Well, the latest knife-making journey came to a close over the weekend. This knife put up a good fight and wasn't without its setbacks, but in the end, it turned out almost exactly as I envisioned it. Here are the final pics of the Guardian build.
The inside surfaces of the liners have been jeweled, the ceramic detent ball has been installed, the liners have been anodized to a nice complimentary bronze color, and the lock face has been carbidized.
The blade is being etched with my maker's mark.
Here's a pic of the blade with my maker's mark on it. This pattern of the blade looks pretty cool. I've also put the finished edge on the blade as well. It's sharp enough that my sweet wife noticed the bare spot on my arm where I did the obligatory arm shave test.
I turned a thumb stud out of 416 stainless. At the client's request, I kept it a simple cylinder with a small chamfer around the edge. To make the thumb stud fit the color scheme of the knife, I heat colored it to a similar bronze color to the liners. Turned out nice.
I also heat colored the thumb stud screw. This screw will be the only visible piece of hardware on the entire knife.
Here are all the parts of the knife ready for a final assembly. 39 parts in all.
Here is a pic of the completed knife. Please forgive the fingerprints on the zirconium. Try as I may, I'm just not good at photography. I guess I'll stick with knife making. Here are a few more pics of the final knife.
Pic of the spine.
Backside view.
Here's a little custom stand that I built for this knife to show it off properly. It's an organic free-form shape made out of black mesquite and oak. It was really just a proof of concept to see what it would look like. It works pretty well though, and displays the knife in an interesting way.
Here's the finished knife on its custom stand. Beautiful! I'm quite proud of this piece. I sure hope the client will be happy with it.
Thanks for following along with me on this build. For my next knife-making adventure, I'll be building three knives at the same time: a Jaguar, a Bobcat, and a Raven. I hope you'll follow along with me on the next adventure.
- Brandant Robinson