Moms new AEB-L skinner

[wall e]

I was asked by my mom to make her a skinner like the Sharpfinger pattern, so like a good child I obliged.

Started with .110 AEB-L and a cardboard template I set out to make a new to me patterned blade.

Cut and profile time

And clean up the lil bit of burs and scale on the steel before sending off to HT

Drilled the pin holes and sent off to ht and got it and the rest of the blanks back a week later done to a 61rc.

Cleaned the little bit of decarb off to mark my center line and off to the grinder.
Here is where Im at and no more pics as of yet.
Will post more pics later.

 

[ACLakey]

My Dad loved the sharp finger. I'll be watching how these turn out.

 

[wall e]

Andrew the second sharp finger is another modified project running tandem to this one.
Here is pics during grinding. @60 grit half way mark

Thanks to Anthony for the little quick made filing jig to make this a clean even grind lines. Yes its cheating a little I know.

And side B starting grind.

 

[wall e]

Got both sides ground and now am on the most drawn out labor intensive part, hand sanding.
Went from the 320 belt finish back to the 220 hand sanding and discovered the monkey at the grinder got a bit eager and made a divot next to the plunge lines.

Important knife being made so of course there is a challenge. Lol
It is gonna be very repetitive the solution to this learning not to rush a grind.

The happy yet sad part is there is a scratch that it is literally
almost at the plunge line.
During hand sanding this I managed to run out of WD 40 so I used a little mineral oil and its like a slick little dream to hand sand.

 

[wall e]

And now am starting on the 320 grit and thinking that since this will be a working blade I am gonna go for a simple satin sheen and hope to not end up with a gloss reflective again.
When is enough sanding enough? After one more sheet right?

 

[wall e]

Trying to keep this a working blade and did the bevel to 400 then kinda shined the flats a little to 1000. Am going to look at it after work and see what I think of it 24 hrs later.

 

[wall e]

I am happy with it at 400 bevel an 1k flats.
Am now battling myself and the worry wart position of how to do the scales.
The frustrating thing is I am seriously pondering not using the iron wood at all and using the live oak grampa cut and I put on my nephews knife.
Another idea is using some salvaged teak I have.
Oh for the love of god, why must it be such a battle to make a knife I will be happy with the scales on?

Ironwood

Slavaged teak

Uber curly piece of live oak

 

[wall e]

Live Oak her dad cut is going on it instead of the Ironwood.
The uber curly piece is lost in a box in the shop somewhere.

 

[wall e]

So I got a good news bad news yesterday mornin. After cutting the block into 2 scales I discovered my saw is on it's last leg.

 

[wall e]

Here is the resulting scales from the block pictured above.

Inside am kinda thinking of making it the out side of the handle so both sides are mirror.
Is that what book matching is?

Yes there is a strip of punk that although it adds character is not a good idea on a raw handle.

Right side

Left side

 

[Self Made Knives]

Picking scale material is always one of the hardest things to me. I get out my crate full of wood, line them up, narrow it down to 3 or 4 and then still can't decide. I kind of like when somebody just says, "I want orange/black G10". No decisions for me. :biggrin:

 

[wall e]

Picking scale material is always one of the hardest things to me. I get out my crate full of wood, line them up, narrow it down to 3 or 4 and then still can't decide. I kind of like when somebody just says, "I want orange/black G10". No decisions for me.

True but this was a from the heart thing.
It is very simple when your given a specific parameter to work with.

 

[wall e]

Post glue up fun with felt liners, she likes blues an purples so I made one for each side then split in half and did blue top and purple bottom. I figured since the top and bottom are the same radius they should balance out and they did.
A lil tip I was given and use is to apply some C A glue to the felt liner to keep it from absorbing all the epoxy and creating a weak chemical bond.

Post peening the ss pins. Is getting easier to peen the more I do it, and fewer dimples in the scales when done.
Will post more pics in the am of the final shape that shows the grain featherinf that follows the handles curve partially as it feathers out to the edges. It shows a little in this pic but will be better defined in the other ones in the morning.

 

[wall e]

Here is the start of the fun of hand sanding from 220 on up.

 

[wall e]

400 grit check to see how it will look.

Post 2k grit with first coat of true oil.

After 12hrs to cure and second coat

The blue felt liner turned out better than expected.

 

[wall e]

Sadly the camera does not pick up the depth shimmer in the scales.

 

[wall e]

So after 2 days of fighting temperature curing issues with the trueoil I took a break from the battle of patience and cleaned up my finish flaws and picked the leather color that I thought would look good with the lighter wood.

I'm lost as to whether I missed a lil bit of dust before applying the oil or not but there were small specks of dust under the last coat .

 

[wall e]

Been a chaotic couple of weeks this thing had me so pissed at one point I was about to throw it across the shop and give up.
Then I thought about the month of on an off work that would have been wasted.
So I took a break and worked on the sibling to this one.
Regained my focus and sanded the dust out of the last coat. Wiped clean with acetone and tried again with the true oil. 8 coats total and decided to try and liggtly buff it after the last coat cured. Bad idea the coat had not fully cured and I peeled short strips of it off after buffing. Back to the steel wool sanding and some 2k paper for the big spots.
Let hat cure in a 70° ish room for two days then tried to smooth the bubbles out.

Success, I decided no buffer this time for the sake of not wanting to screw it up again.
Had some true oil set up on the ricasso and remembered the suggestion to make a brass scraper from a piece of pinstock. Smudged the glossy sheen of the ricasso but a touch up with a lil 1500 made them go away.
Did the final once over and found a flaw in the two colored liner nit picking but is there and am leaving it as a character flaw. Since it is a working blade mom was not phased by the flaw.

Started on the sheath and am still tuning my leather skills so the sheath is solid but not perfect.
Better than the last one though so I am learning.
I make a kydex insert so the knife doesnt go through the sheath and as a retention piece.
(No kill like overkill.)

Its plain and simple just like I was asked to make.
Upon checking the fit and retention it was perfect until I put a belt in it then noticed the sheath pulled the kydex open and the knife could fall out.
Located the point the tension needed to be added awnd placed a rivet to take up the slack.

 

[Smallshop]

Very cool photo documentary. Are the felt liners hard? They look good but they must be resin impregnated?

 

[ACLakey]

Nice follow through Walt. The knife looks like a keeper, she'll love it.