What did you do in your shop today?

[Garry Keown 1,010]

1 hour ago, Joshua States said:

Goodness. You are a machine.

Christmas orders need done

Some more nice handle blocks arrived this morning with Spalted buckeye, maple burl, blister maple, gidgee and lacewood.

[John N 266]

First forging session in my new shop! got these 8 blades done in pre-laminated stainless clad super blue. The bigger Gyutos are 250 mm edge length. They are heat treated and ready for grinding now. I have ground the profiles after forging, but the bevels and distal tapers are as forged.

 

The forging is reasonably clean, so I'm hopeful i can get away with lower bevel only grinding (quicker, I dont like grinding much), and Kurouchi finish for the rest. The spines, and choils etc were finished prior to heat treat. 

 

 

 

 

 

I owe some of these as commissioned knives, and would like to have a few to sell in December when the 'scramble' for Christmas knives starts!

[Garry Keown 1,010]

Nice note to finish the week on with the bolsters all riveted on, handles fitted and drilled ready for the glue up which I thought would have to be next week but a bit of a push saw them all in the clamps even though I had to double up the steak knife sets in non strandard knife clamps.

 

[Simon W 4]

 Been working to set up my shop in the new garage this last year, but most recently I've been working to build a post vice base. I was lucky enough to be able to take an abandoned cast iron telephone pole base from the property I was previously living at and give it a new life. I hadn't yet gotten to putting in a steel bearing plate at the bottom of the vice leg in these photos, but that all done now.

 

Still have the other half of the cast iron base for some other future project, hardcore side table maybe? 

 

Pretty excited to put it to use, it'll definitely be handy especially for tooling as my anvil lost hardy hole at some point long ago along with its heel.

[John N 266]

On 11/19/2020 at 9:32 PM, Simon W said:

 Been working to set up my shop in the new garage this last year, but most recently I've been working to build a post vice base. I was lucky enough to be able to take an abandoned cast iron telephone pole base from the property I was previously living at and give it a new life. I hadn't yet gotten to putting in a steel bearing plate at the bottom of the vice leg in these photos, but that all done now.

 

Still have the other half of the cast iron base for some other future project, hardcore side table maybe? 

 

Pretty excited to put it to use, it'll definitely be handy especially for tooling as my anvil lost hardy hole at some point long ago along with its heel.

 

That looks a very purposeful stand! Nice job

 

If you are considering any upgrades to it, trap a big steel tray that sticks out of the back under the vice hold down bolts! I find you generally have more 'pick up / put down' things when using a vice than an anvil. Big shelf is worth is weight in gold!

 

 

[Alan Longmire 2,867]

I second John on the tray behind the vise.  You can even make one that swings out of the way, but any tray there is worth its space in gold.

 

I learned two things today, one good, one not so good but informative nonetheless.  Under the "informative but not so good" heading, I learned today that I need to pay more attention when making a run of folder blades/spring sets.  Turns out if you're off by 0.030 in a certain critical dimension (distance from pivot hole to bottom of tang), make sure you notice before you spend a day doing the HT on a set of three.  One set worked perfectly, one needs a new blade, and one needs a new spring because I didn't notice in time and ground it too narrow.  If you blow that measurement, your blade will snap open and at half-stop, but will rattle like a cheap toy when closed.  If you don't notice that before grinding the excess spring flush when open, you get to make a new spring after you correct the measurements from the pivot.  Sigh...

 

The good news is I seem to have nailed the HT for AEB-L.  Check out this grain from the sacrificial victim:

 

If the charts are right that was at Rc 61/62, and it took four hard whacks with a four-pound hammer to snap. Spine thickness was 0.069", and the stress riser where failure initiated was in the center of the nail nick, about where one would expect.  

[Gerhard Gerber 358]

Had a stall with a fellow knife maker at the Hochveld Rib BBQ Competition on Saturday.
The Hochveld district has some of the best farmland in the country, and very affluent farmers.

 

They're all tanned and have big calves, I assume from walking around in the sand, but their general lack of interest makes me question their manhood 

I was a bit surprised that we didn't sell anything, but the fact that so few people even bothered to come have a look is really baffling.

We has one 8-9 year old knife nut that couldn't stay away and touched everything, and made one good contact with a hunting farm owner who is looking for locally made knives for when the hunting and tourism comes alive again.

Strangely, despite the lack of success I felt motivated  and spent the best part of Sunday in the shop starting new blades. 

[billyO 262]

Sometimes the benefit doesn't come in the form of $....  Sounds like it was a good weekend.

[Garry Keown 1,010]

Handles all done on this lot so on to leatherwork now.

[Don Abbott 159]

Garry,

 

I've heard it here before, and I concur, you are a knife making machine.

[Martin Tiney 44]

Not exactly blade related, I intended to have a long overdue clean up in the shop this evening. I was moving the bench saw out so I could clean when I found an off cut of 1095 /15n20 damascus that I made in the spring. 

You know how it goes you pick something up and you instinctively have a plan for it, 

Cleaning kit went away and in just under an hour I made, hardened an etched a keyring bottle opener, 

Far more interesting than cleaning up....... Always tomorrow I suppose 

[Garry Keown 1,010]

A bit of leatherwork today. Laying them out with the least waste and with them all ready for the stitching. Hot waxing and an edge on the blades tomorrow so they are all set to be shipped off.

 

[Garry Keown 1,010]

All done and ready to go and in fact three are on their way in my last post off shore before the Christmass rush and the rest are away monday.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Garry Keown

[Gerhard Gerber 358]

Not to bore you with local politics, but I'm part of a small minority in this country so voting is an absolute waste of time....so I got an unexpected day off yesterday....

......and I did more in the shop yesterday than the whole rest of 2020!

I'm still in a pay-it-forward mood so I'm making a knife for a friend that I thought needed a bit of a pick-up, a mutual friend straightened and flattened a piece of bearing race, and I profiled and rough ground her chosen style chef's knife since apart from being a musician she is also an excellent chef.

Did the rough grind on the 4x O1 cleavers, and I need to thank Josh States again for sharing his technique of doing a hollow grind first and flatting that out.

 

I did have a bit of an AHA-moment, with the wide material I was struggling a bit to get the angles even on both sides while doing the hollow grind, then had the idea and drew a line with permanent marker on the work rest, lined up the spine with the line and suddenly the whole process picked up speed, this simple trick is what allowed me to get all 4 done. 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Gerhard Gerber

[billyO 262]

10 hours ago, Gerhard Gerber said:

drew a line with permanent marker on the work rest,

 

That's a good idea.  I'll have to file that away and hope I remember it in the future....

[Garry Keown 1,010]

26 minutes ago, billyO said:

 

That's a good idea.  I'll have to file that away and hope I remember it in the future....

I have a few holes drilled in my work rest and have a couple of guides with 1/4 inch pins to locate them for some "jobs" beats a pen line for me at least. It is secure and repeatable

[billyO 262]

 

2 hours ago, Garry Keown said:

a couple of guides with 1/4 inch pins to locate them

Thanks, Garry.  Now I've got something else to try to remember....

[Gerhard Gerber 358]

12 hours ago, Garry Keown said:

I have a few holes drilled in my work rest and have a couple of guides with 1/4 inch pins to locate them for some "jobs" beats a pen line for me at least. It is secure and repeatable

And that's why I love this place! 

[Gilbert McCann 72]

Making progress on the hydraulic press slowly an hour or two here and there. 10 pounds of stick later. 

[John N 266]

No pics, but I will sort some out!

 

I used to use a massive stick welder (hard to describe, but size of a wheel barrow) - after 20 years I could sometimes lay a reasonably neat bead with it. It got toasted in the fire.

 

I got a replacement welding set, that is primarily a tig unit that does MMA(I want to learn tig for my stainless damascus, so upgraded) - New set is about the size of a shoe box.

 

F-me, I laid the neatest few lines of stick weld on a job yesterday with the new set I have ever done! 3.5mm 6013's - looked like a proper welder did them. Really amazingly neat welding. It was easy. God knows what is in that little box but it made me look good!!!  

[Alan Longmire 2,867]

This long weekend I managed to get one of the bunch of three folders I'm working on ready to add scales to prior to final assembly.  The other two got new blades (one of them twice when the dovetail cutter slipped and broke through the first replacement blade ) and one got a new spring when it turned out the first one didn't want to be tweaked any further.  All parts currently cooling down in their respective tempering ovens, the blades in the brick-filled toaster and the spring in the Evenheat.  Here's the one that worked from the beginning.

 

 

 

I kind of like the look with bare liners and assembly pins, but it's going to get ebony scales.  Oh, and if you look closely, this is the first (successful) blade with my new small stamp for folder blades.  Still needs some polishing, but you get the idea.  

[Gerhard Gerber 358]

I got 2x 1070 blades ready for HT mostly as an excuse to HT my student's blade, turns out the blade is at deadbeat dad's house and we couldn't  get it.......so I decided I'd heat treat the 4 cleavers as well, turned into a very long day but the O1 behaved beautifully.

[Brian Dougherty 1,228]

Looking good Alan!

 

[Paul Carter 43]

This is what I worked on the past few days. Not blade related but something for a Christmas present. Made it from 15N20, 1084, and 52100. I twisted it several times, then cut about 7" off to make this cross. Only thing I didn't think about when I started this is that there are 26 separate surfaces to grind, sand, and polish. I ended up not sanding the sides and bottom. That saved me several hours. Sanded it down to 2500 grit and then buffed it. Heat treated it, etched in coffee, then then tempered it at 520° to turn it blue. It measures 4" x 2 5/8", and made to christian cross specifications.

 

I Tig fusion welded all the way around so no flux is needed.

 

Started with 1457 grams of steel, cut a small piece off for this and am using the rest to make 3 knives.

 

 

Put them in the mill and cut channels deep enough to leave about 1/8"of crossbar sticking up for forge welding.

 

Fusion welded it all the way around.

 

Pressed down and surface ground flat.

 

Angles ground in. now time for sanding. I cut it at the black line to make it proper length for the scale.

 

Sanded down to 2500 grit and ready for etch.

 

Tempered at 520° to turn it a dark blue.

 

Thanks for looking!

Edited December 5, 2020 by Paul Carter

[AJ Chalifoux 57]

Today, I got the sword I've been working on ready for heat treat. I did a vanity etch to see how it turned out, and got some good mixed with some disappointing results. When I ground the blade, I did it unevenly despite my best efforts, and took probably .01"-.02" more off one side than the other during the rough grinding. Since the edge bars were san-mai (which I've never tried before ) this gave me only some remnants of the layered steel on one side, while the other has probably a little too much left. Oh well, live and learn I suppose.