Greetings, knife enthusiasts and friends. I hope this post finds you all well. I sure had some fun with this build over the weekend and I'm eager to share with you this work in progress. Without further adieu, let's get to it.
Here's where this weeks work began. The blade was surface ground to remove the heat treat gunk and the bolsters and spacer get flattened on my surface plate so they are absolutely flat.
I skipped some pic when the liners were ground down to fit the profile, but it's a simple process. Here I am locating the screw hole locations with a center punch through the paper template.
After the holes are all drilled through the first liner, I use it as a template to locate the holes in the second liner. This way, all holes are perfectly aligned.
All holes drilled.
The bolsters get clamped onto the liners so that the holes can be drilled.
The holes have been drilled in the bolsters and a pocket has been made to cover up the pivot screw head.
In order to get the back sides of the bolsters to match up perfectly in relation to each other, they get pinned together and the edge that will mate up with the scales gets ground until they both match.
Here's that back edge of the bolsters after they have been ground to match.
The back edge of the bolsters get beveled at 30 degrees to establish a dovetail joint with the scales.
The bolster screw holes get threaded to accept a 0-80 screw.
Here are the bolsters attached to the liners with screws. The actual profile will be ground down to match the liners once we get the scales attached.
The back side of the scales get sanded down so that they are absolutely flat. We don't want to see any gaps between the liners and the scales.
The scales get a matching 30 degree bevel to form the dovetail joint with the bolsters.
The scales get clamped onto the liners in order to locate the screw holes.
Here the scales have been drilled and screwed onto the liners.
Here the scales are ground down to match the profile of the liners.
Here are the parts of the pivot system for the knife: two 0.020" bronze washers, a 3/16" stainless steel bushing, and a 1/8" stainless steel pivot pin with screws. The bushing and pivot pin will be ground down to the proper thicknesses in relation to the blade.
In order to set the open position of the blade, the front end of the spacer must be ground down. In order to determine where to grind to, I mark the front tip of the spacer with a black marker and scratch a line in with a razor blade along the back of the blade tang.
The stop pin, which will keep the blade edge from slamming into the spacer, is located by clamping the blade in the desired closed position and drilling a hole between the blade choil and the spacer.
Here's the first partial assembly of the knife in order to check the mechanics and the open and closed positions. Everything checked out just fine. I have also enlarged the hole in the back corner of the knife so it will accept a lanyard.
The scales get pinned together and the back corner gets ground down to relieve an area for a lanyard hole.
Here's the first full assembly of the knife. The whole knife will get ground to final dimensions and the bolsters and scales will be contoured for comfort.
This is where I left off for the weekend. The shape of the knife is complete and the scales and bolsters have been ground down to 2000 grit on the grinder. The bolsters will get a hand-rubbed satin finish and the scales will get treated with tung oil. But that will come a little later on in the build.
Here's a terrible pic of the spine, but I think you can still see how good this is going to look. The natural titanium gives a nice break between the copper components. I like it!
Thanks for following along with me on this knife-making adventure. Check back next week for more progress.
- Brandant Robinson