MTBob
Well-Known Member
Bruce: I'm back from a successful fishing trip (i.e. no one died except a few fish) and I'm now getting my head back into knive making
As BelieverJo said in a subsequent posting, Kyle Royer has a YT video that goes into much more detail about how to mill a relief on the 2 flat (wide) sides of a Ricasso, here:
As pointed earlier, one of the issues is to get all four reliefs to be in alignment. Kyle apparently uses a file guide as the alignment tool.
But, also as tkroenlein said, milling a relief on the flat side creates a potential weakness or stress riser. Kyle addresses that question at 8:30 into the video where he said he uses a worn end mill so that the sharp edge of the mill is rounded slightly to form a curved joint between the Ricasso and Tang. That sound sorta reasonable, assuming the end mill edges are worn sufficiently. But, the radius of that curve could be critical if a knife will suffer any lateral bending stress, that joint could be a possible failure point. However, would that be a concern on kitchen knifes which have lighter service requirements?
Anyway, I'm going to experiment with this technique on some 1/8" low carbon strap and see if I can replicate what Kyle is doing.