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! 

Latest Knife (sort of) + new stamp

Hi all,

Not exactly a new knife, as I had made two of these several months back and only got around to finishing off this one as of recent. Both are EDC (everyday carry) style pocket knives in 1/8" triple tempered O1 tool steel and micarta scales. I'm happy to say that I've improved between that knife and the last one with respect to leather work at the very least though (both sides of the stitching look the same)! I recently had a custom laser cut delrin makers stamp made by Jeff Mosby from Grey Ghost Graphics down in South Carolina, and I have to say I am very impressed by the turnaround time and quality of the piece, and it didn't break the bank!

A substantial hand stamp - it has surprising heft for a piece of plastic.

I'm amazed that this level of detail actually showed up - not sure if something this intricate can be machined

It's really rewarding to be able to sign your own work, and think it adds a great touch to the pieces. Not too much to show here aside from some finished pics and a few pictures of the process ( whatever I could take without getting grime all over my point and shoot).

Below are pictures of the one I worked on about 5 months ago:

And the most recent one:

(sorry about the grimy fingers)

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

Part 2!

Finally heat treated the blade to a dull cherry red and quenched it in warm vegetable oil, then tempered it immediately at 400*F for about 1 hour with good results - takes an edge beautifully without being brittle and seems to keep it well. That was an issue I was finding with the previous piece I made, where I tempered for only half an hour at 375*F , and allowed the knife to get cold prior to tempering. This seemed to result in some chippy-ness that would make the knife unsuitable for things like wood carving and also prevented the knife from being as sharp as it could have been, which may have been a function of both the edge geometry and heat treatment, still gets sharp as hell but I've seen sharper. That said it's still great for softer mediums like paper, fruits, and cardboard!

I decided  finished the knife and decided to leave the handle portion in its as heat treated state for added rust protection and just to give it a more unique look. The sheath was a bit of a first for me as I haven't made too many completely leather knife sheaths aside from the ones I've made for my kiridashi. In my first attempt I goofed up a bit and it didn't occur to me that I should punch the holes through the leather before bevelling for burnishing the edges and had to start over :( .

 Attempt number 2 went more smoothly, as I took no chances and drew up a template on CAD and was more careful in the steps I did things.  I also decided to add a little feature to make use more simplistic - usually with these sheaths the knife can only go in one way ( as far as I know) as the welt is shaped to the knife for only one configuration. That would be fine and dandy the sheath was a fold over over kind ( the ones made from a single piece wrapped around the knife) , but I found that with a symmetrical one people tended to forget - especially at first, which way the knife went in, resulting in excessive wear and tear on the leather. My solution was to just make the welt work for 2 configurations as you can see in the pics below - so that the blade can go in both ways but still be snug without wiggling about. Anyhow, on with the pictures!