USAKnifemakers Stage 1 knife kit Tutorial

[Steven Janik]

Josh,
This is the epitome of the "Complete Beginners Guide to Knifemaking"
I'm loving it and we are ALL learning something here.

Thanks
Steve

 

[curtlong]

Thanks for doing this! it has actually made me get off my but and work on the profile of my knife. and man I have learned a lot !

 

[Josh Dabney]

The thanks and all the kind words are appreciated friends !!!

This is the point in our process where we should study our blade to determine whether to proceed or regress to a previous step and continue working with our blade. Until our handles are pemanently attached we can regress to any of the steps completed AFTER heat treating without a problem. Once we permanently assemble our knife things get very complicated in the areana of work holding stability which will greatly diminish our ability to perform accurate hand work. As such let's take stock before we continue-

Is my blade profile EXACTLY the way I want it ?
Is my bevel and edge geometry EXACTLY the way I want it ?
Are the sides of my tang and ricasso area FLAT ?

If you answer yes to these questions proceed to handle work. If not, correct ANYTHING you don't like about the blade NOW and re-work it until you get back to these three questions.

Just to recap where we are I'm about to begin the final step of Stage 3, the Finishing stage. - Install and finish the handle scales.

Clean up your work area and gather the tools we'll be using for the start of our handle work.
The blade
Drill and 3/32 bit
3/32 pinstock
Both previously FLATENNED hande scales
Not pictured is also a 1/4" bit and hacksaw

The first order of business is to get our pin holes and lanyard hole drilled in our handle material.

To give ourselves the best chances for success while drilling the handle material we'll use this simple precautionary measure to help prevent "chip out" . Chip Out is when the drill bit breaks through the back side of the material and snags the edge of the hole tearing or chipping a little chunk out of the handle material. To reduce the risk of chip out simply tape the backside of the scale with masking tape while drilling.

Now line your blade up on a scale so we have overhang around the entire perimeter of the tang and plenty of material on the front side so we can shape the ricasso side of the scale any way we like.

Now just hold your blade down and drill the first pin hole through the handle material.

Cut pinstock will have a burr of sorts around the end from being cut. File a little chamfer around the end of your pinstock so it'll fit in the holes we're drilling. We don't need perfection just be sure to remove ALL of the burr.

Now insert the de-burred pinstock into the first drilled hole, add a c-clamp, and drill the other two pin holes and the lanyard hole. The pin and the clamp will prevent any movement of the blade on the handle material while drilling. These holes MUST perfectly match the holes in the tang of the blade and ANY mis-allignment in the relationship between these 4 holes and the tang will result in scrapped handle material and starting over with a brand new scale. Use the pin and clamp and you'll have no trouble.

Also attempt to drill these holes as straight as possible, meaning perpendicular to the flat of the scale.

While I've got everything in place I scribe around the perimeter of the tang with a utility knife. We want a PERMANENT scribed line here !

To drill scale #2.
-Tape back side
-Line up perfectly with scale #1 that is already drilled. !!! Be sure to put flattened side against flattened side !!!
-Clamp together
-Drill through #1 holes to create perfectly matching holes in #2

Now we can peel our tape off and see that all this clamping and taping has left us with perfectly matching holes and zero chip out

Now I'll pin my blade to scale #2 and verify my pin hole allignment and scribe around the tang

I greatly prefer to "pre-profile" my handle material before glue-up.
Now we can pin our scales together, clamp them down and begin cutting away the excess with our hacksaw

A word of caution here - We do not want to cut beyond our scribed line and will be wise and stay away from it just a little. If we do cut beyond the scribed line we'll be forced to alter the tang of the knife after assembly. This can surely be done but let's avoid changing our profile or creating uneccessary work for ourselves.

Micarta will cut easily with the hacksaw. Light pressure and quick sawing motion gets the job done in no time

Cut away as much as possible with the saw as it's FAR quicker than rasping away excess material. When finished with areas accesible with the saw use the hole drilling method for the rest. The location of these holes is not critical like it was when we profiled our steel. Eyeball it and drill'em. Just be sure not to go beyond the scribed line.

Now use the hacksaw in a similar fashion to a bandsaw to cut away the scrap

It's possible with a little care to get pretty close using these methods.

Now I'll clean up the profile of my first scale very nearly to my scribed lines using this round , very course, file. This material will be removed sooner or later and I find doing this pre-profiling of my scales GREATLY prefferable to attempting it after glue-up. At this stage I can clamp my scale in any old position I need and get it done without worry of damaging the tang of the blade.

Take your time and do a good job of pre-profiling scale #1. Time spent here will payoff when profiling #2 AND post glu-up

With #1 done pin the two together and clamp in place. Now we can really go to town bringing #2 down flush to #1. This spine side took all of about 60 seconds.

That is the conclusion of last night's progress but we'll continue from here.

-Josh

 

[franklin]

josh thats one %^&* of a wip, i think i called you the king of the wip one time, and i still stand by that. (no offence Bruce)
i sure wish i could have had this when i started!!! great job!!!

 

[backtines]

I'm never doin a WIP again ! Lol. Josh , you are the man!

 

[JawJacker]

Nice

 

[Josh Dabney]

Finish off profinling scale #2

Now cut some pinstock to length. Linesmans pliers or diagonal cutters are all you need

Because of the way I drilled out my scales everything fits together but extremely tight. I want to "ream" each of the three pin holes to ensure I don't have issues at glue-up. Pin two holes and "ream" the third. By ream I just mean to run our 3/32 bit through.

Now I'm ready to layout the shape on the front of my scales. My first step is to locate my plunge on the scale for reference. I've drilled two pin holes into my 2x4 and pinned by blade in place. Then used a straight edge and a sharpie to mark the 2x4 in line with my plunge

Slip the scale over the pins and line up the straight edge and scribe in the plunge location

Now we can get a good layout for our scale marked in pencil

Pin the scales together and hacksaw

Now we can get our first sneak peek at what our knife is going to look like completed.

This area is what I refer to as the scale faces. Clamp up the pair and file the faces true.

Trial fit to see where we need adjustments

After a few test fits I'm where I want to be with it.

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

BEWARE of "BLOCK HANDLE SYNDROME" or BHS

The bad news is BHS is an affliction commonly experienced by newer knifemakers.

The good news is that it's easy to cure with a little education about what a knife handle can be.

A blocky handle lacks contours that make it more comfortable in the hand and the profile will remain basically perpendicular to the sides of the scales. In severe cases of BHS the sharp corner on the scales will be mildy rounded and thats about it.

We want to avoid BHS although I won't be doing too much heavy contouring due to the thickness of the scales.

Here we can see my scale faces are nice and square but we want thats knife comfortable tor use in different hand holds and positions.

Here I've got started by angling the face of the left scale. Nothing exact just go at it with your file until it feels right

Match up the other side

View from the bottom

Now sand the faces with some 220 grit paper to finish them up. The faces need to finished up to your desired grit before assembly. I'm only going to 220 so I'm good.

My scale faces will get epoxy on them during glue-up so to assist in clean-up and prevent the epoxy from immediately soaking into the scale on contact I'm going to protect the faces with a couple coats of wax. This is just some car wax I had in the cabinet.

Now I want to prepare my scale and tang surfaces for glue-up. Here I've dimpled the scales through my swiss cheese holes just to assist the epoxy in getting a good bond to my scales. I'm not drilling deep at all just dimpling with my 3/32" bit

Now I want to mark my tang for the front of my scales. Put one scale on and eyball marking the opposite side.

Now I score the tang up in a crosshatch pattern with 80 grit paper

While we gather our tools and materials for glue up keep this in the back of your mind

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

We've got our blade and scales prepped for glue-up. Just give all surfaces to be epoxied a wipe down with an alcohol swab to de-contaminate them from dust and lubricants.

Glue-up can easily become a short time of self induced PANIC. 5 Minutes is not alot of time to complete the assembly of our knife and with two part epoxy like we're using here the 5 minute timeframe can be even shorter than that. The two parts of the epoxy are resin and hardener mixed in equal parts. The "equal parts" of each is important to us for this reason- The resin is thicker than the hardener so even with the syringe dispenser it will have a tendancy to squirt out more hardener than resin. If we get more hardener than resin in our mix the epoxy will "kick off" faster giving us less time to work before the epoxy begins to set-up.

Take care to get equal parts for our mix. It'll most likely take uneven preassure applied to the syringe plunger to accomplish this. The colder the ambient temperature is the more pronounced this will become. If it's mid summer and 110 degrees in my shop this isn't much of an issue. At 50 or 60 degrees it's far more noticable.

Now we need to again clear our work space and gather everything we need or might need for our assembly

I've gathered-

-Paper towels- these are here for just in case I make a huge mess- it happens trust me
-4 C-clamps pre-sized for quick install
-The bottom of a soda can is an excellent mixing tray
-Alcohol swabs - more on this soon
-Epoxy- Be sure to remove the storage cap from the plunger before opening the syringe !!!! You do not want to be fooling with this after you've dispensed epoxy or you'll be fiddling with this cap while hardener and resin are leaking out all over your hands and bench.
-Popcicle stick- the chubby fat one that came with the epoxy looks very cumbersome to use and will surely result in epoxy on your fingers and as a result everywhere else.
-Acetone is at the ready with the paper towels just in case of a bulk mess. Hope to not need this stuff but I want it handy if I do
-Of course Scales, Blade, and Pins. I bent one pin while working my handle material so I cut and deburred a new replacement
-A couple alcohol swabs at the ready. Before I mix up the epoxy I'll open these two packages and have them at the ready.
-Not pictured but I've also got several toothpicks within reach if needed for clean-up. Some times they're needed to get into the joint of the scales and tang. If needed I wrap the tooth pick with an alcohol swab to get right at the joint.

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

For glue-up to go smoothly we need to have a plan of action so we can work quickly to accomplish the task WITHOUT getting ourselves into a frenzy. Make a plan and execute your plan for success.

My Glue-up Plan-

1. Mix epoxy
2. Apply epoxy to front edge of both scales
3. Apply epoxy to one side of tang staying back from the front edge
4. Insert TWO pins through tang
5. Line pins up with scale #1 and press tang firmly against scale
6. Dump epoxy from mixing tray on top of tang and spread to fill swiss cheese holes (be sure to get some on your pins)
7. Line scale #2 up with pins and press scale down firmly against tang.
8. Pick up knife and push the two pins through so pin material is sticking out both sides then insert pin #3
9. Squeeze scales tight with finger pressure
10. Remove bulk squeeze out with alcohol swab
11. Apply C-clamps from front to back
12. Clean squeeze out from scale face, ricasso, and blade using as many alcohol swabs as needed. ( 10 used on this knife)
13. Spray blade with WD-40 to prevent rust while she's sitting in the shop overnight to cure.

#1. Mix epoxy- equal parts are clear and yellowish looking. when properly mixed the epoxy will take on a silvery color

#2 Apply to front edge of scales

#3 Ally to one side of tang staying back form the front edge

#4. Insert TWO pins through tang
#5. Line pins up with scale #1 and press tang firmly against scale
#6. Dump epoxy from mixing tray on top of tang and spread to fill swiss cheese holes (be sure to get some on your pins)

!!!! You WILL get epoxy on your fingers and it WILL get on everything you touch !!!!

Grab a swab and clean that spot and your finger immediately to prevent further mess

#7. Line scale #2 up with pins and press scale down firmly against tang.
#8. Pick up knife and push the two pins through so pin material is sticking out both sides then insert pin #3
#9. Squeeze scales tight with finger pressure

-NO PIC- but don't forget #10

10. Remove bulk squeeze out with alcohol swab

#11. Apply C-clamps from front to back. I alterante the direction of the clamp handle side so one clamp doesn't interfere with the clamp beside it

Clamping pressure will create more squeeze out.

#12. Clean squeeze out from scale face, ricasso, and blade using as many alcohol swabs as needed. ( 10 used on this knife)

My routine produces just a little squeeze out around the entire perimeter of the tand scale joints. This is perfectly what I like. A little squeeze out everywhere but not globs of epoxy anywhere

#13. Spray blade with WD-40 to prevent rust while she's sitting in the shop overnight to cure.

This completes the assembly of our knife.

REMEMBER Make a Plan ! Execute that Plan !


-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

This is where we are after removing our clamps.

While working on our handle we MUST tape our blade up to prevent scratches. Everyone develops their own routine for taping up a blade and this is what works for me.

I clean the WD-40 off and tape my blade flat on both sides using 2" wide painters tape. The painters tape is expensive stuff and NOT mandatory. I like it because becuase it won't leave adhesive residue on the blade when removed, it's adhesive will not promote rust, and it's far more durable that cheap masking tape. Expensive but worth it to me.

Now I'll switch to the skinny roll and begin with it right up against my scale face. I do not trim off the excess 2" stuff but instead fold it over and tape it down. Extra padding=Extra protection.

Now wrap the blade with the skinny. I fold the 2" overhanging the tip back on the blade and wrap overtop of it with the skinny stuff. DONE

Cip off the excess pinstock as close as you can get

I did not want to go through a clamping process for this operation so I just lightly tapped the pins down into my 2x4 to help stabilize my handle for filing down my pin stubbs. File all 6 pins down to approximately 1/2 the diameter of the pin. Pin diameter is 3/32" so our target is 3/64". Don't bother attempting to measure this as it's not THAT critical. 3/64" is just a teeny bit less than 1/16" so file'em down and eyeball it.

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

"Shadows" around pins are pretty common for newer knifemakers. A pin shadow is a dark or discolored ring around the pins on a finished knife handle.

A shadow can be visible on a completed knife in two different ways for two different reasons. Understanding these and their causes will help us avoid unsightly pin shadows.

FULL Shadow- This is a ring of discolored handle material surrounding the entire circumfrence of a pin. This type is typically a tiny area of burned or heat discolored handle material. This is caused by overheating the pin while grinding it down flush with the handle material. Using dull belts or belts in too high a grit will most definately overheat the pin. If your using a belt grinder use a sharp coarse belt and grind the pins down in short bursts with firm pressure to avoid building heat in the pin.

I won't have this problem here because I filed my pins down so no heating of the pin is involved.

PARTIAL Shadow- A partial will look like a cresent on a section of the circumference only. A couple things can cause this but the two main things are chip out or holes that are not perfectly round. (no hole drilled with a drill bit is perfectly round)

Any area where our drilled hole is not a PERFECT fit to our pinstock will be filled with epoxy and show on our finished product. I tried to drill my holes perpendicular to my handle material and did pretty well with the front and back holes. The middle hole is another story and I got one of the middle holes at a fairly bad angle.

Do to this fact when I "reamed" through both scales and the tang together I changed that middle hole from round to oval and I'll most certainly have some shadow on that middle pin UNLESS I address this issue BEFORE filing my pins down flush to my handle material.

The solution to this problem is to expand my "pin heads" very slightly enlarging them. I do mean VERY SLIGHTLY !

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Hammer doming pin heads is a skill that takes quite a bit of practice to get proficient at. It also requires a ball pien hammer.

HAMMER DOMING IS NOT WHAT I'M DOING HERE !

What I am doing is expanding the diameter of the pin a teeny tiny bit around the entire circumfrence.

This is a gentle operation !!!! We're not driving nails here so we won't be swinging our hammer or using hard strikes.

Our pin material is pretty soft so a light touch is all that's needed. A good technique is to choke up on the hammer handle and ONLY use a "flick of the wrist" motion for striking. We'll be following a "death of a 1000 cuts" theory with many very light strikes to accomplish our work- tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap......

To set ourselves up we need a solid surface on the bottom to support the pin from the back side. I clamped my angle iron to my 2x4 and used that as my "anvil"

Here's a side view of how our hammer face will contact the top surface of our pin. The hammer face will be making contact at a slight angle in relation to the top surface of the pin.

Here's a view looking down at the top of the pin from above. This shows where our hammer is making contact against the pin. Begin stiking with your tap-tap-taps in a random spot and work your contact area around the circumfrence of the pin. Keep right on tap-tap-tapping as you travel your strikes around the entire circumfrence.

This is an EXTREME close-up and slightly exagerated view of what happens to our pin once we have expanded it.

That all said let me post the before pic again for comparison purposes- BEFORE-

AFTER-

Don't worry about any epoxy that's around your pins. Just do your thing expanding the pin and it'll work out.

Now I've expanded all 6 pins and I'm ready to bring my pins down flush to my handle material and work on handle shaping. To hold my knife I've got it sandwiched between my workbench 2x4 and another pice of scrap 2x4. This will hold my blade securely WITHOUT damging my blade. Any attempt to put a clamp directly on the taped blade will marr the blade up in some way so please use this sandwich technique !

Now file the expanded pins down very near to flush. We don't want to be absolutely flush at this time with this coarse file. We'll finish it off with sandpaper later in our shaping process.

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Let me PRE-FACE this post by saying it's very easy to get the cart before the horse and do an operation out of logical sequence.

Let's face it... Knifemaking is EXCITING stuff !!!! The step of handle shaping is where our knife comes to life and transforms from a BLADE into a KNIFE. We are nearing the completion of our knife and it can be difficult not to rush into it full steam ahead.

This is exactly what I did here but you SHOULD NOT.

THE SMART THING TO DO HERE IS TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR PROFILE FIRST AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOUR SHOULD DO

Everybody make mistakes so let's not beat ourselves up over it Doing something out of order is very rarely the end of the world and usually it just makes future steps more difficult than it needed to be so again don't be too hard on yourself !

That said I went ahead and started shaping my handle. These scales are on the thin side for my personal taste but I still want to get a little shape on my handle and end up with a dome shape from top to bottom on my handle so I start roughing it in with my aggressive round file

Continue around the bottom side also

I also want to taper the front and back of the scales a little. I needed to pull my blade out away from my 2x4's a bit to get good access to the front section with my files

Now I can taper both the front and back still roughing it in

Now the Ole Lightbulb kicks on and I'm thinking Golly Gee Paw.... (in my best Opie Voice) Once I dome this scale however am I going to clamp it up to work the profile ?????? Hmmmmmm :les: I better get working on that before I go any further here !

What I need to do is bring my scales down flush to the tang and remove all traces of epoxy. To make this easier on myself I'll rasp my profile at a slight angle so the high side is just higher than my tang and the low side is just lower the tang.

I do this around the entire profile

Now I can get my sanding block and some 120 grit paper and sand the high side and the epoxy down flush with the tang. Just a few strokes and I'm already making contact with the tang in spots

A little bit of sanding and we're just about there

With my scales profiled NOW I can continue my shaping by roughing in the other side of my handle

Now we can begin cleaning things up with our HARD sanding block and some 120 grit paper. We will NEVER EVER use a padded sanding block to sand over pins !!!! We want our pins perfectly flush to our handle material and anything other than a hard sanding block will wear away the handle material faster than the pin material creating a divot around the pin.

Now sand it out to 220. It is ok to use strips of sandpaper and a shoeshine motion with no sanding block anywhere EXCEPT over the pins

Wax this side with some Turtle Wax

Allow the wax to dry and hand buff with a scrap of denim.

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Let's dedicate a post to taking stock of where we started, what we've accomplished, and how far we've come.

Our knife kit as it arrived from USAKnifeMakers- Available here-
http://usaknifemaker.com/kit-knives...-steel-knife-kit-level-1-build-along-kit.html

And this is where we are now. I still need to sand out the other scale to call her done but this side is pretty much the finished product and my pins finished out beautifully

We began our project with the mantra... Plan our work and work our Plan. We've stuck to this philosophy throughout and as a result we have brought our vision to life

Our determination to make the best knife we can with what we've got to work with has payed off in the seamless, gapless, glue-less, fit-up we've achieved through sweat and attension to details

Finish the other scale out and put my final 220 finish around my profile and I'll be ready to call her done and move on to the final stage of our build-

Sheathmaking and sharpening.

I'm unfortunately not anticipating getting into the shop tonight or through the weekend but expect to continue on monday night.

Take care friends !!!

-Josh

 

[backtines]

awesome job josh !!!!!!!

 

[LiamLynch]

As soon as I have some money I will have to start. I have a belt attachment for a similar grinder so no excuses for me. This is easily one of the best WIPs out there. Definitely the most complete.

 

[Josh Dabney]

Got back to my knife a bit last night.

Our goal for the second side scale shaping is to match it to the first side which is completed. We've got our scale rough shaped so we'll need to fine tune our shape with a file thats not so aggressive as my round file. The edge of this scale is a bit thick all the way around so I'm thinning it around the handle

Then to my hard sanding block at 120 then 220

Finally I remove my blade from the clamp set-up and finish sand the profile of the blade and scales with 220. That done un-tape the blade and CAREFULLY sand the spine of the blade to 220 also and we have finished up our handle shaping.

You've probably taken note that our BLACK canvas Micarta handles are looking awfully GREY. No real way around this but different surface finishes and contours on the handle will affect the appearance of the finished product.

I'd like to restore some of my black apprearance if I can so I spray the entire knife down with my WD-40 and let it soak a few minutes. This probably won't have a long lasting affect but it won't hurt to try

After a few minutes and a wipe with a paper towel. Maybe not a buffed out and shiny handle but a VERY functional and grippy one which is perfect for a working knife IMHO

I fear many folks these days go all GA-GA over the Whiz-Bang Takti-Cool stuff. 1/2 of that stuff is extremely functional and the other 1/2 is extremely DIS- functional. We want to stay on the functional side and designed our handle with function in mind over form. I'd highly recommend that you stick with a general use design for your first knife and try to avoid the creation of what I call a "Modern Art Masterpiece"

I designed my knife to be comfortable for use in pretty much any position you can grasp the handle.

Standard grip, good to go

Reverse grip with thumb wrapped over the butt end, good to go

Reverse grip with a fist, good to go

Upside down grip, good to go

A pinch grip with the index finger wrapped around the face of the scale is also good to go :biggrin:


Just your basic knife designed for general use and a "Jack of all trades master of none" design. I expect this knife to perform any task asked of it. It will not be the best design for every situation but nevertheless it'll get the job done.


-Josh

 

[Bruce Bump]

Excellent tutorial for beginners as well as seasoned veterans. Sometimes we old guys with all the tools forget where we came from. The results are the same. Great knife.

 

[Josh Dabney]

Congratulation on Completing Stage 3 of our Knifemaking process !!!!!!

We have completed our knife !!!! This is HUGE !!!!!!!!! You are NOW a KNIFEMAKER !

At this point you should be bursting at the seams with pride and a MAJOR sense of accomplishment. I assure you that many have tried and failed to reach this goal so pat yourself on the back for a job well done, YOU have earned it !

If your not experiencing an overwhelming excitement for completing your first knife from scratch there's a pretty good chance that knifemaking is not for you. No big deal but be honest with yourself

If you are having the typical experience that we knifemakers feel when completing a knife then it's a perfect time to order yourself another kit or order the individual materials to build your own kit. Once we finish Stage 4 we won't want to be left without materials to begin working on #2

WELCOME TO STAGE 4 SHEATHMAKING AND SHARPENING

Let's review what we'll be doing in Stage 4

-Make a pattern

-Cut our pattern from leather

-Glue-up

-Stitch

-Dye and finish

-Sharpen our new knife and cut some stuff up

-Josh