Monday 26 October 2015

Short Thanksgiving Weekend Project (2/2): Minimalist city knife attempt #2

Just a short post on the sheath making process and some pics of the finished product. The sheath like the previous iteration is made from vegetable tanned leather, and was also made to accommodate the blade in more than one orientation to avoid accidental sheath damage.  I also attempted to make the welt for the knife somewhat thinner than the other city knife, since the overbuilt welt made the sheath somewhat bulky for the size of the knife. Since the welt was thinner however, I felt that it wouldn't hold up to use as long, I applied some full concentration acrylic resolene to try to toughen up the inner surface.  Thus far that treatment held up well for the axe sheath I made a few months ago, so hopefully it'll be more than enough for a simple light duty knife!

Punching the holes with a stitching chisel to set spacing for drilling with the drill press. 

Adding my makers mark to the back of the sheath. 

All the  components drilled and prepared for gluing and stitching! 
The welt was left oversize to minimize was from final edge finishing and getting all the layers flush with one another - easier to cut away than to add!

Saddle stitching - 1 out of 135 to go 

All stitched up and ready for final surface finishing - I applied both paraffin/ beeswax along with the neatsfoot oil/ resin/ wax mixture from my previous post on axe refurbishing. The saddle tan gel antique dye in the leather seems  to darken significantly after all the finishing and should be taken into account if you want something lighter! 

Burnished edge - the edges of the sheath were lightly chamfered using an edge beveller, after which chocolate brown leather dye was applied and run over with my home made dogwood burnishing tool. Nothing too special with the process there - wax it lightly or just dampen with water and rub it back and forth until it's the desired shape and the layers are well blended, then seal with the wax finishes. 

And now the glamour shots:



(probably the thinnest edge that I've put on a knife, no idea how thick it is but the width of the secondary bevel is barely visible) 




All in all I think this project was a success - and it'll serve many years peeling apples and opening letters. Overall, the slight changes to both the knife itself and the sheath are significant improvements over my last city knife in terms of both ergonomics and overall appearance, and I look forward to making more of these , maybe out of AEBL if time permits for a batch of them - hopefully not too far away in the future!  

Monday 12 October 2015

Short Thanksgiving Weekend Project (1/2): Minimalist city knife attempt #2

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It was a much needed break having just started a new job and moving over to another city, but I think I've just about settled in!  Unfortunately it also means that I've had much less access to my shop at my parents's place, so projects will be much more sporadic from here on out for the next while. 

This time around I tried my hand at making another city knife, but this time slightly larger and beefier so that it would fit the hand more comfortably, and I thought it would be a good way to test out the TDM from my last post. I didn't have a chance to take many pictures due to the fact that I left my good cameras back home and only had my phone, but thankfully those turned out pretty well. After looking at where I could improve on previous iteration I chose to do some. I used a hacksaw to cut the groove on the flats using a 123 block as a guide, then going in with a needle file to polish and round out the channel with sand paper for a much cleaner look. In terms of heat treatment, I also gave it a triple temper, which noticeably increased the toughness relative to my previous run. As well, I decided to get rid of the heat treat scale to give it a much cleaner look that would accept a patina over time that I think will give it alot of character.

I will get to working on the sheath when I am able get access to my shop again ( or can bring in some of my tools to the apartment). Until then enjoy the pics!

Laying out the template from CAD on a piece of 1" O1 tool steel. 

Ready for heat treatment! I'm really liking how close I can get the grinds with the new grinder without burning the steel or having to do a ton of hand sanding to fine tune the shape.

Post heat-treatment
All polished up and ready for a sheath.  Perhaps copper plating might be a nice touch in the channels - I'll have to think about that one!