Kimmi’s 2022 KITH

Gene Kimmi

Gene Kimmi

KNIFE MAKER
Well, I’m getting a late start, but I’ll try to make this one worth the wait.

I’ve been thinking of making a shorter, fat Bowie, so I sat down and got a design drawn up. It’ll be a W2 blade with a hamon, tapered tang and heirloom fit scales. I haven’t decided what the scales will be, but there’s a fair chance of them being koa.



I’ll get started cutting and grinding on this tomorrow night.
 
I’ll be making 2 of these to make sure at least 1 comes out ok. Here they are cut out and profiled.



I recently picked up this digital height gauge with a carbide point and use it to mark a center line for grinding the bevels.




Here the bevels are ground and the handle holes drilled.

 
Next, I’m going to use a trick from Dennis by making a template to layout the clay for the hamon.




And the clay is applied. This will be my first time using this clay. We’ll see how it works. It is pretty watery, so it’s hard to get the clay applied very thick.



Here they are after heat treat. I sanded one side of one to 400 and did a few etching cycles to see what the hamon looks like. (Bottom photo) I’m happy! This is the closest I’ve gotten a hamon to match the clay layout.





Now to finish grind and hand sand.
 
I have them ground to 600 grit, so it’s time for the swedges. First, I mark my layout lines.




Once marked, I freehand grind these with a slow 120 grit belt. With a 220 belt, I clean up the plunge lines, then finish with 600 grit.





Here I have them hand sanded to 600 grit. I do a quick dip in ferric to make sure I have all the decarb off. You can see a small amount on the top of the ricasso on the left blade.



I’ll leave the blades at this stage and start on the handles. Once they are done, I’ll finish hand sanding the blades to 800. I’m going to set one blade aside and work on just the KITH blade from here so I can try to meet the deadline.

Here I have the pin holes drilled. To create the heirloom/museum fit, I trace the blade on the scales with a .5 mm pencil. I will then cut the scales out and sand the profile to this line.

 
The scales are cut out and the fronts are shaped and sanded to 2000.



When I’m ready to sand the profile to the pencil line, I shim the back of the scales so when I grind the edges, especially the butt of the scales, they will be ground square to the center of the blade.



All profiled and fit to the blade.




Here I have the scales all shaped and ready to hand sand. I’ve tapered to scales to be narrower in the front and back creating a palm swell. Almost a diamond shape to the handle. Then I rounded the edges.


 
I’ve got the edges of the scales sanded to 1200 and the faces sanded to 800. I’ll stop here and tru-oil the fronts and edges. I’ll have to grind the corby bolts down once assembled, so no need to go further with the faces yet.

I also have the inside corners of the scales rounded over. I do this by shoe shining the corners with 800 grit.



Tru-oil going on. These are going to look good!



Hopefully I can get the blade finish sanded and etched tomorrow night. Maybe even get the scales epoxied on.
 
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