First slip joint WIP

[J S Machine]

I got this picture from Bruce Bumps WIP. I think this may be what I should have done. I see you are going through the spring into both liners instead of both sides seperately...

 

[J S Machine]

After going back and looking at Ryan Minchew's WIP, I see he did pretty much the same thing. I think tonight I will get another set of the liners and drill them at the same time instead of seperately. This may fix the pins being out of whack deal 2thumbs

 

[Bruce Bump]

I got this picture from Bruce Bumps WIP. I think this may be what I should have done. I see you are going through the spring into both liners instead of both sides seperately...

I thought that drill looked familiar.
Yes I used the spring as a guide for the liners. Drill the first hole and pin it there. I sometimes even super glue the spring in place. If you drill an undersized hole and ream them all at once you are more likely to have straight holes and a nice centered blade. The super glued parts need to be popped apart with a razor blade so the liners dont bend. Do not bend the liners!
Hope you dont mind my advice here once in awhile but I heard my name mentioned.
Nice WIP and a good one to help us all learn the process. Theres nothing like making your own pocket knife.

 

[J S Machine]

Tonight I got to fix the problem created last night and I will post alot of pics showng the wrong way to do it and the right way

Bruce, I plan to buy a 3/32 reamer just for this. I ream almost every one of my holes in my other work not knife related anyway because a drill walks too much for my taste. Thanks for the tip cool 1

Ok, I'm going to start with the "wrong way to do it" pics. This is the way I did it last night. I super glued the spring to one liner at a time and drilled them individually-

one side ready to be drilled after being glued-

Actually drilling it incorrectly-

The other side glued and ready to be drilled (incorrectly)-

Drilling the other side wrong-

And this is the knife after being put together with the holes out of whack. Hard to see in the pictures but the pins are no where near straight and the blade leans really far over like in the illustration above-

 

[J S Machine]

Now for the correct pictures.

Here I am drilling the pilot hole with a center drill first (#1 center drill) after having marked it with the blade laying on the liner so I would know where to drill. I center punched the hole too to prevent the drill from walking. I also am holding the liners to the table firmly with a pair of visegrip clamps. Those came withe free rust

Here I have placed a pin in the pivot holes, and drilled the back hole. I then put the spring in and put the back pin in, and moved the spring down a tad and clamped it. I also re inserted the front pin as well after removong the blade to keep everything straight. This creates the tension necessary for the action. Drilling the center spring hole through both liners-

And now in this picture I have installed all the pins and you can't really see it but they are correct and straight now. It turned out great. I figured if I was planning on doing alot of these, I might as well continue to make some handy tools. Spun those handy little pins today so I would have something firm to grasp during build up and tear downs.

In this pic the knife is closed, and I have drawn a white arrow showing how I will have to do some adjusting on the blade profile and of course shape the liners a little closer to what they will end up being in the end-

This stuff comes in pieces about 1.5 dia. and a hole already through it that is about .375". As you can imagine, to use it for a knife bushing this wouldn't work. So, what I did was take a scrap piece I had in my box and cut it in two halves, and then into fourths. I then took two of these fourths pieces and milled them into a square shape that I could hold with a 4 jaw chuck. I then turned them supported by a live center down to .1875" (3/16). These will be the blanks that i cut my bushings from if this stuff will work. Of course it has to be drilled and lapped and all that good stuff, but you get my drift.

Any makers use this stuff? I figured it would be great because of the oil impregnation, but I may be dead wrong. Do any of you pro guys know about it? After talking with Ryan Minchew, we both had mixed feelings about whether or not to use a bushing. I fgured I would try some with an without and just see what I like best.

 

[Bruce Bump]

I love those pins you made. I would buy some if you knurled the knobs on em.

 

[J S Machine]

I love those pins you made. I would buy some if you knurled the knobs on em.

I thought about knurling them, I just didn't do it. Have you ever used a knurling tool? They are kind of tricky, but I think they are worth it. I don't like to cut mine so deep the come to a sharp point. I usually just press in enough to create an impression. I have several things I've made that are knurled, but I'm trying to think of what I have pictures of. I know my toolbox has a knurled handle, I'll see if I can find some pics of it.

 

[J S Machine]

Ok I took a quick pic. I made this tool box in the picture and on top you can see the knurled handle. It is aluminum. The box is 300 series stainless. I bought the latches and the lock from McMaster Carr and made the rest. Also, in front I laid out a little hammer set I made. All these have very fine knurling on the handles. The smallest one looks rough because I use it pretty often in the EDMs. The handles are made from tool steel round stock - A2 or D2 probably, and they they tend to rust. Wish I would have used stainless there. I do have some with aluminum handles, but they are pretty beat up from use. The heads are brass.

 

[Bruce Bump]

Ok I took a quick pic. I made this tool box in the picture and on top you can see the knurled handle. It is aluminum. The box is 300 series stainless. I bought the latches and the lock from McMaster Carr and made the rest. Also, in front I laid out a little hammer set I made. All these have very fine knurling on the handles. The smallest one looks rough because I use it pretty often in the EDMs. The handles are made from tool steel round stock - A2 or D2 probably, and they they tend to rust. Wish I would have used stainless there. I do have some with aluminum handles, but they are pretty beat up from use. The heads are brass.

Thats good work on everything in the picture. I cant believe you made the box. It looks factory made until ya start looking close at the hi pro parts on it. Did you knurl the car keys at all?

 

[J S Machine]

Thats good work on everything in the picture. I cant believe you made the box. It looks factory made until ya start looking close at the hi pro parts on it. Did you knurl the car keys at all?

No knurls on the keys cool 1 Let me tell you something about that box. Don't ever fuss about how much a metal tool box costs untill you try to do it yourself. I wish I would have just spent the money lol. It is unique though, not another one like it.

(one of my biggest pet peeves is I think that all stand up tool boxes with drawers are way over priced)

Trust me, they get their moneys worth.

 

[J S Machine]

Ok, made great strides this afternoon. I got the knife over to the sanders and took some metal off. I am very cose to the final shape on everything. I did some tuning on the blade and the liners to get everything fitting together right. I don't know if it is a beginner's mistake or what, but I think I removed a little more metal than my pattern had, and the knife will be a tad shorter as well as a bit thinner. That's ok though, it doesnt have to be the exact same as the pattern. Just as long as everything flows

Here I am doing a little grinding-

Then I move to the little 1x30-

And then back to the disc sander-

I made this cool little flat grinding plate to use as a base for drilling. The hole in the center of the drill press table and the two slots seem to be a bit large and don't offer much support. This out to help with that problem-

And now for some finished assembly pictures for the night-

 

[Bruce Bump]

Looking good Buddy. I see you have the tip down now. Looks like Zero too.

 

[J S Machine]

Yep, oddly enough, the blade was actually resting on the little thing on the little finger guard area (not sure what this is called). I actually ended up reshaping that because it was sitting on the spring. Thinking about it, the only thing that really could have caused that was the placement of the pivot hole in the blade. if it were a little lower this would not have been an issue. no big deal though. I just reshaped it. I did not have to take much off of the tip or bottom of the blade, since these were not the problem.

I have some concerns for the next couple of things I'm going to do.

1. Relieveing the liners. I don't have a setup like yours, with the small rotary table. I don't have a mill at home either. Hopefully sometime in the next year or so I'll be able to get some of these things. Anyway, I have to come up with a way do it. I saw How Ryan actually etched his. this is a possibility, but I would rather phisically remove metal.

2. grinding the blade. I'm not sure what kind of grind I want to put on the blade. I think I would rather have a flat grind, but I've never done one. I know I can do a hollow grind, but I only have an 8" wheel. I think that radius is kind of big for this little blade.

3. Heat treating. Not really sure how to work on this spring. I was just going to heat treat like normal, but I understand that the heat treat is critical near the pivot point and not necessarily over the whole balde area. I'm trying to get a better understanding of this.

4. I want you guys to help me choose a handle material. I have several things to choose from and I can't decide on what to use. When I get home tonight I will list what I have.

I got my order from Pop's yesterday, and I got some much needed supplies. I got my solder and flux and also a leather 1x30 belt. That should be interesting for honing blades. I also placed an order with Tracey last night for some other things I need. I got a tapered reamer and some other stuff.

 

[J S Machine]

Well I got my etching unit built tonight. It works pretty good I guess - I burned up my first stencil lol. Is there anything I can use besides the stencil itself to practice with? Those things are expensive and I don't want to waste them trying to learn the ropes of the new etcher. It is built like the one on Chris Crawford's site - Bob Warner's design.

 

[Mark Behnke]

I burned my first too. I use salt water and Q tip until the Boss gets some etchant in.
Dip the Qtip dab on paper towel 3-4 times then press on stencil,1-2-3 lift move over 1-2-3 lift
I go over the whole stencil before dipping again. Maybe do this 5-6 times, experiment, I still haven't got it down. Hoping the ethcant will help.

The stencil burning is from holding the qtip too long on the stencil.

The qtip flatens out after a while and seems to work better with use, but I'm still not happy with mine.

 

[knifeman-ohio]

Nice job, your shop looks just like mine only cleaner! - Roger

 

[J S Machine]

I burned my first too. I use salt water and Q tip until the Boss gets some etchant in.
Dip the Qtip dab on paper towel 3-4 times then press on stencil,1-2-3 lift move over 1-2-3 lift
I go over the whole stencil before dipping again. Maybe do this 5-6 times, experiment, I still haven't got it down. Hoping the ethcant will help.

The stencil burning is from holding the qtip too long on the stencil.

The qtip flatens out after a while and seems to work better with use, but I'm still not happy with mine.

I am using a Qtip and salt water as well. I guess I did hold it down on there too long. At first I just dabbed it here nd there, but it's hard to see what is actually happening because you can't see how dark it is in contrast to the surrounding metal since it is blocked by the stencil. The stencil looked decent until I switched to AC, then I really got the sizzle lol. I'm gonna try again tonight and see what I can do with it.

 

[J S Machine]

Nice job, your shop looks just like mine only cleaner! - Roger

Thanks.

That's actually my spare bedroom lol. I have a shower curtain on the floor and the walls lined to try to keep the mess from messing up the room. I'm in the process of building a shop in my backyard, but it won't be finished for a while so this is where I'm set up for now.

 

[Josh Dabney]

JS

For awhile I burned up a stencil with each use, LOL

One thing I've found thats important for me is keeping the "RIGHT" amount of fluid on the q-tip. This is VERY subjective so take it for what it is- my way to get what I want.

I use 1/2 cup tap water with a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of vinegar as etchant with no problems on carbon steels or ATS-34.

As Mark mentioned the q-tip flattening out is a plus so I do that first. Dip q-tip then dab it flat on a paper towel to flaten. Then I dip again to saturate the q-tip and dab lightly to dry it up a little. I've found that I like to etch a little wet and this seems to keep from burning up the stencil. You'll have to learn what "a little wet" means, LOL.

I like to hear a sizzle immediatly. Too much water = no sizzle and a blurry etch. Too little water= no sizzle and a scorched stencil. Just right will give a crisp etch with only minimal clean-up needed.

There will be some clean up though so I etch my mark after sanding to 320 because a few strokes with the 320 will clean the flat back up.

I strive for my etch to be deep and dark and look like it was stamped. If I didn't want this I'd do things differently.

Another thing I've found is that burning the stencil wasn't the biggest problem for me. The stencil getting spots of crud in it would make the stencil "suspect" and therefor trash.

To minimize this I change q-tips ALOT. I don't want to be etching with a q-tip thats singed black so I go over half my stencil with one side of the q-tip then flip to the clean side for the second side.

My routine is etch on 20 volts DC.
I touch the q-tip to the stencil for approx. 1/2 second 10 times then move on to the next letter.

I use 3 q-tips to cover the stencil 3 trips around.

Switch to 20volts AC to darken

repeat the same procedure of etching only go over the stencil twice instead of 3 times.

Here's a shot of the resulting etch.

Hope this helps.

-Josh

 

[Bruce Bump]

I would be willing to heat treat your blade and spring. I have a rockwell hardness tester. The spring needs to be tempered back to spring temper about 48-49. The blade is a consistant hardness of your choice for the steel used. No differential treatment usually. The tang and edge need to be the same for sure.