New knives and new designs WIP - Canadian Belt Knife ( 3/?)

Times are busy, but there's still always time for knife making! The scales and knives have been glued together and I've completed the first knife of the batch. There isn't too much that I have done differently from previous knives, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves - enjoy! 

Front of  scale shaped for gluing. From left to right - black canvas micarta, African blackwood, chatke viga, osage orange, natural canvas / black paper micarta.

Attaching scales

The first knife that I completed was the Canadian belt knife that a colleague of mine requested for a fathers day present. Below are some shots documenting the process.

Handle shaping on the 2x72" grinder. The wood is osage orange 

Finishing and sealing scales.

Starting the sheath - this is the first one piece sheath that I've done. 

Stitching the belt loop - extra care needs to be taken in sinking the stitching into the leather prevent the knife from cutting the thread.

Attaching the welt - in this case the welt needed to be built up near the handle to accommodate the handle thickness.

Alignment with finishing nails prior to gluing and stitching.

The whole package done! 

Backside of the completed sheath  sealed with leather conditioner and hot wax.

New knives and new designs WIP - more lessons learned ( 2/?)

Hi all,

It's been a bit of a gap due to waiting for some handle materials to come in the mail, but I'm happy to say that I've been able to get back to work on them!

I heat treated the blades after normalizing them three times at critical temperature ( dull cherry red, or about 1500 degrees F~ as close as I could judge by eye), soaking them at temperature for 10 minutes per cycle before finally quenched them in warm vegetable oil in the last cycle. The warming is critical to prevent a vapor jacket from inhibiting hardening and maximize the transfer of heat from the steel to the oil. They were then immediately tempered in a toaster oven for 2 hours at 400 degrees and allowed to cool to room temperature.

Normalizing on kaowool ( the second puuko from the right has a slightly shorter bevel from the other one - I accidentally set up my guide too far forward on the blade but it's an easy fix) 

Quenching in vegetable oil

Post tempering shot - still coated in scale.

Descaling in citric acid bath

While fixing some minor warping in the knives that happened during heat treatment, one of the Canadian belt knives to my horror had snapped in half at the junction between the blade and handle after some minor bending in the vise. This was initially quite shocking as I thought I had done everything right with the heat treat with what equipment I had, but it just goes to show that you can always learn something new. Having a closer look at grain showed that it was extremely fine where it had broke, so taking the knives back to the forge wasn't necessary.

A chunk of the broken blade - I would say that's fine grained if I ever saw it and ideal, just too brittle though. 

Back tracking, I figured that it would be worth testing if the tempering was too low to take the brittleness out of the steel.  I put the knives and broken blade back in for a second tempering cycle for another two hours at 450 degrees to see what difference it would make and do some impromptu destructive testing to decide if the batch was a write off.

Following tempering, it was back to the vise, and thankfully the higher temperature was a success! I wasn't able to break the broken half of the blade using the three point method in the vise ( two pieces of wood on one jaw vise and one on the opposite jaw between the two oppose pieces). This resulted in the blade flexing to about 45 degrees from true after closing the vise as far as the wood blocks would allow and springing back to a slight bend that was easily corrected by bending in the opposite direction.

Success! This was after the vise had maxed out on tightening and the blade popped out along with the wooden blocks I was using, you can see how much they indented the wood jaws.

 Full disclosure, I didn't take any pictures during destructive testing for fear of the blade snapping catastrophically or popping out of the vise and destroying my camera - which was thankfully a good idea since the latter did happened and took out a chunk of my wooden vise jaws with it.  To get a failure I had to take the blade to my steel jawed vise and bend them to about 80 - 90 degrees from true - with plenty of bending before it snapped.  This is by no means a go ahead to use the knives as a pry-bar, but they will be plenty tough for normal cutting use.  I am by no means an engineer, but I would think that this is a good result and will be using this heat treatment regime from here on out! I'll be making a replacement for the Canadian that was destroyed in this batch in my next round of knives.

After receiving my handle materials in the mail ( liners and stainless thong tubes) , I went to work on the handle scales from African blackwood, chatke viga, osage orange, as well as natural and black canvas micarta in combination with black paper micarta and vulcanized fiber. There wasn't too much different that I did from the previous batch of knives aside from using a downdraft table this time around to keep dust to a minimum while getting them square and even thickness. One of these days I'll invest in a proper bandsaw to save time and headache when re-sawing wood, but until then it'll be the old school method with a jack plane, sandpaper on a marble tile, and Japanese ryoba saw. Again, not too many pictures of the action since I only have two hands.

Osage orange (top) and chatke via scales (bottom). Both woods are known to be extremely durable and have been used as fence posts where they are native, with reports of them lasting up to 100 years in soil.  While not at the level of rosewood, they also have a fairly high Janka hardness so they won't get banged up or dented too easily. For reference, maple has a Janka hardness rating of about 1400, while these woods have a rating of approximately 2300 ). Not pictured were African blackwood scales, which is one of the hardest wood species in the world -it was a bear to saw but I have a strong feeling they will finish beautifully. 

Keying the surface of liner materials for epoxy, in this case black paper micarta. A tungsten carbide file is a great substitute for low grit sandpaper and I feel it does a better job at roughing up a surface. It was also lasts MUCH longer and the handle helps reduce strain on the fingers and hands. 

At this point in time they're all epoxied up and will be ready for processing the next time I work on them - stay tuned!

All clamped up, and now we wait!  

New knives and new designs WIP ( 1/?)

Hi all,

Spring is in the air and I'm making the most of what time I can get in the shop! These will be my first offerings through my site and are designs that I've been wanting to do for quite some time. Not too much different from other knife WIP's that I've posted , with the exception being that these were all done with my new grinder and I've been experimenting with some different grinds. The designs that I chose to make this time around were a puukko , Canadian belt  knife, and a different take on the city knives I've worked on in the past ( doesn't need too much explanation).

The puukko is a very utilitarian design from Scandinavia that uses a zero edge bevel, which essentially means that there is no secondary bevel resulting in a very keen edge well suited for wood carving tasks and easy sharpening. The only tradeoff is that the edge is more fragile than other grinds with a secondary bevel or convex grind, and has reduced slicing ability in tasks such as food preparation.

The Canadian belt knife is a relatively recent design created by Rudolph Grohmann for D.H. Russell Knives originally based in Toronto in the 1950's and one of the few designs that originated in Canada. I was attracted to this design due to it's unique look designed for ergonomics. Its offset handle allows for a positive grip that prevents slippage forward and a substantial belly for hunting tasks. My take on this design has a much beefier handle than those currently produced by Grohmann knives to allow to fill the hand better and to make it proportional to the larger blade (5") to allow for some heavier uses such as light wood prep.

I'll let the pictures do the talking, but this batch has been quite fun in taking advantage of the capabilities of a proper 2x72 grinder - and I hope to get more batches done in the future!

Laying out profiles on 1/8" O1 barstock

Rough profiling with a hacksaw ( and drill press in tight areas) 

Center punching drilling locations

 Cleaning up profiles using an 80 grit belt.

Temporary angle guide for scandi edges - this one is made of pine but I'll be making a more permanent one in the future - probably out of aluminum or steel.

First scandi grind - success! 

Family photo after initial grinds. From left to right - puukko, Canadian belt knife, and gentleman's knife. The Canadian belt knives have not been finished grinding as I planned to make them convex for optimal strength and cutting performance.

Canadian belt knives after slack belt grinding to blend the half height grind and hand finishing . I used sand paper on a foam rubber backing to blend any remaining flats . Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this process as I only have two hands- but it was quite an interesting learning experience. I'll be doing more experimentation with convex grinds but I can definitely see myself doing more of them for heavier use knives.

The next steps will be heat treatment and building the handles, then making the sheathes.  I'm still in the process of deciding which materials to use, but will likely be using a combination of micarta and durable hardwoods like osage or African blackwood, we'll find out later.

Stay tuned for more!

Christmas Break Project: Hultafors leather handle guard

Happy holidays everyone!

Just thought I'd document some work that I'm doing for a customer I've been in contact with over the holiday break. The request was to make a leather sheath and leather handle guard for a Hultafors classic axe. I've made a number of axe sheaths in the past, but a leather handle guard would be a first for me and a fun challenge. 

There are a number of different ways a leather guard can be attached, using either paracord and eyelets to fasten it temporarily or with skein to permanently attach it to the handle, and a number of stitching methods such as cross stitch and whip stitch. I opted to go the permanent route and chose to use a baseball stitch to minimize the amount of exposed thread for durability. 

Normally when leather working I would attempt to make a template to minimize the amount of leather wasted  , but in this case it was more trouble than it was worth to try to wrap a piece of paper around the handle to get an idea of how much leather was needed. I dyed the leather with gel antique and clamped the leather down around the handle in a vise to get an idea of how much excess there would be, followed by alot checking and trimming to get the final shape.  

The final form was then dipped in wax to give it rigidity and waterproofing, then punched out for lacing with artificial sinew. One important learned while working with artificial sinew on oddly shaped pieces - get appropriately shaped needles and ones with an appropriate sized eye or you're going to need to buy more needles haha. 

The process of executing a baseball stitch is well documented in tutorials for upholstery - but below are a few pics of how I went about it. Nothing too fancy, it's like doing two whip stitches that cross one another - just make sure you tighten everything up as you go along. 

Something I probably should have documented was how to finish the stitch, but I'll the best I can to explain it and that it shows in the final picture. After reaching the last holes, double back to the second last holes, then tighten up the final loops at the end of your piece and tie the two threads together ( I used the beginning of a snake knot) as close as you can to the leather. Use a curved needle to pull the loose ends under your existing stitches to pull both the knot and the loose ends underneath ( about 4-5 stitches should be good), then carefully trim the excess. The result should be a clean final stitch where the loose ends are essentially invisible, and more importantly - protected from fraying or loosening. 

At the end of the day, the final product should be snugly to the handle with the stitches and if tightened sufficiently, slightly sunken into the leather. For extra measure I added a coating of my home made leather finish covered in my other posts, and gave the stitches a pass with a lighter to remove any frays or stray strands. All in all I think this was a successful attempt, although personally I think the stitching can be more even with practice. All that said , I'm confident that it'll serve the customer well and give the axe a classy appearance to match with the leather sheath that I will be covering shortly. Stay tuned! 

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! 

Axe Refurbishing WIP: Round Two

Hi all,

Haven't had as much time to work on projects as I'd like - but I did find a few breaks to get another axe restoration done! This time around it's a Walter Black Diamond. Doing a little homework I found out that these were among some of the finest axes made in  their time, and made in Canada! In it's original condition it looked like the owner knew what they were doing as far as taking care of tools went - edge geometry was well maintained , pitting was not too deep and the head didn't have a trillion nails for wedges stuck in it.

The handle also seemed ot be in fairly decent condition - I'll have to admit I felt bad for destroying something that was likely over twice my age, but I didn't want to take any chances with cracks of any decay which may have been occurring inside.

Great grain orientation - I can't imagine how long it took for all that linseed oil to build up that deep into the wood

 After some light filing on the poll to remove some minor mushrooming. I used electrolysis to remove the bulk of the rust.

Clean up and sharpening were more or less the same as the previous axe restoration on the True Temper, and it was onto the fitting. I fitted the head with a shorter house axe handle (~19") so that I would be able to take it on long hikes and have it be too bulky. For the size of the head, the handle was a bit short, but I figured it would do. The only thing different I did this time from the previous axe was in the finishing, leaving it at 220 grit and applying a 50/50 mix of  paraffin melted into paraffin for waterproofing. I find this method is certainly faster than applying X number of layers of linseed oil, since it takes very little time to polymerize and is fairly robust.

The axe sheath was also done similar to the previous, with the exception being that I used double cap rivets instead of chicago bolts on the areas subject to the most stress and saturated the welt with acrylic resolene to increase its cut resistance. The final finishing was also tweaked from the previous, which only used paraffin.

My original plan in finishing of the areas subject to movement was to use something called Obenauf's Leather preservative, but  being a Canuck in Canada, specialty items are tougher to get unfortunately.  After doing some research on the product, it appeared to be a mix of beeswax, propolis (bee derived resin), and some mix of oils.  To make the next best thing, I improvised and melted up some mink oil, wax, and cleaned spruce resin collected from the front yard to make a balm like concoction. The mink oil was to act as  lubrication for the leather fibers, resin as a preservative and waterproofing agent (hopefully), and the wax was for waterproofing and to tie it all together. So far results have been promising, providing decent waterproofing and buffing to a high shine, but only time will tell. Gotta love the forest-y smell though!

about 3 oz of cleaned spruce resin - the original volume in raw form was about four to five times as much due to a large proportion of air in the sap - do not melt this stuff indoors!! 

final leather finish product after mixing resin with wax and mink oil- it looks solid but is still very soft at room temperature, think lip balm in terms of consistency