New Rabbit Hole

[Zamfir]

No. It will be full flat distal taper. What has been done on it so far was all kinds of practice. Some on the flat platen some on the 12″ wheel some freehand some with the table on some with it off. So a whole bunch of different techniques were practiced. Now I just need to figure out what I want the blade design to be. Heavy distal or shallow or to put on chamfers on the top or not. I just need to hit the grinder. Then when done we will heat treat it.

[Zamfir]

Congrats on going full time rouge operator Josh! You have the skills for sure. Now you just need the clientele.

[tcmeyer]

I too must offer congrats, Josh. It’s takes a lot of chutzba (balls) to give up a job in the public sector to tackle something you love. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.

[Zamfir]

I too must offer congrats, Josh. It’s takes a lot of chutzba (balls) to give up a job in the public sector to tackle something you love. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.

No Doubt!

[Josh]

Thanks guys, didn’t mean to derail the thread 😉 but very kind of you!

[Mark76]

Wow, that’s a brave move, Josh! But it’s always great when you can follow your passion.

You sure have the skills to be very successful. Congratulations!

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Zamfir]

Well, yes, it has been this long since I got to play with this. I have used this grinder almost on a daily basis but never for blades! I am very glad I have it. But, I finally had some time to work on a couple of my own designs.

Big one is 1084 Carbon steel and the little ones are Abel stainless.

Step one, print the design out on paper, then cut them out, then dycam the metal, scribe around the paper, center punch the hole locations, then cut it out on a metal bandsaw. And, well, that is as far as I was able to get..lol.

Next step is actually using the grinder for these blades! Yay!

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[Josh]

can’t wait to see the progress =)

[wickededge]

I’m excited to see how it goes too!

-Clay

[Mark76]

Looks promising! I’ll follow this.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Zamfir]

Now I need to figure out what size holes to drill. Profile all done. After holes then comes the hard part.

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• image.jpeg

[tcmeyer]

So what type of steel have you chosen here??

Hole sizes is always a function of what type of fasteners/pins you expect to use. I usually go for a simple piece of brass rod epoxied into place. After hardening, I usually silver-solder brass bolster/s. Since you’re going the full-tang route, I usually drill the tang holes in my drill press, then epoxy on one scale and drill it thru the tang holes. Then epoxy on the other scale and drill thru from the other side.

I prefer using a full-thickness block with a short tang with deep notches epoxied into a mortise. Then I’m free to drill holes for any size pins almost anywhere. I have even pre-drilled a larger hole in the short tang, recording where it is, then drill thru for a smaller diameter size pin, but I heavily load the hole with epoxy.

A straight pin is just really simple.

Check out some of the knifemaker supply houses for suggestions. Jantz, Midwest, USAKnifemaker, Texas Knife, etc.

[Zamfir]

Exactly Tom! That is my next step is to determine the fasteners. With these first blades I am not doing epoxy or anything permanent because I want to be able to experiment with some different handle styles (shapes). G-10 is my favorite handle material and I will play with some different shapes and maybe try out some other materials.

The steel for the 2 large hunters is 1084 high carbon. The other blades are AEB-L stainless steel. I went with stuff my heat treating friend has experience with and has had really good results with. I have to be careful with the AEB-L as it warps more than others. So I am learning and My friend and I are doing a little experimenting with the AEB-L. One of the small blades I will leave alone and profile after hardening. He has also learned that surface grinding the blades before heat treating seems to really help with warping. So we will do that also. More and more people are discovering AEB-L and it is starting to get some good traction in the knife world. My friend is getting it to 61-62 rockwell hardness. While he is teaching me on these fixed blades I am trying to catch up to him. He is starting to turn out some nice folders now. I want to make a folder out of AEB-L so I can use it daily and torture it a bit to see how it holds up.

The 1084 choice is just for cost, and it is such a great value steel. Super close to 1095 without the ability to do Hamons but a much easier heat treat process. Functionally 1095 and 1084 are so close. But I figure I will screw plenty up so I might as well use some very functional steel (1084) and then when I get better and want more pretty..I can do 1095 and have him put a hamon on it. I need to pick out fastners this week and get to drilling and so I can heat treat this weekend.

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