A little overwhelmed

[Bill Vining]

I am currently designing my next project. A good ole Texas Toothpick. I met a gentleman at a show recently and he asked if I could make one. I told him I never made a slipjoint before. He asked if I could try. Well, I'm always up for a little adventure, so once I clean up a few things I have going, I'm going to start on my first slipjoint. I've read Chris Crawfords slipjoint tutorial a few thousand times to trying to prepare. Anyone have any additional advice?

Thanks

Bill

[Ray Rogers]

"How to Make Folding Knives" by Lake, Centofante and Clay has a lot of info on slip joints. The geometry is spelled out pretty clearly and the rest is mostly common sense. I recently made my first slip joint and this book was about all I needed to get the job done, but I've been making liner locks for quite a long time.

You'll learn more by making one than anyone will be able to tell you.........

[Chris_Crawford]

Hello Bill,

I'm no authority on slipjoints, but I'll be glad to help you however I can. It's been over three years since I wrote the slipjoint tutorial, and many of my methods have changed for the better. (In fact, I had only been making knives for 8 months and folders for 4 months at the time of the tutorial.) If I can ever find the time I would like to put out a slipjoint video showing how I do things now.

The book "How to Make Folding Knives" by Lake, Centofante and Clay that Ray mentioned has some good information about the anatomy of a slipjoint, but the main concentration of the book is on building lock-back folders. If you can find a copy of "How to Make Multi-Blade Folding Knives" by Eugene Shadley and Terry Davis be sure to pick it up. This book is out of print and very hard to come by at the time. The nice thing about this book is that it's all about making slipjoints. You can take the principles they show you and apply it to your one blade project.

I have to say that the best book I can recommend to anyone wanting to make slipjoints is "Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman" by Tim McCreight. This is a book that you hardly ever see mentioned, but it's a great little book. As the title implies, the book takes you through 10 different knifemaking project. One of the projects is a basic slipjoint folder. The nice thing about this book is that it's written for a beginner knifemaker, and it uses very basic tools to make the knives. If you have a well equipped shop then you are well on your way. This book also goes into detail about laying out the action of the knife and the relationship between the blade and the spring. (One of the most important parts in making slipjoints.) I still go back to this book from time to time when I run into problems.

Good luck on your project, and let me know if I can be of any help. -chris

[Jamey Saunders]

I will say that Chris's tutorial on slipjoint construction is pretty good. You can find it at http://www.chriscrawfordknives.com/C...al/Default.asp