Christmas knife teaser

Here are the last pictures that I plan on posting of the knives that I am making for my mother and for my mother in law before Christmas. Otherwise they would know exactly what to expect. In these pictures I have the handles profiled and thinned but not yet shaped. I am going to have to make myself a couple of these as I am really liking them. However, they will not be pink. I am thinking a bright blue G-10 and perhaps black linen micarta.

Heat treating finished, finally.

Next step: grind off the scale from heat treating the blades then finish grinding the blades. After that it will be handle time.

Christmas present W.I.P.

Here is where I am at on my christmas presents for my Mother and my Mother-in-Law. These are the same ones thata I was working on here and here. I still need to do the heat on these two. I keep saying today is the day and then Mace needs some holding and this gets delayed. However, one way or the other these will get done.

W.I.P. part 2 (a.k.a. What I did while Keisha was at Bible study.)

I figured I would take a picture of one of my last drawings of the knife before I started making them.

Here are the knives so far and the steel I cut them from sitting on my bandsaw.
The knives are so small that I can actually get two of them side by side out of the width of my bar.
The next step will be getting both of these to look like the pattern I made (profiling).

W.I.P. (Work In Progress)

Well here is one of the knives I am working on at the moment. Pam gave me a pink stabilized spalted maple block after the A.G. Russell Knife Event and told me to make her and my Mom (Surprise! I don't think she knew) a couple of pink handled knives. So this is what I did today during Violet's nap.

I would prefer to make it out of some thinner steel, but this is what I have. Anyway, I made a smaller knife so that i could use the wood on both knives. This first one will actually end up being a pattern so that I can make more although I could finish it out if I wanted, as it is made out of the same steel.

Forged Blade W.I.P.

I am getting close to finishing my first forged blade. I just have to make a few adjustments solder the guard and then I will get it all glued up.

Forged blade W.I.P.

Well I have the bade ground out and ready for heat treat. I just need to figure out what I am going to do with the handle and guard So that I can make any holes etc. before the heat treat. I am glad that it has turned out so well so far. Since this is my first real full flat grind. The handle an guard will also be uncharted territory for me. I like that there is so much new with this one. It is keeping my up at night.

First forged blade!

Well, first blade since I knew anything about knifemaking.

Yesterday I went over to Tom Upton's shop and he helped me to forge out this blade. I am pretty happy with the efforts. Even though I did allow Tom to try and straighten the blade and after drawing out the tang for a minute or two he offered to draw out the tang on his power hammer and I accepted. Now the question is will I be able to make a reasonably cool knife out of what I have here. I hope so, but I will have to learn a few new skill sets to pull it off.

others scores from last week

A verticle mill (a big one) at a price that was hard to turn down. Moving it around involved cars, chains, and tractors.

And, my Grandpa won this sweet 4-wheeler and then gave it to my parents. Which means that we will now have something fun to ride out at the land.

Intestine Sandwich... Why not !

HUGE garage sale score

What appears to be a riverside belt grinder. They run almost $1,700 new but I got it for $30 (Currently not working, I think it is the electronics the ac/dc conversion/variable speed part. Maybe AaRon, Matt, or one of his friends can help?)
An old heat treating oven (notice the variable transformer) $20 a basic kiln is probably $300-400.
A bunch of knife carrying cases.
Various other things including these two nice pieces of stag.
A ton of books (About a dozen of them are autographed.) and even a few old framed pictures of knife makers.

p.s. I made another score earlier in the week. But, that will have to be another post.

Batch # Deuce

Well I have just about got my second batch of knives finished. This time I decided to go with five different woods for the handles.
I think that they turned out pretty well. Although, I still need to make sheaths and sharpen them. Plus I will probably wax the handles once I am done with everything else.
The woods are Madagascan ebony, padauk, zebra wood, cocobolo, and purple heart. My Dad already claimed the one I was going to keep myself (the ebony one with the thong hole tube). But, I figure he is probably less likely than me to ever get rid of it.

Another batch ready for handles.

This batch of knives is looking pretty good. I differentially heat treated the blades so if you look close you can see quench lines and hamons on the blades. I did a couple with an edge quench and a few with a clay coating(This gives you that japanese style wavy line.). Next step is putting on handles. This go around I am planning on using five different exotic woods so this should be fun.

Batch #2

Today I started working on my second batch of knives. I am making five knives but it looks like six because one of them is the pattern. You can also see my drawing and the handle pattern in the top right corner of the picture. So what you see here started with an idea which became a drawing. I then cut these from an 8 ft. piece of steel.

Knives

I finally finished my first batch of knives. It took a while since I am working out of someone else's shop (Tom and Dan were a huge help and very generous) and could only work on them about a day a week. I have been working on gathering up the needed equipment to make knives at home, but I haven't got it all yet. So my next batch of knives will probably take a while as well. I still haven't figured out what I want to make for the next batch but I'll get it figured out.

A Fun Knife

Well my first batch of blades survived the heat treat process. So now I am waiting on handle materials. Here s a knife I made all in one go with a bunch of help from Dan Koster. It was made from an old lawnmower blade. I was heat treating blades and decided to practice hollow grinding so when Dan noticed the hole in the blade he thought well we could do a karambit. So he drew out a knife with a karambit style handle and I got to grinding. I may do a cord wrap on the handle or I may just leave it as it is.

Don't let the grind get you down!

I have been working on some knives the past couple of weeks with a couple of area makers. I have been learning a lot. Lots of grinding and lots of fun. However, the learning curve on hollow grinding may have taken its toll. The blades got a little too thin so they may crack or warp during the heat treating process. Regardless, I have been having a blast.