What did you do in your shop today?

[Jaron Martindale]

13 minutes ago, Doug Webster said:

Started working on stacked birch bark Saya.  Since the bark is not under compression like a handle, I have been using epoxy to make the sandwich.  Only 400 more spacers to go. 

That will be GORGEOUS! I can't wait to see the finished product!!

[Jaron Martindale]

I attempted to cast a little antler skull into the tail end of the Nakiri I've been working on, but I ended up putting it in upside-down!  Now when the knife is held the skull is upside-down...oh well..the handle was getting a little too long anyways, lol.

My wife is happy to finally have a kitchen knife I made in the kitchen though, so I guess that's a good win.

 

 

[Alan Longmire]

22 hours ago, Doug Webster said:

stacked birch bark Saya.

 

Ambitious!  Think it'll be strong enough?  It'll certainly be gorgeous.  

[Joël Mercier]

It's alive  and heats up much faster than my modified copper/enamel kiln. 

[Jaro Petrina]

And the core starts to manifest itself under the grind.  I will get some crystalic activity from the cladding too, I think, after the quench.

[Alan Longmire]

Working on more little folders.  Decided to make it easier on myself and actually double-check the measurements with a scribe and compass.

 

 

Kind of a bad angle, but the top and bottom have to be parallel, and the end of the tang has to be at 90 degrees.  The distance from the pivot has to be the same on all three surfaces, +/- 0.0005 inches / 0.013 mm, if you want the backspring to be in the same position at open, closed, and half-stop.  From this point you have some leeway on the edge side of the tang, and you need to round the corners or it won't snap to position, and the half-stop side needs to be hollowed in the middle, but you get the idea.    Here's the whole blade.

 

 

I scribed the circle on both sides to make sure I wasn't getting any wonkiness by filing out of level.  

[Garry Keown]

After I posted the whittling knife last week I had some interest from a wood carver so after a bit of consultation I have got two blades ready for him. I have them ready for handles as they will be left with the belt finish for an industrial look. The upper one is the primery whittler with 2 1/4 in blade and a bull nose for bulk removal with the lower detail whittler has an 1 1/4 in blade with finer point to take care of the finishing.

 

 

 

[Faye]

I had to repaired a handle on a knife I made a little over a year ago. The spalted maple was maybe not the best choice, but to make up for it I replaced it with some ironwood. That was an embarassing phone call, but thankfully the customer was not really upset, just matter of fact. 

[Joshua States]

46 minutes ago, Faye said:

The spalted maple was maybe not the best choice, but to make up for it I replaced it with some ironwood.

Yeah, spalted woods are always kind of dicey, even the stablized ones. The ironwood looks great, even better than the original. Good on you for honoring the repair.

A good reputation is difficult to make. A bad reputation is impossible to loose.

[Garry Keown]

Drove 4 hrs return to get 5 knives engraved today and while it may be a bit far to go, the engraving is first class, where the closer shop has a learner on the bench so to me it was worth the drive. It was a day out with wife, a nice cafe lunch and a good hour in a very large (for here) tool shop that saw a couple of thier wares leave wiith me. Not a bad trade for a walk round with Lyne at the lady shop.

Will post the engraving on my Various Knives thread when I get a few good pics taken.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Garry Keown

[Randy Griffin]

13 hours ago, Joshua States said:

Yeah, spalted woods are always kind of dicey, even the stablized ones. The ironwood looks great, even better than the original. Good on you for honoring the repair.

A good reputation is difficult to make. A bad reputation is impossible to loose.

Not going to help for Faye’s problem but I have found a coat of very thin super glue soaks into the wood (even stabilized) then sand it back down to the wood. Helps to harden and takes a nice finish.

[Randy Griffin]

Not what I did in my shop but what I did to it.

Finished it. 

All the big equipment is out back. I’m ready for cold weather.

 

Hot off the press.

First one from the new shop. Just need to sharpen it.

 

Tried something new.

Filed the spine. Turned out pretty good.

Let me know what y’all think.

[Joshua States]

11 hours ago, Randy Griffin said:

Finished it.

Good job man!

 

[Emery White]

I made a hunter for a friend. This is my second attempt after a failed HT on the first. It's 8670 steel quenched in motor oil and tempered at 450 for 2 hrs on 2 cycles. The blade is hollow ground and finished with a fine surface conditioning belt fron Supergrit (I highly reccomend their abraisives). The guard is cast brassand the handle is dyed oak, whitetail deer antler and leather for spacers. Soaked in boiled linseed oil for 12 hours and finished with a wood finish wax.

 

I made the sheath from 7/9 oz leather and I tooled two serpents clutching a sword on it. 

 

Let me know your thoughts on this knife.

Cheers!

[Garry Keown]

5 hours ago, Emery White said:

I made a hunter for a friend. This is my second attempt after a failed HT on the first. It's 8670 steel quenched in motor oil and tempered at 450 for 2 hrs on 2 cycles. The blade is hollow ground and finished with a fine surface conditioning belt fron Supergrit (I highly reccomend their abraisives). The guard is cast brassand the handle is dyed oak, whitetail deer antler and leather for spacers. Soaked in boiled linseed oil for 12 hours and finished with a wood finish wax.

 

I made the sheath from 7/9 oz leather and I tooled two serpents clutching a sword on it. 

 

Let me know your thoughts on this knife.

Cheers!

a critique designed to inform rather than condem.

While ypou have made a good job of the knife and sheath with some nice touches to elements and finishing,  there are limits with the design so it is not one I would carry for any hunting purposes. There is  very little contouring of the handle to index on and nothing to keep the hand from slipping forward on to the blade as hands do get wet and slippy when knives and grassed animals are combined.  Depending on the type of hunting and the amount of field work required on a grassed animal the trailing point makes gutting an animal more likely to puncture internals than a more suitable shape woudl be. If your intended use is more in the flaying line of use that the trailing point sugests then the belly is a little elongated toward the tip which is more suited for opening up if it wasn't for the trailing point.

[Emery White]

Thank you for your advice. It is much appreciated. I guess a hunting knife might be the wrong name for it. Maybe an EDC? That knife is just a "fancy" knife (as opposed to his other knives) for my buddy to carry around and probably won't be used for hunting. I did think of the handle contouring and it getting slippery. I used a 3 inch belt grinder wheel to hollow out a divit that  allows your ring and pinky finger resistance against slippage. Unfortionately the photo doesn't do it justice. Is this enough resistance? I really don't know. I should probably test and redesign the handle shape a bit. 

 

Again, thank you for your constructive and friendly criticism. It helps a lot to hear other people's thoughts on my knives. Thanks!

[Garry Keown]

4 hours ago, Emery White said:

Thank you for your advice. It is much appreciated. I guess a hunting knife might be the wrong name for it. Maybe an EDC? That knife is just a "fancy" knife (as opposed to his other knives) for my buddy to carry around and probably won't be used for hunting. I did think of the handle contouring and it getting slippery. I used a 3 inch belt grinder wheel to hollow out a divit that  allows your ring and pinky finger resistance against slippage. Unfortionately the photo doesn't do it justice. Is this enough resistence? I really don't know. I should probably test and redesign the handle shape a bit. 

 

Again, thank you for your constructive and friendly criticism. It helps a lot to hear other people's thoughts on my knives. Thanks!

 There are knives designed for small game and these do not necessarily need the same slippage resistance as those for larger game. 

A hunting knife for medium to large game is primarily needed to field dress an animal so being able to slide under the skin to open that and the abdominal cavity  for the gutting process which requires a pushing action with the knife so this is where the slippage resistance is needed, and then there is the need to have the knife inside the cavity to cut the connective  tissue and the diaphram so there is the blood to contend with as a slipping agent as well as the somewhat pushing as well as the cutting motions.  Other uses in skinning are in a cutting motion where there is not the same danger. You can see from this example from my website that the contouring of the handle with the extended drop to the blade edge gives the forward finger notch (1 1/4 in wheel)  a good stop against forward slippage and the palm swell and rear small finger notch (4 inch wheel) also aid in the hold and directability of the knife and with all edges radiused for comfortable in hand use being hot spot free, this knife can be used for a prolonged timeframe without tiriing the hand so safety and usage is enhanced.

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Garry Keown

[Garry Keown]

All through the heat treat and ready for grinding. Four sets of the K-tip chef knives (i four piece set and 3 x 3 piece sets) and 3 Tahr Hunters. The K tips will be ground in when the hand sanding is done.
I did get the Tahr hunters, the 10 in and 4 x 8 inch blades finish ground today so the others will be done tomorrow then it is a few days hand sanding. Some willgo in the ready drawer but 2 of the chef sets and one of the Tahr hunters are to be finished to complete orders.

[Emery White]

Wow! Those are looking really nice!

[Garry Keown]

all bevels ground in and those that are to be for immediate finish will be hand sanded with the balance for the ready drawer

[Francis Gastellu]

What did I do in my future shop today.

 

Back in June I moved out of the US and back to my home country in France with my fiancée and we've been in a bit of a limbo ever since. It took some time but we finally found and bought a house that ticked all the boxes. It's an old farm house from the 1850's, with an attached barn that will eventually serve as my shop.

 

"Eventually" because there's quite a bit of work to do before we can actually move in, and the barn will serve as a staging area for the renovations for the next few months.

 

Still, I found myself strangely excited about cleaning up all the donkey crap from the floor.

 

 

N95 required, seriously.

 

 

If you squint hard enough, you can see a really nice shop there, I swear. I'm excited to be back at it eventually, this is turning out to be a very long year... 

[Alan Longmire]

That will be an awesome shop someday!  

[Bill Schmalhofer]

Ok, Ok, Ok... I may be dense sometimes but I do get the hint...SOMEONE doesn't want me to use Purpleheart for the handle on the knife I'm working on. First block cracked as I was drilling the holes in to fit the tang. Very strange, but oh well (no pictures of it). But then, after getting the tang hole complete and fitted with epoxy and just as I'm getting the second block rough cut to shape,

 

 

what should appear but a blind hole from no where. It is about 1/4 inch deep and dead ends. This block comes from the middle of a much bigger block and there was no indication of insect damage. I get the hint. Time to choose a different wood...

 

[Gerald Boggs]

22 hours ago, Francis Gastellu said:

donkey crap

That's not crap, that's premium fertilizer with plenty of soil conditioners :-) 

[Garry Keown]

Something different today.

I heartily dislike the stock bars on my 05 FXD as the pullback is too severe for comfort and twists my hands too far for the longer rides so I intended to change them for an easier pullback. I could not find a set of low apes with  the desired easy pullback so would have to go with another approach with the proviso being that I wanted to retain the stock speedo and as it is incorporated into the top clamp this would bring its own complications.

 

After some consideration I had a local engineer make a bar to except risers outside of the stock top clamp. I bought a set of 6 inch pullback risers off trademe and an alloy top clamp from aliexpress and cut that to suit the individual top clamps for the risers. 

 

With this in hand, I contacted the Handle bar company in Nelson and while they were quick to aggree to make a set of drag bars to my design and take payment up front there was no result with failure to return calls or texts so sucked the loss and looked elsewhere. I  contacted Hammerdown who were also agreeable to making them for me to the pattern I sent which was simply an 800 long bar with 15degree pullbacks 250 in from each end. Nothing complicated at all but a few days later they got back to me saying it would be a MINIMUM of $850 so flagged them as well.
I eventually contacted Barcraft in Australia  ( www.barcrafthandlebars.com.au/ ) and ordered a set of stainless 15* pullback drag bars that I would only have to alter a bit to suit my purposes. Fantastic service and the bar arrived within 5 days although they would have to be cut to allow for the bend outside of the wider set risers. They have an 8 inch bend to bend and I will need 10 3/4 so when I was in the city yesterday I called in to the scrap yard and picked up 2 short lengths of stainless tube. I will have to turn the outer tube down from ita present 1.050 to the 1.010 which is essentially just a heavy polish with the innter tube being quite thick walled  so will have plenty to turn down to nipple inside the ends to make the 3 pieces into one bar

 

 

So that is the new project for now.