Joshua States

I have entered a 1 cubic inch blade smith's challenge, after discussing it with a notable smith (MP) who posted it on the ABS forum. Make a blade from 1 cubic inch of steel. Design the knife to fit. The starting piece of steel can be any dimensions as long as the total volume is 1 cubic inch.

Either one sounds good to me. If the "design by committee" gets selected, I would venture a suggestion for forming the committee, rather than ask the BOD to set specs. Start a thread with a sign up sheet and have Dr, King draw 4 names out of the sorting hat. That's the committee to draft the specs.

That's not what I envisioned when I heard "design by committee. This is actually a really good idea. (and something I am currently doing, and have done before) That I could get behind.

Long blade, lots of leverage, thin cross section. I'll wager that all adds up.

That only works south of the equator.......but we digress.

Yeah well, I have also heard about quenching while facing true north since I began knifemaking. I have also heard it is possible to fully harden mild steel with some weird concoction called "super quench" since I began knife making. The list goes on. @Brian Doughertyhas the skinny. It's all physics and ratios. Even in that photo Joël Mercier posted, I can see the slight radius at the bottom of the should/tang notch.

I work in government during the day. I get enough "design by committee" during my day job. I will not participate in my off hours.......

All I have to say is in here: A piece of advice about design - Beginners Place - Bladesmith's Forum Board

So use that to your advantage. Use a completely different material for the pin. Perhaps one that is a different color. For example, a brass guard and nickel-silver pins. Just be very careful about pin placement and suddenly you have a design element rather than a design flaw.

It looks good to me you big bolshy bas.... I'm hoping @Matthew Parkinson shows up here. He's made at least one of these that I know of.

Time to share. The way I was taught was to drill the blade pivot and center spring holes in both liners. Assemble the knife with both liners stacked and the blade/spring on top. Put the blade in the open position. Now scribe the line of the bottom edge of the spring. Now move the back end of the spring upward 1/32" away from the line by the back hole in the spring. Clamp in place and drill the hole.

I guess that's my point. There are probably dozens of "facts" that are "well known" to be true in knife making circles that are based on shoddy testing and questionable research. Like the stress riser question here, the examples are likely isolated to specific conditions, and have grown to an acceptance far and above what what actually occurring.

I have always thought that the "square corners form a stress riser" idea, is a bit of an urban legend. If the truth be told, it's nigh impossible to make a truly square corner with hand tools or a belt grinder. The specific application in the video has so much meat above that notch, it would eliminate any stress point that the notch may form.

A fine plan. I do the same thing quite frequently........

I had a little time in between coats of drywall mud today..... So I made a top platen for the KMG. Pretty simple design I saw on a Kyle Royer video. I made a couple of changes to his, but stayed close to it.