Oh, those are very nice.  Glad to hear your wife is recovering.  I lost mine to C almost 10 years ago.

GNM

Nice work. Life happens. We get through it or we don't. Always good to hear back from members even if it has been a while. 

Glad to see you back Slim and VERY glad for your wife's recovery. It makes that knife a real victory trophy.

Give her my best please. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Aaaand finished!

thank you for the well wishes for my wife, I’ll pass them on.

George, my condolences to you. Removed due to language

 

 

Edited October 18, 20232 yr by Mod30
Language

There were no actual swear words in my post, and it's not the only time I've had content changed. I'd like to think I've been polite, but oh well.

good luck with your site, I'm out. feel free to delete my content.

SlimW,

I happened to see the content prior to it being removed and using slang, is the same as using the actual word, and everyone knows what it means. Still not appropriate for a "family friendly" forum. Sorry you feel that way and hope you reconsider leaving.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

fair enough, it's in the terms. their site, their rules.

it rubs me wrong that I had posts recently (and not so recently) removed entirely and silently, no warning, no message at all, and this was just a final straw. no offense intended to anyone here otherwise.

I agree with Irondragon.  We've all been moderated at one time or another for various reasons.  And, yes, we do have to keep our language restrained from how we may normally speak.  I don't consider that much of a restriction but some may.

George M.

I removed your duplicate post where you posted this same knife in 2 places, and you were sent a note about it. there is a tag in upper right of screen showing a PM waiting for you.   We have few rules here that you said you read and agreed to follow when you joined: no off site links, no language you wouldn't use in front of church, and treat others as you want to be treated sums them up,  Sorry if that it to constraining for you

Guys, I apologize for my outburst, it isn't like me. I've been so touchy the last couple of days, I've been like a moody teenage girl. It turns out the medicine I'm on for an infection has some serious side effects on mood, and I had to stop taking it today (levaquin). I've been making mountains out of molehills instead of knives, sorry.

Not to worry, we all seem to be on edge with what's going on in the world and all. Myself I've had a tough week with doctor and dentist appointments. Rather take a beating than go to the dentist, but I also want to keep all of my teeth so I go anyway.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

Ahhh, it's all good Slim, like Randy says there's plenty to make people touchy going on. I'm about ready to jump something most days myself. Lord knows I've gone off the rails enough times.

Frosty The Lucky.

Good day,

I've learned one thing:

If it gets emotional on my side wait with the comment, post it the next day, sleeping one night over it....which can be in fact extremely difficult to manage.

After cooling off 90% of my steamed opinions changed over night . The next day I was really glad I didn't post it.....and I know, controlling temper is

sometimes a real challenge.....even for an old dog who is supposed and expected to speak and act wisely.....in my 60 years live experience I met not that many old wise people.

Fair enough I should say, that includes me.....I still have my temper but I've learned to react differently.

Do not use strong language because people will listen more openly if you don't and you will be more respected, in the end it makes you much stronger and much more convincing.

....by the way I've learned and really understood this just in Thailand, ...the Thais taught me very well.

Cursing and/or insulting can here be quite dangerous. People can hate your guts and still smiling at you.

Stay humble and safe.

 

I would like getting away from the emotions and get back on the knife, if you don't mind.

I really like the grind of your edge that looks sharp and nicely even.The sculpturing of the handle shows also nicely off.

what I dare to criticize is your tang....compared to the width of the blade the tang is much too small ! and the fit in the handle looks a bit unfortunate.....

the tang is not completely sunk into the handle...what happened?..did you use fast bonding epoxy and got short on time?

 

but all in a nutshell your on a good crossroad to make cool knives!

Cheers

The tang is in fact the whole way in. what you see there is my inability to file a 90 degree angle accurately on both sides of the tang. I'll get it better next time. the gap isn't actually that bad, it's a trick of the light due to my inability to take good pictures.

that's one of the things I don't like about this knife. I also think the guard is too thick; it could have used some sculpting. I couldn't figure out how best to do that with the tools I had, and after two years of sitting on it I got a little impatient.

the handle shape isn't bad, but I should have moved the thicker transition portion further up towards the guard. I should also have narrowed the back end of the handle a bit, I think. I just freehanded the thing on my 1x30 sander.

the blade finish wasn't bad, but there were some fine scratches that I should have spent more time on. I am happy about the blade shape.

In all, it's the best job I've done so far, but there is a lot I could do to improve it.

I gave the knife away to a guy that had donated a bunch of metal and walnut to me. The other I gave to a guy that gave me a bunch of antler to work with. I don't think I've made anything yet I would feel good about charging money for, so it's just practice so far.

templehound: do you have a rule of thumb for tang width?

 

also: one important thing that I learned was that while 1x30 grinders can work just fine, you have to tune them a bit. I've been using my for 3 years now and didn't realize the tensioner arm was too tight and didn't pivot - apparently this is very common.

because of this, the tracking knob couldn't really work correctly, and this caused uneven wear on the tracking idler wheel, which meant that even after I fixed the tensioner, the thing still wouldn't track correctly. This made accurate plunges impossible to grind, I couldn't line up the belt on the platen at all. I chucked the wheel in my lathe and reprofiled it, and it worked *much* better after that.

the last thing I did was to add a steel plate to the table because those stupid grooves on the table made accurate grinds very very difficult.

If you haven't done it already, I recommend that you make or purchase a file guide (preferably with carbide inserts on the face.  This will help a lot with getting both the plunge and step for the tang lined up well from side to side.

I like the shape of your blade quite a bit, and the grinds look pretty good also.  One thing that stands out to me is the slight tapering of the handle at the front of the wood section right behind the antler and brass spacer.  It is hard to tell if this is intentional or a product of grinding the relatively softer wood next to the harder spacers.  If not intentional, you need to take extra care in this transition area to avoid the "dip" in the future.  If intentional, I recommend you exaggerate the change a bit more so it is obvious you wanted it to be there.

the taper was intentional, but I will do it differently next time. I think I'll make the same knife again, but fix the things I didn't like.

16 hours ago, SlimW said:

I also think the guard is too thick; it could have used some sculpting. I couldn't figure out how best to do that with the tools I had, and after two years of sitting on it I got a little impatient.

I agree.  However, with the tools you have you could have done some sculpting.  It would be easiest before attaching the guard to the knife.  A simple curve on the handle side of the guard would go a long way towards making it look better.  To do this use a magic marker or something similar and draw the curve on the side of the guard until you like the profile.  Since you have a tool rest on your grinder you can hold the guard with vice grips and lay the narrow edge on the tool rest.  Then just use the edge of the belt to take off small amounts until the curve matches what you have drawn.  You can then use the "shoeshine" technique with strips of sandpaper to take the sharp edges off and make if feel comfortable in your hand.

If you have a drill and small drum sanders you can also accomplish the same thing, but it's slower and side pressure on drills can wear them out faster than drilling holes.

I started Mk.II of this knife. Going to use the same handle setup, but improve the guard and widen the tang. I'm also adding some length to the blade.

While I was filing some rough cuts out of the tang, I noticed that the file was skating pretty hard on some bits that overheated when I cut the steel. I re-annealed the steel, and am making a file guide out of the scraps as metal clearly hardens enough to serve here.

I also nearly lost some fingerprints pulling the blade out of my can of vermiculite. it's amazing how well that stuff insulates, even hours after heating.

 

 

not a good idea to have a sharp transition between tang and blade, its a stress riser  for fractures

well, attempt number 1 at a file guide failed; both sides made it out of the quench just fine, the parallel surfaces remained parallel. My files skated on the surface completely.

I put a polish on the guide faces on my sanding disk. it was getting a little warm to hold, so I dunked it in my water can, and PING, one half cracked through. I guess I should have tempered it, but I read a few posts here and other places where people had used them full hard, so I took a chance and failed. I'm not too sad, the next one I'll do with guide rods and more substantial cross-sections.

Not file steel they didn't. You might get away with using one as hardened if you're using lower carbon steel say 5160 spring steel but not a good file.

Of course you could cheat and buy and read Steve's 1st book, that way you won't make such fundamental mistakes. Any questions you do have will be good questions and you'll have enough grounding in knowledge to understand the answers. 

Of course it can be fun to just dive into things and learn it yourself.

Frosty The Lucky.

I tempered the remaining file guide at 275 for an hour. Files still skate easily on it, and it held up to the stresses of clamping in a vise, even half a file guide is better than none at all. I filed those sharp corners out that Steve mentioned, and I only have some very fine scratches on the guide.

that is exactly how to do a tang, perfect