Gerhard Gerber

I'm a "mechanic" and honorary Vulcan, and I've been giving unpopular answers like this to "business" people for years........love this!

I used 6mm copper rod for the pins on my 4th knife, my personal camp chopper....tough as anything else at that length.

With coffee I leave the blade overnight at least, used a 52100 pairing knife very carelessly in my kitchen for months with no rust or issues, coffee etch is very durable on 52100

For my money instant coffee is good enough, but I seem to recall somebody mentioning a quick dip in ferric followed by a coffee etch gives even better results.

Steve, This is an amazing piece of work, difficult to pick favourite parts, but as far as craftmanship goes the guard matching the riffles in the stag stand out, and for design that joint in the middle of the guard. I've never seen anything like that, how do you come up with ideas like that...... Your creativeness is a pleasure to behold.

My shop, home to mosquitoes and lacking productivity. Made myself go in there a few minutes yesterday, probably the first time in two weeks, blame the day job..... Busy with a belly ripper/gutthook, basically copied the design of the Buck PackLite gutthook with the ring/handle from the same black&white micarta as the knife it will accompany and the blade from 14C28N, same as the knife. Fortunately the deadline is towards the end of April

I really like this, well done!

It mesmerizes me......

Something as simple as that will save my fingers next round.

I bought stainless sheets in 0.7mm and 1.2mm and they have phosphor bronze in 14mm rod, no smaller, but fortunately not ridiculously expensive. Will cost a bit more to have it drilled and turned down, but not impossible. Thank you very much @Brian Dougherty for taking the time, very much appreciated. Hope to show my effort in the not too distant future.

Fortunately have a machinist I call friend, spoke to him yesterday, I recently gave him a piece of 14mm brass rod because there's none available in town......nada......nothing! He can make me a little Mcgafter like that, but we're in for a wait for the materials. Phosphor bronze is out like cookies in the orphanage, think brass will work?

Much to carefully read and absorb..... Slight cop-out, there are at least 2 brilliant slipjoint makers in SA that don't do nail nicks, I'll just follow their example for now Honestly, the only type I really like is a match-striker pull......any idea how those are made? I've using a fueler gauge jammed into the gap while peeing to keep the gap, tip I got from Swiss Army knife modders, but I really like your pivot bushing idea.......just for the life of me can't figure out where I'm going to get bushings like that....

One thing I've seen elsewhere is sticking tape around the pin that you are busy with. No knife making this weekend, going to my cousin's farm, but I need to make a gutthook from SS so I'm to make two more sets of blades and springs from stainless as well so I have 4.5 knives to practice on, will try your order of operations and see how far I get. Thank you again

Well I guess I can't say "I usually" because I've only made two, but thus far I've followed the same procedure so scales are last. You touched on my problem, I have been hesitant to peen even on micarta scales, nevermind bone, guess I'll need to get a new peening hammer and give it a go.

Alan, SA has a population of about 60 million, Namibia at a stretch 3 million.......small and ignored market. You can buy Loctite locally, as long as it's thread locker On a less funny note, with the lockdown and closed borders lot's of things have become unavailable or take months to get here.

My money is on that little gap......? Not sure, but I don't think my SS pin material would allow me to use this method, I was waiting with baited breath for the peening. Being a noob I know there's lots of room for improvement in my order of operations, and similarly your approach does not make sense for me because I'm sure I would mess something up(most likely scales), only answer is I'll have to try

I considered for a brief moment finding out who the Loctite agent is, but I decided to learn from past experience and avoid the disappointment. Eagerly waiting for the next installment, that's where I have the most questions.

Many good tips in there, thanks Brian

I'm repeating myself, but watching that last video made me want to run out and light the forge, but then I remember it's just you that makes forge welding look so easy

I have two machinist friends, one with 20 years experience, the other 40, both killed my dreams about small milling machines....which I also can't afford.

Tool-up or die.... Went for an eye test because I noticed a slight degradation fiddling with folders during December holiday. Still too good to get glasses, but I did get an optivisor-type thing and the medical aid paid for it

Well, the crowd has spoken, weekend is over and I didn't start the knife, so no chance it will be finished on time....or ever at that price. I did have a BIG win, I have an order for a knife for a very special person, and there's been a bit of back & forth about the handle...... I went shopping Saturday, and the whitest material they has was artist's canvas, got some black denim to go with it, and made a stonking slab of black & white micarta, and the person placing the order immediately agreed when I sent him photos. I plan on trying something new with the bolster, need to make

fortunately my soul looks worse than my workshop, but my flat is another matter. bachelor with day job + knife making = stay away

I use a lot of it too, in fact on the same piece of steel I have the broken back spring SUPER GLUED on to trace out the new one Feel doubly stupid remembering that. Template ripped a bit during drilling, not critical, will just fix what's left in place. We called super glue The Light of APGAI on a fly fishing forum, revolutionized my fly tying

Might be random but it really catches the eye.......excellent!