The other day I wrote a comment that nothing is hard about knifemaking as long as nothing goes wrong--Well I had a wrong weekend and nothing went right. I am working on a 5" dagger that was hollow ground with a 3"dia. wheel. this dagger is only 3/4" wide at the guard and is mirror finished. The guard and blade are very nice and things went very well, then comes the handle. I wanted to use a nice piece of pearl since this blade was looking so good. I had a nice pair of pearl($70.00) so I put red fiber spacers and glued every thing up and all is well. At 220 grit I had a lamination appear and a piece about the size of a dime broke loose at the guard. While removing the bad side of the pearl I dropped the knife and chipped the good side. This will make you want to say bad words,however I did not. I then put a new handle of camel bone,looks very much like Ivory. when I got down to the 400 grit finish I saw a faint crack straight down the center of the handle on both sides. Now I am getting mad. I have spent $120.00 on handle material and still no handle. The next thing I put on was Ivory. This is still a good looking blade and should have a good handle. being a little gun shy I pulled out the best Ivory I had. This is from a tusk that was taken in the late 60's so I know it is well seasoned. To date I have it sanded down to 400 grit and no serious problems yet. I am letting this set and mellow for a while since I don't want to mess it up again. Hope you all had a better week end---------Rade

Well Rade,
My weekend went real well, but I wasn't working on any knives. I was finishing the grinder that I have been building and things went well there, so all in all my weekend was good. Pics are posted in the Tool time Forum. Sorry to hear yours went south, but I think that just happens. Who knows, maybe it was the Solar Storms or something. Some days nothing seems to go right and other days seems like you can do no wrong. I just wish that I would start having more of the good days and less of the bad ones.
Since my knives are not my fulltime profession I can just shrug off the bad days and chalk them up to experience, but if I were depending on them to make a living I am sure it would be a whole different story.
Post a pic of th knife when you finish it, would love to see it.
Mike

Rade, I have been there many times. Two weeks ago, I had done an exceptional grinding job on a blade for a customer. Started laying out the filework, and a Dremel cutting disk skipped right down the side of the blade and gouged it well past the point of salvage. Seems like this stuff always happens when you are either under time pressure, or working with the best of materials, or both. Nuff to make you crazy sometimes.

The other side of the coin, though, is that some of my best work has been the result of figuring out inventive ways to re-work mistakes.

I had a pretty good weekend with the exception of getting a virus on my computer. And yes - it was my own fault. I opened when I should have deleted. And then spent most of the weekend finding all the infected files - 46 of them!
Besides having to replace some Windows directory files.
Take it slow Rade and post a pic when you're done.

BTW - anyone heard any word on Neil?

Had a good weekend. Sent the crank out on the top fuel motor and got it back it said 20 under so I figure OK and put it in the block with 20 under bearings. Motor won't spin, what the ****!!!!! so I mic the crank down. it was labeled 20 under but it was cut to standard. I sent the crank out to be cut and he re- welded the whole crank back up to standard. It's like getting a brand new crank. It's like sending a knife with half a blade bacjk to the maker for re-polishing and he gives it back to you with a new blade!!!!! :) Can't wait to get the car back together and go racing. Also got the signal's, reverse lights and high beams to work on my friends hot rod. All in all a good weekend.

I've had some bad weekends and you just have to step back and let it flow over you. Once the garbage has sailed by you can get back into the groove of whatever your working on!

Does anyone know how Neil is doing?

Weekend was great. Today though, I thought I'd bought the Farm. I was finishing file work on a damascus skeen du blade and I DROPPED IT!!!! No damage, but it was close!

I hate it when my brain and hands fail to communicate!

Yep dropping a blade can do lots of harm...I have reached to the point where I try to catch it with my foot to avoid any harm to it. Worts it when you have done a perfectly nice handrub....

Note: I wear heavy leathershoes with steeltips inside when I am in the shop...so not much harm to the foot

Thanks for the encoragement. It has been a long time since I have had that much trouble with a knife. Guess I was just getting to cocky for my own good. I have put it aside and will post a photo when it is finished. Wish I could go racing. want to start on my mustang-Wonder if I could get Billy Glidden to build it for me????

Hey Rade, I know about things going wrong, and about being too cocky. I recently had one that I'd hardened and tempered. I rolled a convex edge on it and tested it out. I wasn't satisfied with the way it cut, so I killed the edge and decided to reharden.

That's when I got cocky. I hadn't had a blade warp or crack in years. I decided, "Heck I'm gonna water quench this puppy and get a good temper line". No worry's.

Here it is:

http://www.shreve.net/~primos/broke2.jpg

No worry's -- Yeah right. That one knocked me a notch or two lower on the confidence scale.

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Rade, your tale of woes hurts, those $ symbols mean a lot for a professional. I've only ruined cheap(ish) materials and I'm not going near pearl and ivory until I've proved to myself that I can handle wood.

Terry, yours is bad because you showed us the picture. I've had that happen to me on more than one occasion, but with really crappy blades. Yours looked a beauty.

Roger

Terry it happens ;-) Man you put some great stuff out and if that is your first crack in that long, you must be doing something right!!!

Thank you all for telling/showing that the more experienced maker have to say "oops' ,ever now and again,too.

Anso,thanks for pointing out the steel toe info. we don't want to have to refer to any of our fellow makers as 'ol split toe'.:lol:

You guys are a bunch of jinxes, things have been going fine for the last couple of weeks and last night it all fell apart. I worked on handles on 4 knives and something went wrong with each one in turn now every darn one has to have the handle replaced.

OK ...

I hereby remove all curses on this forum.

In light of this, I command that all work that emanates from this thread over the next few months be flawless and produced with ease ...

Alright ... back to work men ... all is well in CKD land.

Alex :lol: