It's good to be back in the shop. I've been out of town on a business trip for my day job, and I've been itching to make some progress on these three knives. I know that my clients must be itching to get their knives too. Here is a log of what I was able to get done.
Here are all three blades after come out of heat treat. From top to bottom we have the Bobcat, the Jaguar, and the Raven. At this point, I'll put them on the surface grinder and grind off the oxides to bring them up to about a 600 grit finish for hardness testing.
I hardness test all of my blades. This one and the other two all came in at a consistent 61HRC, which is exactly where I want them for CPM154. Nice!
The next step involves a whole lot of drilling and fitting. This pic shows the Bobcat with the bolsters and scales pinned and clamped together. The only thing that I'm worried about at this point is the mating surfaces of the bolsters to the scales. This fit must be as tight as possible in order to look good.
Here's a side view of the same knife to show the dovetail fit. It takes extra time to accomplish a dovetail fit, but I think it's well worth the effort to achieve this effect.
In this pic, I'm drilling the screw holes to attach the Raven's scales.
I spent a lot of time at the drill press. Here I am tapping the screw holes with my Tapmatic. This tool literally saves me hours of work. I can tap an entire liner in a matter of seconds. It was definitely one of my better purchases. You can also see in the above pic the countersunk holes that will receive flat head screws which will fasten the two handle halves together.
Here's one final shot of all of the parts for the three knives. Everything has been drilled, countersunk, and tapped. This next week's work will be a lot of fitting, building pivot assemblies, and handle profiling. I hope you'll check back next week. Thanks for following along with me on this knife-making adventure.
- Brandant Robinson