not another knife thread...

starting a light duty draw-knife today. here it is, shaping it out:

http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...01-shaping.jpg

http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...-01-shaped.jpg

next will be to hot-form the bends for the handle bits, and then to heat treat, make the handles and sharpen.

overall length is 17" before bending. blade length is 5".
because of the thin stock, this will be for light use [no using as a pry bar while shaving]. it won't take the stresses of rough use. the next one i make will probably be twice as thick, suitable for roughing bow staves, debarking logs, ect.

I have wanted to make one also but I am not sure how to go about the heat treat. It looks tricky to get the blade hard but leave much of the rest normalized. Can you show your quench to this when you do it? I'm looking for ideas.

Pretty cool. Now finish that puzzle.

basically, i just intend to normalize the whole thing after forming, and for hardening, i need only heat up the blade portion.

since the whole piece is much longer than my forge, i will just heat only the blade over the top of the forge, moving it around to keep the heat even, and then quench.

since i expect this steel will air harden a bit in smaller cross sections, i expect slight hardening of the handle bits, and the heat that is conducted to the portion nearest the blade while i heat treat the blade will probably temper that area back a bit [this is where most of the stress will be concentrated during use].

Crash: that's my lady's puzzle; she'd probably murder me.

So you are going to quench the whole thing but try to keep the heat limited to the blade edge?

you got it.

not only the blade edge, the whole blade, just not the handle bits, since they don't need to be hardened.

never spill vinegar on an unfinished knife and fail to notice it overnight:

http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/img_0291.jpg

there's a pretty good chance it's toast, cosmetically speaking.

it seems to be cleaning up fairly well [thank goodness the scales are stabilized], but we'll see how it comes out.

I think it adds character.
If there are any oak trees down around you, you can cook up a liquor from the bark to black the blade and you might also consider using pickling lime to neutralize any that soaked into it.

Looks like you might be in for a bit of hand sanding.

more than a bit, this stuff is a royal PITA to get smooth. at least it takes a pretty low luster finish, so it doesn't take as much polishing.

the discoloration has permeated some residual voids in the grain of the scales. it doesn't look bad, but now i wonder if i should abuse the rest of the handle wood and sand it down, so that it all matches. that might actually look good.

I'm taking a couple of these knives by a local sporting shop to see if they'll sell them for me.

Good luck!

I am sure they will take them and they will sell quickly. Good luck!

i'm not doing much knife work at the moment, owing to other projects, but i have been playing around with a couple handles in the puukko style.

i thought i'd show one.

glued up some thin cherry to two small pieces of padauk, and shaped a piece of slightly figured walnut:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/IMG_0347.jpg

and cut two pieces of antler down to form the bulk of the handle:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/IMG_0355.jpg

glued them up and began to shape:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/IMG_0357.jpg

and this is more or less the contour i'm going for, or possibly brought even narrower towards the front, with a less pronounced flare:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...es/contour.jpg

i think it could use some wrought iron plate for a butt and bolster cap. i don't have a blade to go with it at the moment.

i'm working on another with antler, padauk, koa and metal spacers [i'd like to find some nickel, but i'll go with anything light colored and lustrous.

as soon as i can rip some board from this walnut, some of it has some mild spalting [or whatever a more suitable term is for the spalting like effect that walnut gets in it's heartwood] and one side of the half-round is a bit curly/birdseyed. all in all, not staggeringly figured, but not too ugly either. i look forward to working some handles and scales wtih it.

That is awesome. It sure will make a dandy looking knife.

I like that handle as well.

bah. i'm restoring a sword for a good friend's wedding this morning, and at the moment i'm hand stitching a sheath. now i know why you can't even get Taiwanese kids to do this without a machine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by canid

bah. i'm restoring a sword for a good friend's wedding this morning, and at the moment i'm hand stitching a sheath. now i know why you can't even get Taiwanese kids to do this without a machine.

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I have those moments. I fudged a bit when I said I cant make a sheath. More like I wont lol.

Canid - what ever happened with the draw knife?

It is somewhere, presumably in storage by now, at a friends house along with several of my finished and mostly finished knives. He is in Chile for several months or more.

i did make a new handle for that crooked knife though.

several things about this attempt could use some practice and refinement, and i'm not nearly finished, but here's where this knife is at:

http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...G_0360-1-1.jpg
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...IMG_0361-1.jpg

in all this is serving as a good lesson in how to do, and how not to do such a knife in the future. i look forward to doing a good composite sheath next time, though i absolutely have to spiff this one up a bit, since i used the last good piece of padauk for it.

Nice work Canid. I'm liking many of your designs, and, like myself, you scrounge steel.

yeah, i love to scrounge/recycle steel, and to rescue broken and neglected blades.

now the adhesives are set better, and the leather is dry, so it's taken it's permanent shape and hardened back up a tad. the fitment is good, with the top of the leather upper fitting the mid-handle perfectly the lower portion of the upper did not contract as tightly against the wood of the sheath as i had hoped, so i'll probably wet that back down and try again.

for now, i'm glad i can still get it off easily, as i forgot to flare the slot where the blade enteres the wood/antler, so that it slides in readily and does not hang out.

i'll have to take some sort of rigid, but non-brittle adhesive to the upper and lower portion of the leather upper, to stiffen it up enough to make it sandable. i want to taper the lower portion so that the bottom edge sits flush against the surface.

the upper portion i would either like to round off by sanding, or if the leather will stretch further, do a rolled seam.

still gotta sand the profiles of the wood down, for better taper and to remove bulk where appropriate.

i soaked the wood in polyurethane sealant by immersion, so i'm sure it's well penetrated. i didn't mean this to be a finish, which is why i let it get all dingy before taking the picture.

i'm stuck with the visible glue-lines on this knife, as i didn't get my surfaces well mated.

so this is still not my best work, but it's coming right along:

http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...kko01large.jpg

the lady likes it well enough that she had to have it when it's done, so i'll probably be making another stand for the bookshelf in the living room.

Looks real good Canid!!

thank you. i tell you one thing, i'll never be much at engraving antler.

It came out great. Well done.

i'll get a final picture when i get the chance. i'm starting a new puukko today. the blade is from that bed-rail stock and for the handle i'm starting with some nice light mullberry. i'm probably going to go with an all, or mostly leather sheath on this one, and i'm trying to come up with ideas for handle embellishment.

starting some handles for a couple old blades [the crash L6 stock], and the new little puukko:

http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...uredwalnut.jpg

this is the figured walnut i mentioned before. most of it's boring, but there's some great character and some curling in there. i don't have a working power saw at the moment, so my only recourse is splitting and sanding flush, which is a killer when trying to conserve the limited curly areas [the split follows the curls and i have to grind so much of it away it hurts].

that walnut is beautiful, I know what you mean about having to cut it too. I save every scrap of exotic wood from building bows for my handles. That stuff just doesn't grown on cheap trees anymore :)

seriously. i feel horrible too, because i cut that darn tree down myself 2 years ago, for a friend, and all but a 26" rounder about 14" diameter went into their firewood stall. same with a bunch of fruitless mulberry with some great gnarled crotches.

Looking forward to seeing the end results.

handle for the puukko; still shaping:

http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/IMG_0370.jpg
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/IMG_0373.jpg

i should have used a spacer of contrasting material, because the antler and mulberry seem to run together. i suppose i'll have to do that for the next two.

That sure is purdy.

i learned some things about mulberry:

1.) if it is not dry enough, it does not power sand for spit.
2.) if it is dry enough, it scorches at the slightest touch of an almost new sanding disk.
3.) both states seem to exist in different depths of the same piece, since it has only been seasoning since last fall.

Not having worked with wood too much, I have quickly found that it is soooooo easy to burn it when shaping with the belt sander.

Nice job Candid!

Very nice, Canid!!