Knife #8 WIP - For the Lamb Boys

[Erin Burke]

This Work in Progress (WIP) thread covers the construction of three large fighters for my father-in-law and two brothers-in-law. I am nearing completion of the first knife already, and can tell you that there will be a ton of photos to follow.

Before getting too far into the WIP, I'd like to give a bit of info on the dudes that I'm building them for.

Back in 2001 I married my lovely wife Angie. Her entire family welcomed me as a new member... including her father Steve and brothers Dave and Josh. Back then, Dave and Josh were teenagers... now they are men, both newly married within the past year 2thumbs. I have to say that I have been incredibly blessed with the in-laws that I ended up with. Below is a photo (from a few years back) of the four of us.

Note: I plan on sending a link to this thread to the boys can follow along.

(from left to right: Steve, Josh, Dave... and I'm the balding guy on the right.)

The design for this particular knife came about much like my others. I'm currently a stock-removal maker, so I have a pad of paper - with lines drawn to the width of my steel stock - sitting on my desk at the office. When I need a break from the day job, I take a few minutes to sketch up a knife idea. Most of them end up in the garbage, but occasionally one design will stand out.... and that's what happened with this one. Below is a photo of my original artwork. Cool huh.2thumbs

This is where I admit that I didn't start with the photos until the knives were well in progress. These three knives were taken from the same bar of Kelly Cupples 1-1/2” x 3/16” 1095. Prior to taking the first progress photo (shown below), I had already done the following:

• cut out the rough profiles on my vertically mounted DeWalt prortaband.
• cleaned-up the profiles on my KMG belt grinder using my 8” wheel and my 1-1/4” & 3/4” small wheels.
• drilled pin-holes and epoxy/weight-reduction holes in the handle areas (using my HF drill press).
• and filed notches for the guards to sit in (with hand files).

Next I'll begin the process of tapering the tangs.

 

[Erin Burke]

You'll notice a lot of blue layout dye in the following WIP photos. Layout dye is incredibly valuable for my approach to knife-making. It enables me to “lay out” the boundaries of my grinding (with a scribe of some sort) and determine where I have actually removed metal. Large Sharpie markers can also be used for this purpose.

In these first two photos, I am establishing the thickness of the tang taper at the butt of the handle. I do this with a carbide-tipped height-gauge on a granite surface-plate. I purchased both the gauge and the plate from Grizzly. The second photo shows the two lines scribed to represent the thickness that I am shooting for.

Now here are the steps, as I was taught, to taper a tang. The first step is to establish hollow grinds along the length of the handle-area (on both sides) to the scribed lines (as shown in the photo above). I use a 150lb HF magnet (wrapped black electrician's tape) to hold the blank while I grind the grooves on my 8” contact wheel - as shown. The magnet keeps me from burning my fingers. I'm using a 40-grit 3M 977 ceramic belt running at full blast.

You'll notice that there are no sparks flying in the photo... that's because the photo is a setup . I forgot to take pictures while I was actually doing this step, so I cheated.

Next, I change out my 8” wheel for my flat platen to grind the tapers. The grooves that were established in the previous step really speed up this work. I am still using the 40-grit ceramic belt at full speed... and I'm still cheating with the photos. This photo shows the grinding magnet a bit better.

My goal is to grind the tapers to a point just at the hilt-end of the guard notch. The next photo shows the three blanks at various stages in the tang-tapering process. The bottom two blanks have the initial hollow ground, while the top blank has some tapering done on the flat platen.

Note: It is important to drill your handle holes - especially those for pins - before tang tapering. It's quite a bit more difficult to drill the holes square afterward.

The next post will cover the rough-grinding of the bevels.

 

[Keith Willis]

Thanks Erin,I just tried my first tapered tang,my next one,I will take and hollow grind the center,that should help.

Those are looking good,I'll follow this one.
Thanks,
God bless,Keith

 

[Erin Burke]

About this point in the process, I took a couple of weeks of vacation and headed down to San Antonio for Christmas/New Years and Dave's wedding. Below is a photo from the wedding.

Left to Right: Polly (sister-in-law), Talia (sister-in-law), Lijen (Josh's wife), Josh, Zoe (my daughter), Amy (Dave's wife), Dave, Cindy (mother-in-law), Eve (my daughter), Steve, Angie (my wife), Ying (sister-in-law), me (I'm not that short... the other guys are just really tall)

Less than a week after the wedding, Steve (my father-in-law) was deployed to Iraq... he's a Colonel in the Air Force. For this reason, I decided to finish up his knife first rather than trying to keep all-the-balls-in-the-air at once. Here's a photo that we received from Steve the other day.

So this is where I get to bust out one of my new toys for the first time. Since my last set of completed knives (finished around Thanksgiving), I purchased one of Uncle Al's carbide file guides from RIVERSIDE MACHINE. In the past, I had established all of my plunges free-hand. I had heard nothing but good about these file guides, so I finally caved in to peer pressure.

The photo below shows the blade blank all dyed-up with the file guide clamped in place.

The carbide faces on these guides are amazing. I was able to rough-grind my bevels/plunges right up to the file guide with the same 40-grit ceramic belt cranked to 11 (Spinal Tap humor) without even a mark on the carbide face. 2thumbs

Typically, I do all of my flat grinding using a tool-rest and a push stick. The addition of the file guide, however – combined with the dramatic slope of the spine – made it very difficult to grind this way. I ended up removing the tool-rest and using the notched end of my push stick for support – similar to the way I would if I were hollow-grinding. You can see this in the following photo.

Similar to some of my previous grinding photos, this one is a set-up... there are no sparks, and the file guide is missing. But you get the general idea. I start the grind lightly near the plunge end of the blade and slide back up against the file guide. I then apply more pressure and pull the blade across the belt – plunge to tip.

******************************ADDED 2-8-10**********************************
This is a photo of me working on the second knife of these three... I like it better, as it shows real sparks and the file guide.

This next new photo shows some partially ground bevels.

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The photo below shows the rough-ground bevels after a few minutes. You'll notice that I ended up pushing the bevels up near the spine rather than leaving the flat area that was shown in my original design. This is because I messed up my first grind line and had to shoot from the hip to save things. 2guns

****************************ADDED 2-8-10***********************************
This photo shows the pre-HT grind for the second knife of these three. This is what I was shooting for with the first knife... but missed.

*****************************************************************************


Additional Info: Prior to heat treat, the edge of the blade was ground to the approximate thickness of a dime (maybe slightly thinner).

Next we go to heat treat.

 

[silver_pilate]

Looking good, Erin!

--nathan

 

[Erin Burke]

Thanks Erin,I just tried my first tapered tang,my next one,I will take and hollow grind the center,that should help.

Those are looking good,I'll follow this one.
Thanks,
God bless,Keith

Tapered tangs are coooool. The hollow-grinding trick was taught to me by Nick about a year ago. It works really well... but you do have to be careful how close your groove gets to the edge of the handle, especially as the groove gets further up the handle.

Erin

 

[Erin Burke]

My first step in heat treating any rough-ground blade is to run it through several stress-relief cycles. I ran this blade through three cycles of heating to 1200F then allowing to air-cool to room temp. These stress-relief cycles give the added benefit of allowing me to catch and correct some of the warping that can occur before it gets set in the quench.

***********************************ADDED 2-8-10********************************************
Below is a photo of my blade straightening setup. It is basically three pieces of bent aluminum rod that sit in my vise. Simple really. Most of the warping shows up during my first 1200F stress-relief. I straighten it when it is cool enough to put it in the vise with a gloved hand. By the thirst stress relief there is usually no warping to correct.

******************************************************************************************

Now I like hamons quite a lot, and this knife design just begs for one. This is how I produce a hamon:

After stress-relief cycles...

1. Thorougly clean the blade... I use acetone followed by either soap/water or rubbing alcohol.
2. Apply a thin wash of satanite clay to the entire blade. I mix the clay powder with water until I get the consistency of egg nog, and apply the mix with a paintbrush. I then dry this thin layer with a quick blast from a heat gun (a hair dry would work as well). The thin layer will help the subsequent thicker clay applications stick to the blade.
   **********************ADDED 2-8-10********************************
   
   
   
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3. Add some more satanite powder to thicken-up the mix to about the consistency of mayonaise or oily peanut butter. I apply this coat - maybe about 1/16"-1/8" thick to the back of the blade and the ricasso/guard area. I will be drilling 1/8" pin holes for the guard AFTER heat treat, so it is important that I have clay in this area. It would be much more difficult to drill these holes if the guard area were to be fully-hardened (ask me how I know). I apply this layer with a flat stick similar to a popsicle stick.
4. I then draw little lines of clay from the spine of the back of the blade toward the edge. I do my best to make this pattern a mirror match on both sides of the blade.
   
   The photo below shows the blade with clay applied.
   
   
   
   
5. While I am applying the clay, I am also ramping my kiln up to 1490F. There is no need to let the clay dry prior to popping the blade in the kiln. 1490F will dry clay really quick. I have one of the ceramic fixtures that Tracy sells for holding my blade(s) in the kiln. The photo below shows the blade in the kiln.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. I let the blade soak at temp for 5 minutes before quenching in room temp Parks 50.
   
   Note: I use a pair of extra-long vise-grips for transferring the blade in and out of the heated kiln.

 

[Keith Willis]

Hey Erin,tell your father-in-law,THANKS! From me,and I am sure most everyone here,For serving this great country of ours.If he is like most,I am sure he will say he's just doing a job,but with him and all others doing their job,the right way,my family,as well as every family in this country can rest a little easier at night.

God bless,Keith

 

[Erin Burke]

Well here is a bit more info on the heat treat.

After the Parks #50 quench, I clean off the excess clay using a putty knife and a wire brush. I then wash the blade with soap and water to get rid of the excess oil residue (so my lovely wife doesn't get upset with me at the next step). During the quench process, I have been pre-heating our kitchen oven to 410F. I don't really trust the absolute accuracy of our oven settings, so I have a small oven thermometer that is useful for double-checking the temp. The blade goes into the oven for two tempering soaks of two-hours each (allowing to air cool in between soaks). This is what the blade looks like after the tempering cycles.

At this point in the project I tried - and learned - something new. I had read somewhere (on a forum) that soaking a heat-treated blade in vinegar over-night would help shed some of the extra black scale... making clean-up a lot easier on my grinding belts. I tried this - and let me tell you, it works.2thumbs Most of the scale falls off in the vinegar. But there is also another cool side-effect that I had never heard of before... the soak also gives a good preview of what the hamon (heat-treat line) will look like. It is a bit difficult to see in this photo, but the vinegar clearly etches the extents of the hamon while removing scale. I suppose that I should have expected this result, but I didn't. The etch allows me to confirm that my clay quench did what I wanted it to without having to polish to 800-grit first. This would save a lot of wasted effort if I had screwed something up. It turns out, I didn't. 2thumbs EDIT: While the vinegar does work to remove scale, it will only give a good preview of the hamon if the blade is ground to 220-grit or higher before HT.

This is where I begin clean-up on the black blade. I get a lot of use out of my belt grinder (with platen running 80-grit ceramic, 120-grit ceramic & 220-grit Gators... at between 65-90% max speed) and my disc grinder (running on the back side of the head-stock of my VS wood lathe). In the photo below, I am cleaning up the tapered tang. Yes, this is another set-up shot... you can tell by the missing plunge/bevels.

It is very important that the blade be kept cool during all post-HT grinding to avoid ruining the temper. All grinding is done bare-handed to sense the steel temp, and the blade is dipped in water to cool after every few passes on the belt/disc.

Below is a photo of the partially cleaned-up blade (ground to about 220-grit on the blade and 120-grit on the tang).

Keeping in mind that I'm a novice at knifemaking - this being my 8th knife design - feel free to ask any questions that you might have. I'm sure there are details that I am missing.

Next: the guard

 

[NickWheeler]

Look'n GREAT dude Your eye for design is coming along about 8500 times faster than most (maybe some people just have it and some don't huh1)

I REALLY like the long, lean point and overall curve.

Well played, and a great reason for building them! 2thumbs

 

[Rasp181]

Great WIP and wicked looking fighter, can't wait to see the finished product.

 

[Erin Burke]

Look'n GREAT dude Your eye for design is coming along about 8500 times faster than most (maybe some people just have it and some don't huh1)

I REALLY like the long, lean point and overall curve.

Well played, and a great reason for building them! 2thumbs

Thanks Nick. Don't you just love WIPs

I DO draw a LOT of crappy designs before I come up with one that I like. From that point on, I just do all I can NOT to screw it up in construction.

 

[Erin Burke]

Note: I found that I hadn't taken enough pictures during the construction of my first guard, so I went down to the shop after work today and put another guard block together. I will inter-mix these newer photos with the photos from the original guard construction.

For this type of knife I will make a saddle-guard (I think that's the correct term) similar to what I did on my Knife #5. This guard will be a thick piece of copper sandwiched between two pieces of 1/8" 1080. The first thing that I needed to do was cut these pieces of material to approximate size and sand the mating sides perfectly flat. I don't have photos of this, but I used my DeWalt portaband for cutting the pieces and my disc sander (followed by sandpaper on a granite plate) for flattening. Faces were sanded to about 220-grit.

I next cleaned all of the surfaces with alcohol, then tinned the inside faces of both of the pieces of 1080 using Sta-brite solder w/ Sta-clean flux. I am not much of a solderer, so feel free to throw tips for improvement my way when you see these next few pictures. I am holding the pieces of 1080 flux-side up in a pair of large vise grips and heating them from the bottom with a mapp torch. I apply the solder until it covers the face of the piece.

Once this is complete, I flux both sides of the copper block and clamp it between the two tinned pieces of steel with two spring clamps. In the photo below, you can see that I am heating this entire clamped block. When the block gets up to temp, the solder on the tinned faces starts to melt and the spring clamps squish everything together. A LOT of solder drips out. (Please ignore the messy shop and open can of flammable liquid on the band saw.)

Below is a photo of the soldered block cooling in the clamps. I know it doesn't look like much now, but it'll start improving after the next couple of posts.

Next: Cleaning and squaring-up the guard block.

 

[Erin Burke]

So when I left off last night, the steel/copper/steel guard block had just been soldered together... but was still looking rather ugly. To quickly square it up, I use my belt grinder and an older 40-grit belt. I install the tool rest (making sure it is square to the platen) and then clamp a piece of aluminum angle to create a fence that is also 90-degrees to the platen. It looks something like this.

The photo below is a real-live action shot of me squaring up the guard block.

And this is a photo of what the block looks like after three of the edges have been scrubbed to 40-grit. Looks much better now doesn't it.

At this point I'd like to give a shout-out to Irwin for making these handy Quick-Grip clamps. They are dependable, and I use them all the time. I think you'll see more of them as this thread progresses. 2thumbs

After quickly touching the top face of the guard block to my disc sander (at 180-grit), I apply some blue Dykem (layout dye) and scribe the blade width/depth. Yes, I do bite my fingernails.

More guard to follow.

 

[Stew]

Interesting WIP Erin. That's a hell of a magnet!!!

 

[Erin Burke]

The next piece of work on the guard is cutting a slot that fits tightly to the guard-area of the blade. The first thing I do is drill a hole (slightly smaller that the thickness of the final slot) near the end of the slot area. To make sure I get a nice centered hole, I'll start by punching a starter-divot where the hole should go. Then I'll clamp things into my drill-press vise and start the hole with a small center drill (shown in photo below), and finish things off with the appropriate drill bit.

Next, I use the portaband to rough-cut the slot to the drilled hole. I cut just inside the scribed lines from earlier. You can also see me utilizing the makeshift aluminum angle fence again. 2thumbs

Finally, I start squaring up the slot using one of my trusty old files. I take frequent caliper measurements of the slot and sides to make sure everything is even and square. This can take quite a while.

Once the guard is fitted nice and tight, I drill the pin-holes through the assembled guard/blade. Back in post #7 (bullet item 3) I mentioned adding clay to the guard area to keep it from fully hardening during quench... it makes these holes much easier to drill. This is what the guard block looks like after everything has been cleaned-up and the pin-holes have been drilled.

 

[Erin Burke]

This photo shows the finger-area of the guard being rounded on my 3/4" small-wheel. I think that I am using the same old 40-grit ceramic belt from earlier. I get a lot of use out of a 40-grit belt.

I try to keep the guard fitting tight to the blade, which can make it a pain to install and remove. The photo below shows my 3x3 wooden anvil/hammer combo used for persuading the guard to move where I want it.

Here's another photo of the partially shaped guard installed on the blade.

Next: Hand sanding the blade

 

[Erin Burke]

The following photo pretty-much sums up my entire hand sanding operation.

I'll try to unpack it a bit.

• I have a scrap length of African Padouk clamped in my vise. I use the quick-grip clamp to hold the blade to the board.
• I use a scrap piece of black leather to support the tip of the blade. (You'll can also see the bright orange plastic cover from a spring clamp wedged in there as well).
• For a sanding block, I mainly use another piece of that same aluminum angle that I have been using for fences. I cut the sand paper into strips approximately 3" wide and wrap it around the angle as shown. Then I sand away.
• I use Rhynowet Redline papers (280-2000) for hand-sanding.
• This is the first knife I've done using Mobile 1 for lubrication (as recommended by Mr. Frank Niro). I was previously using heavy mineral oil. My initial impressions of Mobile 1 are as follows:
  1. Hand sanding seems to go faster with the Mobile 1.
  2. Finish seems to be better with Mobile 1.
  3. I will not be going back to mineral oil any time soon.
• I use the syringe shown for applying the Mobile 1.
• The first grit I use for hand-sanding is 280. It takes the most time, by far, since I have to get rid of all the scratches left from the belt grinder. The subsequent grits get faster.

Once the hand sanding is complete, I wrap the blade in a clean paper towel and tape it up with black electrical tape. In this next photo, I am countersinking the holes for the guard. This helps the guard, pins and blade line up when I press everything together.

Next I head upstairs to etch the hamon. I don't have any great photos of this, but I do have this snap-shot showing some of the mess.

In the photo are the following:

• The partially etched blade.
• A jar of diluted Fe-Cl. I will suspend the blade in it for 3-10 seconds at a time.
• A plastic plate. This is a protective barrier to keep me from staining the granite countertop with Fe-Cl, thereby keeping my lovely wife happy.
• The sink. I rinse the blade thoroughly with warm running water immediately after pulling it from the Fe-Cl.
• Liquid metal polish.
• Paper towels... LOTS of paper towels.
• Hand soap. I use soap and water to clean the blade thorougly after polishing and before the next cycle in the Fe-Cl.

After I finish the hamon etch, I pull out the home-made Crawford electro-etch unit to put my name (and my father-in-law's name) on the ricasso. This next photo shows a bit of that process.

You'll notice:

• The etcher on the right. One alligator clip is connected the tang of the blade and the other is connected to...
• a Q-Tip.
• A dainty tea-cup filled with warm salt-water.
• A blade with stencil taped in place.
• A plastic plate so my wife stays happy with me.

The etcher is first used in DC mode to remove metal through the stencil. I dip the Q-Tip in the salt water, then connect the red clip so that it touches the damp area. I dab the Q-Tip across the stencil... each dab of 1-2 seconds... making several passes across the stencil. The tip of the Q-Tip will become a dark yellow/black as metal is removed. I then switch to AC mode and repeat these steps to darken the etch. It is important to keep the Q-Tip damp (for conductivity) but NOT wet. Too much salt water on the Q-Tip can lead to a blurry etch. It is also important NOT to leave the Q-Tip in contact with the stencil for too long, or the stencil can get burned/ruined.

Below is a snap-shot of the etch.

 

[Chris Martin]

Loving this WIP Erin. Going to be a looker for sure.

Keep em coming....Chris likes this2thumbs

 

[Erin Burke]

With the blade and logo etch done, I'm just about ready to permanently attach the guard. One last thing that I need to take care of, however, is making sure that the front face of the guard is taken to its final finish. This would become much more difficult to do if the guard were already mounted. Here I am finish sanding the face of the guard on the granite plate with 2000-grit paper.

Because of the thick band of copper in the middle of this guard, I decided against using peened/hidden pins like I did on my previous saddle-guard knife (Knife #5). I don't frequently use mosaic pins, but figured that, in this case, copper/steel mosaics would look good with the copper-steel guard.

The photo below shows the guard all mounted (w/ pins) and glued (with J-B Weld). This may have been an application better suited to a soldered guard... but I chickened out, not wanting to ruin by blade temper (due to poor heat control) or finish (due to heat discoloration). I'm a wuss.

At this point, I switch gears and start working on the handle scales. I sorted through my piles of wood, and came up with only one set of scales that was long enough for this handle. I'm ashamed to admit, but out of the dozens and dozens of scale sets and blocks laying around my basement, I only had one set of scales 5-3/4" long. Fortunately, they turned out to be perfect for this knife 2thumbs. I'll talk about them more later on. Keep in mind, I have two more knives of this same design that I need to find material for. I am definitely willing to hear suggestions.

In the photo below I am angling the front face of one of the scales to match the back of the guard. From this photo you can probably make a guess at the wood species.

Next, I make sure that the inside faces of the scales are sanded nice and FLAT.

And here is a photo of the scales with the tang laid out on them. This scale set is (drum roll please) **buckeye burl**, and was purchased un-stabilized from an ebay vendor a while ago. I threw it in with a shipment of maple blocks to be stabilized (at WSSI) several months back. The scales came back slightly warped - as should be expected when getting scales stabilized - so some of the original thickness was lost when I sanded them flat. Fortunately, the were more than thick enough for this project.

Note that I marked all of the holes through the tang. Using my drill-press, I add some texturing (divots) at these locations to give the Acraglas epoxy that I will be using something extra to grab hold of. I'm not sure if this makes much of a difference, but I do it anyway.

Finally, this last photo shows the knife with the scales clamped on and epoxy drying.