Brian Dougherty

That is something I've never done. I'm eager to see what sort of pattern you put on them. I am assuming i primarily going to be shading?

Gary, I used a tapered pin reamer that I had. They are pretty common, and I am sure you can get them from McMaster Carr. In the US, tapered pins are a 1:48 (1" in 48") taper which I believe works out to just under 1-degree. In metric speaking countries, the tapers are actually 1:50 so it would be even shallower. I tried to stop about 1/2-way into the hole, but even with the drill press slowed way down it went quick, and I was quite a bit deeper than that. I used a nail setting punch on the brass pins. The dimple in the end of the nail set made it a little easier stay on the pin. It still required 3 hands to do, and I muffed it up a bit. I will go back and work on prettying up the pins before it is all done. I'm sure someone has figured out a better way to do them.

Ahh, that makes more sense! I was trying to work out in my head how laddering would result in such clear Ws on the denser sections, and it didn't compute. Great knife

That's pretty neat. I'd love to see a video of it in actin if you can do so.

I've been married 22 years today, and it's made me realize that there are two big questions about my life that I can't answer: 1. Where in the heck has the time gone? (I guess time really does fly when you are having fun) 2. Why in the world would someone put up with me for that long? I'm a lucky guy on both accounts!

Nice one Joshua. Did you ladder the W's?

It's not really a nice piece of stag. I bought some sambar for a project a couple of years ago, and the same place was selling dyed antler material that looked good on the website, and was a fraction of the cost. I bought some just to see what it looked like, and have had it sitting around for a while waiting for a chance to shine.

So out to the anvil I went (during a tornado warning no less). My test attempt taught me that my small ball-peen was not heavy enough really get the pin to start deforming, so I picked up my 2-lb smithing hammer and went to town. This was very much a death by 1000 small blows approach, and I found at first I could only hit it about 6 times before I would have to flip it over and hit the other side. Otherwise the pin would start to move away from center. However, once the pin started to lock in place I could rap on it a a hundred times or so before flipping it over. Here it is after a few minutes of hammering... ...and I managed to do this without marring up the bolsters too much. In the end, it really went pretty well. The action of the knife tightened up slightly, but not as much as I was afraid it would. I still need to do the finish sanding, but here is the pin all cleaned up. I had put the final brass pins in at this point as well. I'm getting close to finishing it up. I have to admit that I am going to have a hard time letting this one go.

Ok guys, here is where those of you who know what you are doing get to shake your head at me. It's time to peen the final pins, and close this thing up for good. I decided to use nickle silver for the bolsters. However, the blade will pivot directly on the main pin on this knife, so I wanted to use a hardened steel dowel pin that would hold up well. This means that the pin will never truly disappear in the bolster as it is a different material and a different color. Since the pin will be visible, my strategy was to make the pin look as clean and uniform as possible. I started out by using a tapered reamer to lightly bevel the pin holes from the outside. This is a reamer made for tapered pin holes which has ~1-deg taper. This will allow the pin to swell into the bevel, and lock the pin in place. Here is a practice run I did in a piece of brass. It was promising, but there was a bit of mushrooming around the edge of the pin that I would have to overcome. I used a ma rker to blacken the inside of the holes so I could see how far I had run the reamer in. I left the innermost part of the hole the original diameter. Then I ground the pin to be 0.200" longer than the width between the bolsters, and beveled the ends so that the straight section was the width of the bolsters. I figured this would allow me to drive the center of the pin down and swell it out from the inside and avoid the mushrooming. I also tempered the ends to soften them while trying to leave the center hardened. I just used a torch, and ran the colors in toward the center. (Sorry Jerrod ) Here is the pin in place ready to be peened. This is where I started worrying about my hammer control. It felt wrong to start hammering on something I had spent so much time to make.

Similarly, if you didn't mind the fuller (patterned core) coming to more of a point, you could cut a long skinny fish mouth at the tip, and weld in a matching triangle of edge material.

The anvil gurus will show up shortly, but if that face is 17.5" x 4", it should be well north of the 100lbs you estimated. (Rare, as people usually overestimate the weight of an anvil ) Trenton is indeed a manufacturer, but I can't tell you anything more than that.

Holy cow! You don't see things like that in my part of the world...

I'd say that turned out really good! You should hand it as a decorator item in your cabin when it is done

I spent some time doing finish work today. This blade is quite a bit smaller than what I am used to making. It certainly takes less time to sand than a chef's knife. I still need to do some final sanding and polishing on the bolsters, but the parts are all getting pretty close. There is no way to create a perfectly smooth transition from the liners to the spring without sanding the back of the knife after final assembly. I wanted the pattern welded spring to be etched, so sanding after assembly is a no go. Even with all the pins as a perfect fit, there would most likely be enough of a ridge to catch a nail after final assembly which I find irritating so I decided to put a slight bevel along the back edges of the spring and the inside of the liners to create an intentional shadow line. I think it worked out pretty well. Here are a couple more shots. I need to get some 3/32" brass stock to make the final assembly pins. I also need to taper the main pin holes slightly so I can peen the main pin.

Then I spent some time filing and sanding the bolsters and scales to shape. I've got a little more shaping to do, but I've sanded through the side of my thumb, and got tired of bleeding all over the knife. This is where I'll stop for the night.