Will Wilcox

Thank you, Rob!

Of course! Glad I can help. It's definitely a different beast. I've made half a dozen or so stainless blades, and you can usually tell the difference just in the way it acts, though it will of course depend on the exact alloy. I dont even like hearing the acronym CPM, it makes my wrist hurt imagining all the sanding!

Thank you, gentlemen. In my experience, it takes a little more work during sanding then you would expect of a carbon steel. Enough that it is noticable. I assume this is due to all the alloying elements, or perhaps my HT process was off and I had excessive carbides left over as a result. I will say that once all the fine sanding is done, it takes a polish very nicely. Again, noticeably different then carbon steels. It seems it took less time at the buffer then normal to achieve the same mirror finish.

Hello all, This is the first knife I've finished in quite some time now. Havent had much shop time lately. Naturally, it shows flaws from me being a bit rusty. I did the stock removal and HT about a year ago, and then it sat on my bench, but I finally finished it. Made from AEB-L, i dont remember the specs of the HT, though i remember giving it a cryogenic bath in pure ethanol (race car fuel) and dry ice. Handle is ebony and purple heart with blue and green spacers and 303 stainless pins. 12 inches long overall, about a 7.5 inch blade, 305 mm and 190 mm, respectively. Its insanely light due to the fact that it's only about .070" at the rear of the spine (1.7 mm) tapering to zero at the tip. Flexible, but stiff. Let me know what you think.

I'm sadly out of JB Weld, but do you know which brand of bubblegum has the highest heat resistance? I have some Wrigleys... . Gary, I will look into that. I think I'm going to stick with the bhilwara, ebony, and horn. I'm just planning to change the large silver guard to bronze, but I will still look into it. Thanks!

Hey everyone! Havent posted in a while, nor have I worked on blades much lately. But things are settling down, and I managed to continue work on this project. I decided to use bronze fittings instead of silver, partially because of price, but mostly because I had lots of bronze on hand. Ive never melted bronze before, but the melting temp is similar enough to silver that I figured it wouldn't be a problem. So I melted a bunch this evening, and voila! Bronze cookie. It's about 2.400 inches in diameter, and about .375 inches thick (~61mm and ~9.5mm respectively.) Mostly silicon bronze, with some unknown scrap in there as well. It came out with a very nice gold color! I even filed a small part to make sure it wasn't just a surface color. Unfortunately, after the melt, my crucible sustained some damage. Not a big deal since it's an old one which has given me many uses. I believe it was from too rapid of cooling. I should still be able to use it though, right?! This is going to be the guard, so i need to forge it into more of an oval, which should be interesting! It's almost to size though, shouldn't be too bad. It's pretty hefty too, so it should throw the balance towards the hilt more, which it needs.

Pattern welded dice would be really cool. A twist pattern would look neat on a cube. I have to agree with Charles, however, mokume gane would be even better!

Thank you very much! The radiuses were a pain to program since they're only .005" (sanding and buffing probably opened them up a bit.) The holes were actually a lot easier then it would seem as well.

Just.... No... hahaha !!! The actual programming of a d20 is not too bad if you separate it into quadrants, of which there are six. Quadrant is not the proper term, but bear with me. Take the above picture of a d20. Let's assume the 20 is the face, 0° of rotation. Numbers 2, 14, and 8, exist on the next quadrant, 18, 4, 6, and what appears to be 16 on the next quadrant, so on and so forth, this pattern is mirrored on the backside, obviously. Each of these quadrants is separated by 30° of rotation when viewed in cross section. This is a terrible drawing, but it helps visualize it. That would be simple milling. Rotate B to 0, 30, 60, 120, and 150 (we will be holding onto the 180 side, will be milled later in a vise,) while rotating A around 360° to get our faces set with the correct depth in Z set accordingly. The tricky part comes in when trying to mill the triangles for the numbers to be placed. The first flat is 45° off of zero, from the perspective of the face(20), the second is 180°, and the third is 315°. This then seems simple as well, rotate to 30° on the B, 45° on the A, then mill diagonally using Z and X (my setup uses a AB axis spindle in line with the X) then switch to 180 on the A, then 315. The final quadrant on the front side is much trickier and has required a bit of thinking on my part. Again from the perspective of the face (20) the first flat on the third quadrant is 22.5° from zero, the second is 112.5°, followed by 157.5°, 202.5°, 247.5°, and finally 337.5°. All of these degrees would be our A axis rotations, with our B set to 60°. All of these numbers are then mirrored on the backside, but continuing further with our A axis to 120° and 150°. The numbers themselves will then be machine engraved, the details of which I will not go into, entire books can and have been written on programming engravings. Ok, that was long winded. Maybe somebody will find this information useful, or at least entertaining lol. Nothing like some math to go with my quarantine and caffeine induced madness .

Thanks guys! Actually yes, this same friend talked about machining some, and they are VERY complex shapes, so it would be a really cool challenge. Would definitely be a pain to program a d20 though! Here's what a d20 looks like for anyone who doesnt know. They also have d10s, d8s, and I think d12s? I'm not very familiar with D&D.

I started this project a while ago, just picked it up again. A friend of mine has talked about getting a good set of dice for game night for a while. So I figured I would make some for him. I thought about forging some. Eventually I decided to machine them, for balance and fairness of rolling. There are 6 in total, which I machined on a CNC mill. Made from 4150 Aluminum (may the forging gods forgive me for using the A-word.) By the nature of CNC, the dimensions are near perfect. They are perfect cubes, and all the holes are within .001" of perfect. I painted them black after machining, then sanded the flats to leave the holes dark. Sanded to 1000 grit and buffed. I figured some of you guys would like to see them. Kind of different for this forum. Let me know what you think!

Nice work, Faye! That mustard patina looks great, and I like the saya. I agree that the curve in the belly looks a little extreme, but it depends on it's intended use, might be a little awkward for slicing a roast, but it looks great as a chopper.

Bronze works fine, but it can conflict with some color schemes. You can also get small diameter stainless barstock, 303 and 304 work fine. No real need for anything harder than that. Your knives look good! Keep it up.

Wow! Absolutely stunning. Every little detail is masterfully executed. And there is plenty of little details to stare at! More and more, you and Petr remind me of Eitri and Brokkr.

What Gerhard said! Your collaborations are truly humbling. Excellent work to the both of you. You guys never cease to amaze.