The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of family activities, a new grandson, shop equipment repairs, and trying to figure out how to do this home school thing with our children during the school shutdown. It's been interesting to say the least. Here is the latest progress on the Pride and Bobcat.
The Pride gets exposed pivot screws with pivot collars through the front bolsters. Here we are at the mill, drilling in the countersink hole to accept a pivot collar.
One of the exciting things about working with zirconium is the ability of the chips to catch fire. Always keeps you on your toes. Just a little flareup. Stomp it out and move on to the next.
Counterbores complete and a pile of zirconium wool. I have half a mind to light it up and see what happens.
Time to move on to the pivot collars. Here are two chunks of titanium that we will use for the collars.
The collars also get a counterbore to accept the pivot screw head.
After being counterbored, I attach the collar to a mandrel. I'll knock off the sharp corners on the belt grinder and then turn the outside diameter down on the lathe.
The collar turned down to the correct diameter.
The collars fit nicely into the bolsters. They sit proud of the bolsters, but we'll grind them down flush later on.
I didn't get any pics of grinding the back spacers down to the final thickness or installing them in the handles, but here they are after being assembled. On to the grinder now to bring down the profile.
A few minutes at the grinder and here we are.
Here's a look at all of the parts. Boy, this has been a slow-going build. So much going on right now. Next week should show some great progress though and I'm really looking forward to seeing these knives come together. Thanks for following along with me on this build. See you next week.
- Brandant Robinson