lanternnate Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 A friend would like me to try to make a certain style knife for him. It involves several things I hadn't tried yet including a scandi grind, jibbing, and using micarta instead of wood. Rather than jumping right into attempting the requested knife I had a go at a practice knife to test out some of these things. The real knife will be new 1080 with purchased micarta scales. For this one I used a piece of scrap John Deere mower blade (5160) that had previously been foolishly pounded on in an I'll conceived early attempt at forge welding. For the handle scales I made my own micarta from old ripped jeans and resin. This was also practice in trying to flatten a mangled piece. I couldn't fully undo those previous hammer blows, but got it to a usable while roughish look. I don't have a flatter yet, so just practicing trying to work into finishing hammering. Could have probably ground to smooth, but I kind of liked that it still had the mower blade part number and decided not to grind past that. I messed up the heat treat on first go, and redid it without normalizing first resulting in a good warp. I was able to correct the warp after tempering by using the three pressure point process applied a couple times in strategic spots. Next time I will reset back through a full normalizing cycle I if the first go is a miss. I learned a good bit on this one, and I now feel a little better prepared to take on the real knife with the new materials. Some of the evolution shots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WoodnMetalGuy Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 Good story, thanks! I especially like the photo sequence from rough to finished, and your idea of making your own handle material. Did you use an epoxy resin for that, or something else? -- Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanternnate Posted March 28, 2017 Author Share Posted March 28, 2017 The resin was automotive fiberglass resin. I'm not sure if I will have a go at making the scales myself again or not. It's a bit of a messy process, and with the cost of resin not a significant savings over just purchasing made scales. It was a good learning experience though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will W. Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 The micarta looks like it came out nice. Well done. Even if you can't save a whole lot doing it yourself, you can always have the added benefit of saying you made everything on the knife yourself, and making it exactly how you want. The knife looks nice as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackdawg Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 your micarta looks very professional! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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