I've been looking forward to starting these two builds for some time. The idea has been floating around in my head for long enough. These knives will both be Pride design knives, each with a design theme in mind. These two will kind of be a yin vs. yang or ebony & ivory theme. The first knife will have carbon fiber scales, black zirconium bolsters and a dark Damascus blade to keep with the dark or black theme. The second knife will have white mother of pearl scales, stainless steel bolsters and a bright finished Damasteel blade to keep with the light or white theme. The pair will be a study in contrast and will have subtle differences in details as well as contrasting materials. I might make a nice stand for these and sell them as a set, but I haven't decided that for sure. I'll make that call once the builds are complete.
Without further adieu, here we go with the build.
This build will be more of a work in progress (WIP) documentation and less like a tutorial. I plan to do a couple of things different on these knives than on knives of the past, so I'll be sure to detail those processes, but for the most part, I'll just show a few pics and describe what I'm doing. Here are the two blades after having been profile ground. The top is made from ladder pattern Mike Norris Stainless Damascus and the bottom is from Dense Twist pattern Damasteel. I've used both of these materials before and have found them to be great blade steels.
Surface grinding the blades to get things parallel and thinned down to 0.1" thick.
Drilling the pivot and thumb stud screw holes on the mini mill.
Both blades are ready to be heat treated. Once I get these both ground down and lose the view of the Damascus patterns, I'll have be be very careful to keep them separate to remember which is which.
Here's a pic of where I signed off for the weekend. Both blades have been through the whole heat treating process. On the left is the Damasteel blade knife with the mother of pearl and stainless fittings. On the right is the Mike Norris Damascus blade knife with the lightning strike carbon fiber scales and zirconium bolsters. All of the holes have been located in the parts. The next step will be to tap threads into the corresponding holes and fasten the handles together for profiling. That will all have to wait until next week. I hope you enjoy following along with me on this adventure. Have a great week.
- Brandant Robinson