First Framelock WIP

Frank Niro said:
I want to apologize for not being with you sooner on this WIP. I feel I certainly may have been able to make some suggestions you may have wanted to use to make your progress a little easier.In fact, I feel badly about missing this opportunity to possibly being able to help out a forum member.Perhaps this may still be a chance to help out.
That relief on the leaf spring is not deep enough. Go down to about .060 and use a curve, avoiding any sharp corners on the bottom. As it is now it will be too stiff to push out of lock up.
Frank
"It's not how it's made or what it's made of, but how good it is when finished."
Click to expand...
Frank, thanks for checking it out. This is the info I'm looking for. I take criticism fine and follow direction well so anything helps. This is my first one so I'm glad you stopped in. I will take it down some more, not to late to do that.
Thanks Frank!
 
I may be too late for this but ---.
The blade cut out for the leaf should be close to 8 degrees. To get this angle an easy way place a 1/8" thick piece of metal 7/8" away from the flat platen on your grinder. You can just tape it in place. With a 120 grit belt still on it grind the angle with this. This will be the finished grit for this part of the lock.For the leaf cut this back to length with a fine belt like a 16. This combination will provide an excellent lock up without it being sticky or not safely locking to begin with.
Frank
 
Thank you Frank, I have not got the lock up set yet. Plan on it post heat treat. So still time to screw it up

Last night I got the pocket clip mounted. Here is what I did.

First all this is a tumbled titanium deep carry split tail pocket clip I picked up from Usaknifemakers. I picked it out when I was at the hammer in, that was nice since I brought this knife with me, Tim and I went down the line and mocked them up on it to find the one I wanted...thanks bud. I had thought about making my own clip but for this build decided against it.

I laid it on the handle scale and tried to get an idea of location. When I had what I wanted I used a fine tip sharpie to mark holes.

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Over to the drill press clamped it down and drilled the hole out with a #49 bit.
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Then I de burred the hole with a countersink.
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Next I chucked up the 2-56 tap in the cordless drill, lube it up good with tapping fluid and slowly started to tap the hole. When I feelt a little resistance I would reverse the drill to break any chips then proceed again. This worked great.

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I only drilled and tapped one side, this way I can set the alignment exactly where I want it.
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I put the knife back together and tested the fit in my pocket, got it where I wanted it then I marked the other hole with a sharpie.

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I then drilled and tapped the other hole following the same methods.

Put the knife back together for the hundredth time....lol stuck it in my pocket and tested the final carry....this thing carry's awesome and I loved the low ride clip its a winner.

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Are you using alpha knife supply pivots if not what are u using. will the 5/16 thing u used to get the pivot head to sit in the frames work for aks pivots or does anyone know. Also i have a friction folder design but i dont know what to use for the stop pin any help?
 
Grussing_Custom_Knives said:
Are you using alpha knife supply pivots if not what are u using. will the 5/16 thing u used to get the pivot head to sit in the frames work for aks pivots or does anyone know. Also i have a friction folder design but i dont know what to use for the stop pin any help?
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The pivots I got from Steve Kelly of ticonnectors.com I'm not sure about AKS pivots and the 5/16 bore you will have to check the head diameter to see if they will fit.

If ya want to make it easy you can just use a 1/8" pivot as your stop pin. That's what I did that way you can just screw it together.

Hope that helps.
 
When I made my first friction folder I got all my parts from USAKnifemaker.com. they have everything you need.

Tim at Sugar Creek Forge has a good step by step on them on his YouTube channel. Check him out...
 
I have really drug my feet on this, life has been busy...and KC Royals playoffs and world series really ate up my night time knife making...got to have priorities ☺

So I set the detent ball. I practiced on a scrap piece of titanium and snapped the bit right before it punched through.
I spoke with Ed and he gave me some pointers. So for anyone doing this for the first time you have to act like Happy Gilmore....just tap it give it a little tap-a-roo...tap tap tap it in(you tube the reference if ya ain't seen the movie )
Light pressure and tapping motion. Worked great.
I used a #53 bit, drilled through the lock bar and into the blade holding the blade closed.
Then I set my washer over the detent ball (which I did drop one that will never be seen again...little boogers) and used my arbor press to set the ball in place and the washer acted as a gauge to set my depth.
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Then I went on to hand sand the blade to 400 grit.
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At this stage I'm pretty much done until after heat treat. I'm working on a batch of stainless blades to send out so might be another lengthy delay until I update this.
I am going to sand blast the titanium so I might go ahead and do that while waiting on the blade.
 
Well I was waiting to send this blade off with a batch of stainless but have not had time to get the batch done. I talked to Anthony Self and he hooked me up with the heat treat for me...thanks bud!

After I got the blade back I decided to bend the lock bar and grind in the lock face on the blade.
Notched a board out and bent the lock bar.
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I put some dykem on the blade tang and reassembled it. Took a razor blade and scored the tang where I need to grind the tang too.
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Then it was time to clinch my cheeks and try not to ruin all this work.

I squared up my work rest to the platen. The I adjusted the platen to 8 degrees of the work rest and put on a worn 320 grit belt.
I would grind a little reassemble check, take apart grind a little more then reassemble and check. It took about 6 times to get it to engage.

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Finally that click...it engaged!!
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I'm feel like I'm getting close. I have a few problems, I can't open it one handed with the thumb stud so something is not quite right. I still need to grind the bevels and try to finish this thing up.
 
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That's really cool Justin. Can't wait to see this in person. If you ever need to heat treat a stainless blade don't hesitate to ask. I only live 20 min away.

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk
 
OK got the opening action to work much better.
The detent ball was proud of my washer so I pressed it in a tiny bit.
Also I milled out a little more of the lock relief. It was at about .075 and I took it to .055, this made a big difference and my thumb said thanks.
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After I milled the relief I chucked up these little 1/8" sanding drums first in 120 grit then 240 grit to clean up the relief. These little things are handy, I just bought some the other day and they are also great for cleaning up jimping with a 1/8" round file.
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Here is a short video of it in action now.
https://youtu.be/f-4PJtDzaJg
 
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