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Post: New guy + first knife pictures (Topic#848890)

whited3
Member

Reg: 04-03-09

04-04-09 07:09.05 - Post#1806810

Hey everyone, I posted this in the kit knife forum but that place seems a little quiet. I hope kit knife posts are welcome here. 1 thing is for sure, I'm a newbie!

Well this is my first of a couple things. I am new to building knives and I have not owned a knife (to my knowledge) made of 440C - the couple I owned for the hell of it were fairly low quality & inexpensive.

I live in a NYC apartment so my "workshop" is very minimal. We are talking hand tools, sandpaper, and a little vise bolted to a short dresser, all in the corner of my unused dining room.

Anyways, I have been taking this project rather slow and photographing along the way so lets have a look and see if I can perhaps help some people and pick up some constructive criticism.

Here is the kit I got from north coast knives This is the Eagle kit. It is 440C with a tapered tang. I like the looks of this blade.

Another picture of some of the materials I have

My new vise from amazon (admit it - amazon is pretty amazing

)

The initial polishing was difficult! Took a lot more elbow grease than I expected. The factory grind on the blade was far from flat so I started with 200 grit - 400 - 600 - and ended up with 1000 grit. from there I dremeled in some blue magic polish with a felt tip. I was pretty surprised to see whole polishing process culminate into something respectable. Like a mirror!

I didn't photograph it but the factory thumb grip marks were ugly. Obviously machine done with little care. So I said goodbye to those. Here is the initial removal and forming of a new thumb grip.

Another shot. I should note here that filing a tempered blade is a lot of work! But obviously doable. I really had a hard time finding online whether filework etc is worth trying on a kit knife blade. It is. And here is a little jewel I would have loved to stumble upon a while ago: Diamond files do work! Since knife kits are usually hardened already (such as mine) I was really curious if I would be wasting my time trying to file parts of the blade. I was also wondering if relatively cheap diamond files would hold up to grinding a tempered steel blade or just wear out like crappy sandpaper. It's simple - carbide files = no progress, diamond files =

. I bought a 5 diamond file set for $12.99 on amazon (again) from hobbytoolsupply with free shipping. files. Notice these are 7" long. Make sure you don't buy the mini diamond files for less because the size of the files can be confusing on amazon and any smaller will be too small.

Here is a photo of the completed thumb profile. I used a dremel to slowly eat the bulk of the material away and finished off with files. I had to make sure I went slow with the dremel in order to keep the grind very flat before filing; filing flat (opposed to tri and round) takes a looong time and I didn't want to be far off when it came time to file.

I want some decorative filework too and I had nothing to practice filing on. Next best thing was to pen in a mock-up on paper. I really only have 1 knife blank and it pays to be as prepared as possible. I found this design on Jay Fisher's excellent knife site on his embellishment page Jay Fisher Embellishment. Let's call my work a tribute to Jay's awesome spin on the classic vine

Just doing as I have seen others do. mark the spline. This kit has a tapered tang so I also had to make the filework agree with the taper. On some trusted advise I found on the internet, I eyeballed it until it looked right

Using my marks, here is the initial filing with the round file. Since it was a tapered round, I tried to use that to my advantage and make larger cuts at the thicker part of the tang

It would be faster to go down one side entirely but I just couldn't tell if it was coming out right until I filed both sides. Here is my sanity check/preview

Finished the filework (for now). Here is a step back to see how the while thing comes together

Another shot in the hand

A view of the taper. I may have to try another photo of this because the lighting was cooperative here

My filework definitely did not come out as crisp as Jay's but hey I learned a lot (of muscle memory?) from filing this knife. Here is Jay's

In comparison, I may go back and make my half round file marks a little wider so the vine has a more S like curve to it.

Well that's it for now! I am currently waiting for the epoxy attaching my guard to cure. I wanted to solder the guard on but frankly I had a hell of a time heating the blade to proper temperature. I don't want to detemper the blade so I wrapped it in a damp rag and I am sure that's keeping me from getting a clean solder joint. Ah well, the guard is attached with a pin as well, so perhaps I lost a little cosmetic appeal by not soldering but I just didn't want to risk my blade.

More pictures to come as I progress. I have to choose my handle design. This is pretty interesting!

bojangles
Member

Reg: 03-17-09

04-04-09 08:11.25 - Post#1806851
In response to whited3

I'm glad you reposted this as I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

Just between us newbies thanks for posting I found it really informative and useful.

whited3
Member

Reg: 04-03-09

04-04-09 10:18.25 - Post#1806928
In response to bojangles

Hey thanks, I'm glad to hear that. I just finished peening the pins on my guard and filed them flush. Really have to settle on a handle design now. No new pictures yet but I will post them eventually.

knifetinkerer
Master Member KnifeNut!

Loc: The Mountain West, USA
Reg: 09-18-07

04-04-09 12:10.12 - Post#1806988
In response to whited3

Same here. I wouldn't have found it, and I'm glad I did.

Great polishing and filework.

And... you have an unused room in NYC? You must be rich!

You can fit a few machines into that space. Anything with an induction motor is quiet. Drill presses, bench grinders, and small benchtop belt sanders are particularly useful.

If you use handsaws a lot, I can't speak highly enough of the Shark Saw brand. Very common and cheap in hardware stores. The General Carpentry models just melt the wood. You hardly miss having a power saw. And the ryoba and dowel saws come in very handy for fine work.

My wife and I have a tiny shop in an unused room ourselves, about 100 sq ft. We've crammed in a floor-standing drill press, a lathe bench, a dedicated grinding bench, more benches, some storage, and sundry hand and power tools.

mack1
Master Member KnifeNut!
mack1

Loc: Cowlesville(Buffalo), NY
Reg: 03-16-06

04-04-09 13:44.45 - Post#1807048
In response to whited3

Don't know if you're a Newbie on this Forum but, Welcome if you are.

Now, for your first knife ...

A kit is just fine here. But to tackle a Tapered Tang for your first is impressive.
Same thing for your filework.
Ya done good, really good!

There are 3 ways of attaching handles scales to a Tapered Tang. One of them is just wrong.

I suggest you check out the Tutorials in Ripper's Resource Links above. Lots of info!

As for guards, you may want to consider JB Weld to attach them in the future. Check into it.

Keep up the excellent work!

You're hooked now!

Tryin' to hold a train of thought, but it departed.

Nothing new under the sun for me.

whited3
Member

Reg: 04-03-09

04-05-09 13:39.13 - Post#1807931
In response to knifetinkerer

knifetinkerer Said:

And... you have an unused room in NYC? You must be rich!

I'm more lucky than rich! haha yes in fact I bought a shark pull saw specifically for this project.

And you know, I was envisioning the room full of useful machines but i'm a renter and even though I's love to see the look on my landlord's face maybe I will wait until knife #2

I'm getting along well as it is anyways.

whited3
Member

Reg: 04-03-09

04-05-09 13:46.54 - Post#1807935
In response to mack1

mack1 Said:

Don't know if you're a Newbie on this Forum but, Welcome if you are.

Now, for your first knife ...

A kit is just fine here. But to tackle a Tapered Tang for your first is impressive.
Same thing for your filework.
Ya done good, really good!

You're hooked now!

Cool, I have been lurking a little but yea I'm new, thanks!

Handles are next so I'll definitely check out those tutorials. I made only small progress this weekend 'cause my friends came to visit but more pictures to come as i said.

Do you have problems keeping the JB weld from peeking out of the guard when you use it? just curious since it is dark colored. Luckily the epoxy & pin I used seems to have been successful.

mack1
Master Member KnifeNut!
mack1

Loc: Cowlesville(Buffalo), NY
Reg: 03-16-06

04-08-09 09:28.34 - Post#1810502
In response to whited3

JB Weld, when mixed, is a light gray.

Just take your time, and remove the excess asap.

Tryin' to hold a train of thought, but it departed.

Nothing new under the sun for me.

Gryffin
Master Member KnifeNut!
Gryffin

Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 11-16-04

04-08-09 09:35.40 - Post#1810508
In response to whited3

whited3 Said:

Do you have problems keeping the JB weld from peeking out of the guard when you use it? just curious since it is dark colored.

You can scrape it off after it's cured, as long as you use something harder than the epoxy, yet softer than the blade, such as brass. Just sharpen one end of a brass rod to a chisel point, and scrape away the epoxy.

"Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife"

whited3
Member

Reg: 04-03-09

04-24-09 12:44.46 - Post#1823877
In response to whited3

First, thank you everyone for your help and advice. We're looking at a group project here! I have more pictures.. I told you I was taking this slow.

I left off with the file work. Here is the first piece of the handle going on

A long time later (damn you overnight curing epoxy), here are some more handle pieces.

Here all of the scale pieces are attached and roughly profiled. You may have noticed that I had a lot of material to cut away to get to this point. I now have a lot of experience working with files. Perhaps a coping saw will work its way into my next knife build

Another view of the rough scales. They have a long way to go

Here is the initial rounding of the handle. What a difference it makes in appearance and feel. Still a long way to go

Time to take care of the other side

I took a photo while I was shaping to guard. It needs a little balancing on the left

Here is some detail of the belly contouring

And a full bottom view. I decided not to overdo the filework. But I think next time I may think of some embellishment for this area as well.

I kind of went all over the place working on the handle. It's an extremely subjective process trying to figure where to put your file next, especially having never done this before. Here is some more shaping of the guard.
(bonus, check out the nice maple grain dampened with water)

Checking the rear...

And fiiiinnnaly it looks like I have taken it to a point where the wood is ready for finishing.

Other side

Another view

I got a little discouraged in the middle of the whole project, mostly due to all the wait time for the epoxy and scales to cure. All this time the knife looked so damn ugly. But now its back baby! It's got a lovely feeling in the hand.

And now I can stop holding my breath because yep, it came out balanced (as best I can tell

)

I have to hand it to Noth Coast Knives, the Eagle kit is quite nice.

So I am quite close to finishing but I wonder if my handle choice was wise: ebony ends (this stuff is great to work with) and the middle is maple burl which is somewhat soft as far as handle material goes. I figured this would be alright since it is protected by the ebony on either side.

I want to bring out the grain of the maple so my main question... should I simply use tung oil on the whole thing? I am hoping that both ebony and maple will benefit from it.

I hope my pictures are helpful!

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