And it might have made my wife too happy. Well for this step go to this instructable. Civilization as we know fgeight would not be possible marking knife harbor freight forwarding man had not learned how to utilize iron and steel to the high degree of which it is employed today. Like Like. Just put red paint, nail polish, or what ever, in the grove that extends towards the operator from the front edge of the saw blade.

A year is better. The wood in the center of a 2-byinch chunk of hardwood will have quite a bit of moisture in it compared to the outside layer. Like almost everything else, I learned this the hard way. About 25 years ago, I bought a beautiful piece of Macassar ebony that was 2 inches thick, 8 inches wide and about 18 inches long. I got it from a wood dealer who had the large board it was cut from for more than 15 years. I brought it home and sawed off enough pieces for a matching bowie and Texas toothpick set I was making.

One slab had shrunk very little; the other three slabs had shrunk to varying degrees, and I had to replace three of the four handle slabs. Number four was closest to the center of the ebony and it was the one that shrunk enough to crack. I had cut my slabs off of the end that was fresh cut by the wood dealer. The other end was sealed with wax so there was no way for the wood to be free of excess moisture.

The moisture came out fairly quick once the slabs were exposed to the warm air of an Oregon summer. I write the weight on the test piece with pencil and then put it under my epoxy curing light. The light is adjusted so that the temperature is around degrees Fahrenheit. The wood sample is weighed every 4-to-6 hours until such a time that there is no more loss in weight.

This shows me how much moisture it has to give up. At this point, the material is drier than it should be. If attached to a knife in the dehydrated condition, it will probably swell as it becomes normalized to the average humidity and temperature of its new home. The trick is having material on hand with average moisture content percent , then, with luck, it will stay close to the same size and remain attached to the steel of the knife tang.

Our project is to make an everyday working knife. The knife we decide to carry for our daily cutting chores will depend on our experience and the type work we do.

An electrician working in the mild climate of Eugene, Oregon, will need a very different knife than that used by a rancher from Wyoming.

On the other hand, my experience is that most folks actually get the work done with whatever knife they have, regardless if it is truly suitable for the job. The governing principle is that when real work has to be done, any knife is better than no knife. The project knife will have a narrow tang with a two-piece handle that is carved out to receive the tang. This is a handle that requires no attached guard, and can be done with all hand tools. I like the lightweight feel of knives put together with this method and employ the process often for every type of knife, from small utility pieces to larger camp knives.

I recommend easing into the purchase of major tools. Give a new maker all the tools in the world and it will be a long time before he or she is turning out consistently good work.

It will be all right to use more advanced tools if you have them. Neat and accurate work is what will make you a good knifemaker. The idea is to get started with what you have. An old wood chair without a back served as a platform to hold things on for drilling with my electric drill. You can make knives if all you have is a sharp pocketknife and some scraps of soft wood. You may not want to be a wood carver but this exercise will get you started on your journey to being a knifemaker.

A bonus is that it will also give you practice sharpening knives. An abrasive cutting wheel on a bench grinder or homemade grinder as shown in the photo will save a lot of time compared to cutting the steel with a hacksaw. I attached a heavy tabletop to it. It was still not real solid so I made a shelf to sit on the cross supports for the legs, and I put a lot of heavy stuff on it.

Look for the ones that use the sticky-back discs;. In my opinion, top of the line Wilton vises are the strongest that can be found, and also the most expensive. Various mixtures of some or all of the oils or fat will also work. Note the variety of materials and shapes shown in the related photo;. A 2-inch-byinch belt grinder, which is the standard of the handmade knife industry for many good reasons. For that size of a belt grinder, excellent, quality belts are available in any grit and type you would ever need.

The Coote belt grinder gets my vote as the most machine for the money. It comes without a motor. With some luck, a suitable motor can be found for a fraction of the cost of a machine with a motor installed. The Coote is available from the manufacturer, no middleman, and that saves dollars;. Check with Sears, Costco or one of the import places.

You might not want to use a grinding wheel that much, but with one end set up with an abrasive cutting wheel, it just might become one of your most-often used tools;. Knifemakers supply companies sell these adapters, as does Sears. The author sets his up as shown in the related photo; and. I did 90 percent of the work on the project knife with my homemade hard-wheel grinder. If you consider your time to be worth something and you have the dollars in your pocket.

I got my start in with a homemade grinder. See the photo of the faithful replica of that machine, which was used for the making of the project knife. The only good thing I can say for it is that the belt grinder was not needed. Nothing beats them for taking the scale off of forged blades or damascus billets. These grinders come in a wide variety of sizes and price ranges. When material is pressed against a disc or belt that is running, one end of the material will be slightly tapered because the initial contact was in that area.

This is eliminated with a foot switch, which allows the material to be applied to the disc prior to turning it on. The material is kept in contact with the disc until it stops turning after the foot switch is turned off.

The type of arbor that I used is no longer available, but the threaded aluminum discs are still in production. The place to look for the discs is at lapidary supply stores.

See the photo. A paper-cutting jig cuts a full sheet of sandpaper so that there is not so much waste. Once the sandpaper is adhered to the disc, a sharp knife is used to cut off the waste. The paper is held in place with 3-M Spray Disc Adhesive. This is a great product because three or four disc changes can be made before it needs to be renewed. He purchased the discs from Texas Knifemakers Supply, but the arbor and pillow blocks were purchased locally.

The 9-inch discs run on a shaft supported by ball-bearing pillow blocks. The advantage of the double discs is that they allow for left- and right-hand rotation. The 9-inch size allows the user to cut discs from standard-sized sandpaper. There are two ways for the beginner to shape blades—stock removal and forging.

There was a time when all blades were made by forging. Steel was expensive and even rare in those days. Two blades can often be forged from the same-sized piece of steel that would make only one full-tang stock-removal blade. The invention of manmade grinding wheels opened up the possibility for steel to be removed quickly, and stock removal became feasible for making knives. The tang is iron that was forge-welded onto the steel blade. This sounds like a lot of work for those of us who have unlimited piles of steel with which to work.

The welding of scraps to make bigger pieces was business as usual for the tribal smith who made this knife. Note the branch from a tree that was used for a handle and the crude bolster to keep the handle from splitting.

The hole for the tang is the exact shape as the tang and that shows that the tang was burned into the handle. This allows the new maker to get started making knives with a bare minimum of equipment. An advantage, for myself, to forging is the energy created by the process. I get sick and tired of grinding and sanding inside my shop. Grinding creates smelly grit that permeates the skin and clothing.

That energy thing is hard to explain; it must be experienced. That sounds good to me. The steel bar stock selected for the stock-removal blade should not be much wider and thicker than is necessary to make the blade.

Clamp your pattern onto the steel, drill the two holes for pins, place trial pins in the holes and scribe the outline into the steel. The accompanying photo shows three ways to cut the blade from of the bar. Another way to cut the blade off of the bar stock is to drill a series of holes and then break it apart. A properly sharpened drill bit will remove metal quite rapidly. At top in the related photo is a steel bar scribed to show the points of two blades.

At, bottom the bar has been drilled and broken apart. A good way to establish the radius is to use drilled holes. There are two stages to any type of blade grind. Edges can warp or crack when they are too thin going into the quench process. Leaving some material to take off after heat-treat makes the quench operation a lot safer for the blade. Blades can, and do, warp during the quench operation, and the extra material will allow some straightening to be done with the grinder.

The stock-removal knifemaker starts with a rectangular cross-section of steel and turns it into a wedge shape, which can be arrived at with several different methods. The stock-removal method can be completed several ways.

An adequate job can be done with a bench grinder, sometimes called a hard-wheel grinder. This allowed me to control the blade with both hands and see what I was doing. I ruined more than a few abrasive discs by jamming them on the sides of blades where the discs were cutting towards the edges. With this type of setup, it would have been nice to have a reversible motor. I made close to three hundred knives with such a setup before I had a belt grinder. The time required cancelled the savings in belts.

It was actually kind of foolish if I would have considered my time to be worth money. Sharp, new belts are required for getting the bevels set up accurately. Many grinding errors that new makers make are caused by trying to work with dull belts. Make up your mind that each hunting knife is going to cost you the price of at least two new belts. Use a red, waterproof marking pen to ink in the blade prior to each new grit size. Any grinding scratches that remain will show up easier because of the red ink.

Check for those remaining scratches under a good light. Look at the blade from tip to tang, then from edge to back. Grinding to the line from each side will leave approximately the correct thickness at the edge to make it safe for the quenching operation.

But fear not, you too can produce a beautiful knife that will make men weep with just a few basic tools and some elbow grease. Of course you can just use a hack saw too but that's a lot of work. I used a metal cutoff disc for the rough cutting. For the profiling of the blade I used a backer plate with grinding sand paper shown in the pic. Buy them in a few grits starting at 60 grit. Or you can just get a few flap discs as shown in the pic.

Good blade steel for the price. I prefer wood because I'm a carpenter by trade and love it. I bought a piece of Cocobolo for the scales handle material from Owl Hardwood s because I was nearby for a job. In the hobby section usually. I bought a variety of both. Don't try the 4 min. First draw two parallel lines on a piece of printer paper that represent the width of your blade steel.

Design your knife in between these lines. Now's the time to make sure you like the shape and feel of your knife. Hold it how you would use it normally and see if anything needs to be changed. Remember too that the handle will be a little wider when you add the scales. Once you are truly happy with your shape transfer it to your steel with a steel pen or a sharpie. I made four patterns and made small variations of each one.

With your angle grinder and some cut off discs go to work cutting out your blades. Take your time and be safe. Gloves, respirator, safety glasses!!! Cut close to, but leave the lines if they aren't too thick.

You'll grind them down to the final shape later. This allowed me to grind the edge of the blade by clamping it in the slot as shown in the pics.

With your hand drill or drill press preferred and your steel cutting drill bits, drill the holes for your pins. Put some extra holes in it if you want to skeletonize it at this time. I would have done more but my bits got too tired by then.

Drill smaller holes first and then enlarge with bigger bits. Use some oil to keep bits from over heating and take your time. Before you start grinding mark a center line on the edge of the knife blade that shows you the center of your bevel. Using the angle grinder and the flap disc shape the bevel.

If you don't your knife may warp when you heat treat it. Using a rough file continue to shape your bevel then switch to a fine file. Start with 80 grit and move up to then then This will help prevent stress cracks in the blade during the heat treating. You can use a small grill and some hardwood charcoal to heat treat your blade. You don't really need a forge to do this.

I used a piece of cardboard to fan the fire and get the coals super hot. It would have been easier with a hairdryer and a pipe but I was lazy to go get that stuff. And it might have made my wife too happy. Run a piece of bailing wire not galvanized through the handle to make it easy to pull out of the fire. Put the blade right in the hottest part of the coals once you have it going strong. Let it get bright orange critical non-magnetic.

You can test this with an big old magnet like from a old speaker or something. Stick it back in the coals for a minute or two more. Then pull it out again and immediately dunk it in some oil to cool it olive, vegetable, motor, transmission etc. It's better if the oil is a little warm to prevent the blade from cracking.

To take some of the brittleness out of the blade also reduces the hardness a bit you need to temper the blade. Just stick it in the oven on the middle rack at degrees for an hour. After an hour just turn off the heat and let it cool in the oven.

So your blade should be all black and gross at this point. You need to sharpen the blade edge as this was left a little thick in a previous step. Get out your files and sandpaper again and file and polish that baby up.

It will be a more difficult to file the edge now that it has been hardened but this helps you to know that the heat treat worked. When your blade is all pretty again wrap some cardboard and tape around the blade.

This will protect the blade and you. If you bought your scales online then they should already be a suitable thickness. Didn't want the handle too thick. Clamp the blade to one of the scales and drill the pin holes. If you have a drill press do it on that. That way your holes will be perpendicular.

You can then put some pin material through the holes so it registers correctly and draw around your scales. Cut them out leaving the line with a coping saw or a scroll saw. Finish any of the edges that will be tight agains the blade and won't be able to be sanded later as shown in the last pic. I cut out a small section for a lanyard hole in this particular blade. Cut your pins slightly larger than your finished handle dimensions.

Dry fit your scales and make sure it will all go together easy once you have the epoxy mixed. Put the pins in one of the scales and epoxy it. Slide the knife onto the pins and then epoxy the other side and pop the other scale on. Put a bunch of clamps on and let it sit overnight.

Side note. You can make your own mosaic pins using brass or stainless steel tubing with different diameter rods of same or contrasting materials. The last pic shows some simple mosaic pins I made with 4 small brass rods in a small brass tube. Fill the tube half way with epoxy and shove the rods into the tubing and presto! Once your epoxy is set take off the clamps and shape your handle.

You'll first want to file your pins till they protrude from the scales just a hair. Then slightly peen your pins to help hold the scales on. You can use a rasp, sandpaper and a dremel with a sanding drum attachment. If you are real careful you can use your angle grinder again to shape the handle as I did. Once it is fully sanded rub some linseed oil on it and let it dry in the sun.

Repeat a few times. Or you can just polyurethane it. I like the feel of the oil.

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