Greetings, everyone and welcome back to the duo Pride knife build. This week I was able to get the two knives practically finished. They turned out even better than I had anticipated. I'm truly proud of these two pieces. Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in the build that I neglected to take very many progress photos of the process. I hope you will all forgive me for that. Here are the few pics that I did manage to take of the build.
If you recall from last week, I had the pearl handled knife practically done. So, I went to work on the carbon fiber knife. Here's the blade after grinding in the bevels. This blade is Mike Norris Damascus, so it will get a good, dark etching.
Here's the blade polished up and installed in the handle to check everything for fit and function. No problems here. If you look closely, you can see the ladder pattern in the Damascus.
Now it's off to the lathe to turn a couple of tiny thumb studs. The pearl knife will get a 416 stainless steel thumb stud, and the carbon fiber will get a titanium stud. Most of the shaping of the thumb studs is done with hand files and sand paper, but I do have a couple of custom made lathe tools that I use as well.
Here are the liners and the titanium thumb stud after they have been anodized. The carbon fiber knife gets bronze liners, and the pearl knife gets this icy blue color which doesn't show up very well in this photo. I chose the colors deliberately. the icy blue will look great against the pearl and the bronze compliments the lightning strike carbon fiber like no other color.
Well, folks, unfortunately these are the only pics that I have to show off today. I did get the blades etched and marked, and pretty much everything else finished on these two knives. I just have a couple of tweaks that need to be made and then I'll post some final pics of the completed knives. I hope to have them listed on the "Available Knives & Gear" page of the website by the end of the week, just in time to add them to your Christmas list. If you're interested in either or both of these knives, just drop me a note. Thanks for following a long with me on this knife-making adventure.
- Brandant Robinson