinder. The edges of this bar of 1080 were a bit rounded, so I squared up the back edge of the bar... then I ground in the belly of the blade. The fresh grinds (colored with Dykem) will give me a nice clean canvas for marking my center-lines with the height gauge.

And would somebody sweep my floor already!?!




Photo 3

You'll notice that I didn't grind the spine of the blade down to the tip. I won't do this, nor will I grind the tang to shape until after HT. I'm hoping all of this will minimize warping out of the quench. (Note from the future: It didn't help. :les::sad

Photo 4

Remember the thing I said earlier about a one-piece frame and bolster. Assuming I can pull it off, I'll mill it from my trusty bar of salvage steel... as seen in previous WIPs. :9:

Little did my grandpa know -- when I grabbed this bar of steel from his yard-pile -- how many knives it would show up on. :thumbup:

Photo 5

They may not look it... but the blade steel and the block are blazing hot it this picture.

I was normalizing/thermo-cycling the blade, and figure I'd throw the frame block in for a few rounds. I'm assuming that it's a fairly mild steel, but ran into some hard spots while cutting on the bandsaw... so I figure a few heat cycles might not hurt.

These ceramic racks from USAKnifemaker.com are da bomb... though the pins are fairly fragile. :shush:

 

[Brad Lilly]

Looking great so far

 

[Erin Burke]

Back for round 2. :44:

Photo 6

This knife will have more {mini} mill time associated with it than most of my non-folding knives. The first step is to get the rough material square. Starting with square material ensures, in turn, that fixturing for future operations will also be as square and secure as possible.

In this photo I'm flattening and cleaning up the sides of the block with my trusty face mill. Not only will the faces end up flat, but also parallel to eachother.

Note: I haven't used this face mill in a long time. I had a bad experience with some titanium a few years ago... and have been squeamish about using it ever since. I usually only bring it out when I need to quickly remove the icky from freshly stabilized handle blocks.


Photo 7

This is what the block looked like after four of the sides were squared up. This is the last I'll work on this block until I have the blade mostly finished. Turns out, the face-mill actually did a fairly good job.

You can see that I didn't go deep enough to remove 100% of the punk from one end of the block. I wanted to leave enough workable thickness as possible, and that end of the block will be thinned out in future operations.



Photo 8

This is the first look at the {tentative} project materials assembled together. The blade has been hardened... and I think I'll end up using these simple {dark} desert ironwood scales for the handle.

Just a quick note on the heat treat: Despite my best efforts in prep, I did end up with quite a warp out of the quench, but managed to correct it after two (and a half) temper cycles with shims. :35:



Photo 9

Off to the grinder. In this photo, I have glued a copy of my paper template to the blade, and have already done the rough-grinding to drop the spine of the blade down to the tip. Once that was complete, I mounted my Uncle Al's file guide in place, using the template to line it up. Time to start some bevels.

Photo 10

I'll admit it... I may have gone overboard with the iphone filters on this next photo. Yikes. {hanging head in shame}

Plunges aren't my favorite. I tend to avoid them... to the point that, for most of my knives, I'd rather mill/file a trapezoid through the guard than deal with them. However, when I do build a blade that needs plunges, this is how I make them clean and even. It takes some time -- once rough grinding is complete -- but the results are worth it.

That's just redline paper wrapped over the radiused edge of an aluminum block. The block is clamped in my vise. The combination of block and file-guide ensures that the plunges match. This is done as a clean-up step after the bevels are rough-ground on the flat platen.


In the next batch of photos, I'll get back to milling on the frame/bolster block.

 

[Erin Burke]

Photo 11

I'm getting ready to start shaping the 1-piece bolster/frame. This will be one of the more complex milling projects that I've attempted for a knife, and it starts with measurements.

Here I'm measuring the thickness of the bolster section ahead of the rounded scale transition.
0.375" (though this will shrink slightly later). :shush:

Photo 12

Here, I have the bolster/frame block set up in the vise, but need to nail down the center for milling the slot. An edge finder (and DROs) works great for this. The process is fairly simple and looks something like this:

• Find first edge
• set Y-axis to zero
• find other edge
• use 1/2 Y-axis function and crank to zero. Boom, midpoint of the block.

Photo 13

Middle of the block found and Y-axis set to zero. Now, as long as the block stays clamped securely, I can always return to the centerline. :thumbup:

(Note: The X and Z axes aren't really tied to anything at this point. Also, other than 1/2 X,Y,Z, there are a whole lot of buttons on the right side of the display that I don't know how to use.):blink:



Photo 14

This Mitutoyo micrometer is great. It has a digital display… but like with most things digital, the battery is always dead. Fortunately, it has manual ticks as well.

My ricasso is about 0.181" thick.

Photo 15

Here are my calcs for milling the bolster slot using a 5/32" (0.15625") end mill.

Note that I use 0.18" for the ricasso thickness rather than 0.181"... just in case. I also rounded down the resulting +-Y axis result down from 0.011875" to 0.0095". I'd rather have to do some slight filing than have to deal with an oversized slot. {shrug}



Photo 16

Here's the start of the milled tang slot. I started it with one of my trusty 5/32" carbide end mills, but will need to finish it out with a longer 5/32" HSS end mill to get enough depth.

Photo 17

Here's the longer 5/32" HSS end mill that I'll use to get depth.
I have to be VERY gentle with this little guy, especially when plunging. :15:

Photo 18

Here, the block has been marked for thickness milling. Lines representing the frame thickness and bolster terminations have been added.

Photo 19

Believe it or not, the fastest way that I found to reduce thickness on this guy was with little bites of the face mill. I started with a 1/2" end mill, but was not happy with the efficiency or the chatter.

I'm probably breaking a million milling taboos on this project... but it's OK... I'm an idiot. :biggrin:



Photo 20

Ball-Nose... also not a good nickname. Here I'm using a 3/4" ball-nose end-mill for terminating the bolster area in a rounded transition.

Photo 21

This is what we have after the mass-milling of the block. Now I need to start working on the tang pocket.

More to follow.

 

[Erin Burke]

Let's keep this thing moving. :happy:


Photo 22

Getting the tang-pocket to fit starts with milling (from the side), but ends with a bunch of hand filing.

I have a decent fit here, but will need to sand the face of the bolster area to a clean finish so I can make sure the ricasso shoulders sit flat and don't leave any gaps.

Photo 23

Here I have started peening around the tang slot. This ensures that I have an immaculate fit... but does require additional sanding of the bolster face to remove the dimples.

Photo 24

My plan is to taper the frame on this knife (I think it just looks better)... however, it is important that certain steps happen prior to tapering. One of those is drilling the pin holes for the scales.

These are the X&Y coordinates that I used drill the holes.

Photo 25

And the drilling. I use a spotting bit to make sure that the holes start where I want them. Otherwise, little flexy bits can wander on a rough face-milled surface.

Photo 26

I follow up the pin holes with some milled pockets. This will lighten the frame, as well as providing room for epoxy to settle.

In this photo, I have mounted the frame (at a slight angle) in my vise to begin the process of tapering. I'm using the same face mill. I've never tapered this way before, and am interested to see how it works out.

Photo 27

Not too shabby. :thumbup:
The frame has been tapered, but will get some TLC with the disc grinder and sanding sticks before scale fit-up. You'll note that the frame block is still rectangular (un-profiled) at this point.

Photo 28

Here I've shaped the profile of the frame and begun rounding the bolster area. Most of this work was done on the KMG with 8" wheel, mixed with some draw filing.

Things are starting to come together.

That's all I have for today. Hopefully I'll get to start filing in the bolster groove next week.

Erin

 

[Erin Burke]

Photo 29

I measured the groove location from my sketch, and transferred the lines to the bolster (using my height gauge and surface plate).

Photo 30

Then I file. I find that magnification is helpful for this.

Photo 31

Here I've started to rough fit the scales to the bolster/frame. My first step was to carefully, using the disc sander, break the corner of the block with a radius. I then marked the outline of the frame onto the scale in pencil (shown) and will trim off the extra scale material with the bandsaw. This will make it easier to dial-in the radius when I move over to the surface plate, since there will be less material to remove.

Photo 32

Pulled out my fancy lipstick to help in fitting the scales. I apply to the curve on the bolster/frame, then push the scale into place. Areas where the lipstick transfers to the scale get sanded. If anyone has a better method for doing this, I'm all ears.

Photo 33

Once I have the scale fit nailed, I begin drilling the pin holes into side #1.

Photo 34

Here the scales have been pinned in place, and I have begun carefully grinding (and sanding) away the excess scale material. I want the final scale fit to sit slightly proud of the frame material, and there will be a rounded transition.

The next step is one that I missed photographing. I did some slight darkening/aging of the bolster/frame and blade using vinegar and bleach. This process makes nasty fumes and should be done outside.



Photo 35

Everything banded up and epoxied. Will need to get up early in the morning to start removing spillover from crevices... hopefully it'll still be mildly gummy.
I put Vaseline on the temp pins (nails), so fingers crossed that they'll pull out.

Follow up:

• Got up early in the morning and... epoxy was not even mildly gummy. This baby was glued up uber-tight. I spent the better part of an hour cleaning up HARD epoxy with various brass pins and scrapers. AND...
• ... these temporary pins are now permanent pins. The Vaseline didn't do squat. Maybe next time I'll try wax {shrug}.

Subsequent to this photo, I completed all of the cleanup and shaping. This knife is done... and it's one of my favorites so far. However, before I take final photos to show it off, I need to knock out a sheath. I'll make sure to post here as soon as the photos are done. Thanks for following.

Erin

 

[Mark Behnke]

Looking forward to the pics of knife and sheath and I always enjoy your WIP. I'm sure you are aware of a product by Permatex called Prusan Blue used for fit up, not that it is any better than lip stick but I'm sure it is more expensive.

 

[Brad Lilly]

Looking good

 

[Erin Burke]

I know that I left this thread hanging for a while... but I finally got around to wrapping things up.

Erin

 

[Ed of all trades]

Looks like something from days gone by. Beautiful knife and wonderful work and wip. Thanks Ed

 

[Mark Behnke]

Excellent on all levels.
Especially like the distressed sheath and your photography!

 

[kevin - the professor]

thanks for showing your process. that was very cool to see. Modern (or fairly-modern) techniques to create a historically-inspired knife. It looks great, too!
kc

 

[Brad Lilly]

Came out great thanks for posting this.