Stuff I'm working on for the Lone Star Knife Expo, Dallas, April 13-14. The finished ones are carbon steel. The silver ones and gray ones are CM 154 stainless, and the dark gray ones are D2. Lots of work left to go!

Those are nice!

Lookin' good.

Looking great.
You are going to be a busy man.

Right. I just spent 1.5 hours drilling 100 holes in those blades. Now to grind bevels and taper tangs...

I really like that knife in the middle row on the bottom. How much would something like that cost?

Great looking knives as always.

Can't wait to see them when they're done

Beautiful work.

Lots and lots of sanding to be done there!

Got 11 of them beveled. Still lack beveling two and then tapering the tangs on 7 of them. For the non-knifemakers, that stack represents my next 6 weeks worth of work. I've got about 55-60 hours in the five finished knives.

nice looking knives

lots of work ahead of you

Got them all beveled and tapered 7 tangs. Got the day off today, hope to have them all ready for heat treat by this afternoon. May throw in a little filework for variety.

Alright, folks. Got them all ready for heat treat. The oven is heating up with the D2 blades inside, and the CM154 blades are getting their stainless foil envelopes. Here's my oven, and the CM154 blades in their current state.

nice work

Just in case anybody wanted to know what 1950 degrees looks like.


Only burned myself once

This is the best trick ever! Invariably when heat treating, you'll end up with some warped blades. These were plate quenched, so there's no logical reason for them to be warped, and yet four of the 13 are crooked. They were all straight going into the dry ice. Use a piece of 3/16 bar stock, angle iron, or a big file. Doesn't matter what it is, just needs to be stiff. Shim the blade so that you can clamp it and bend the warp a little past straight. You want to over-compensate just a little. Pennies make good shims. I always do any jig clamping in between the first and second temper cycles. After you have it clamped, run it through your second cycle. It comes out straight more often than not. You can temper as many cycles as you need to get it straight without any harm to the steel if you use the same temperature. The most I've ever had to do was four tempers, but that one came out straight eventually. I have not re-heat treated a warped blade in three years thanks to this trick! It's not mine, but I don't remember where I got it.

Interesting.....I like

Nice job. That's the trick I used for warped blades as well. Now take a break and hit it hard tomorrow

It's not much good taking too many pictures of hand sanding, as there are several excellent WIP and/or youtubes out there with better technique than I have. Instead I'll pass along a couple of tips rather than a bunch of pictures.

Everybody who has ever looked through Nick Wheeler's "Stuck in the Metal" WIP is jealous of his sanding jig. I am too. Even so, I've hand sanded my blades this way for four years. I use a piece of 1x2 clamped in my vise, and use vise grip pliers to lock it down. Doesn't work so well for 12" bowies, but is quick and easy for regular sized knives.


Notice the red sandpaper. It's "Rhynowet" from Supergrit.com and it beats the pants off of any other sandpaper I've used so far. There is absolutley no use in the world for Harbor Freight sandpaper. The 400 and 600 from Home Depot aren't bad, but the Rhynowet cuts better. People say "Use sandpaper like it's free." Once it stops cutting well, toss it, period. Notice also the high tech polishing fluid: WD 40. I use it on every grit, every pass, until the very last passes where I'm setting my final scratch pattern. I use a fresh piece of dry paper on a clean blade for the final finishing passes.


Here are the two main sanding blocks I use. A piece of wood, and a piece of mild steel. Yep, that simple.

Finished one more today, CM154 and olive linen micarta. That makes 6.

Thanks for posting this Jason. It is very neat and informative to boot.

Here's a sequence of shots showing my high tech tube-flaring fixture.

Several things to point out here. One, countersink your handle material before you put the tubing in. Two, grind your tubing down to about 1/16 or 3/32 proud of your handle material. Three, use the high tech tools. The flaring "dies" are simply two screw heads epoxied to two pieces of hardwood.
Put them in the vise, make sure everything's aligned, and clamp it down good.

Viola!

Grind, shape, finish the handle from this point on.

That's all for today.