The Folding Knife (& Switchblade) Forum The materials, techniques and the designing of folding knives. |
05-04-2013, 07:00 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2013
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Is 1/16" too small for pivot?
I'm working on making my first slipjoint folder, but when I grabbed my drill bits this morning I pulled the 1/16" out instead of the 3/32" bit and I didn't realize that it was the wrong size until after heat treating the blade and the spring. Is 1/16" too small for a pivot, or should it be alright? I can always drill it out to the larger size, but I've already fit the spring and the tang together and everything is lining up quite nicely. I'd hate to ruin that if the drill bit walks a little on the way through. Both the blade and the spring are 1/8" thick O1 steel, the blade is a little over 3.25" tang to tip, and the spring is almost 3.5" inches.
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05-04-2013, 08:28 PM
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Location: Brownsville, Texas
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I wouldn't use a pivot pin that small. 3/32 or 1/8 would be better in my opinion.
If you've already heat treated it, how are you going to drill it?
A carbide bit should follow the existing hole.
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05-04-2013, 09:59 PM
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I assumed I'd be able to go up to 3/32 without too much trouble, but both the spring and the blade just laughed at the bit. I'm not sure that it even scratched the surface. So... I just annealed both the spring and blade so I can open the holes up. Then I'll re-heat treat them. Just waiting on everything to cool off enough to handle at the moment.
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05-05-2013, 07:30 AM
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That should work.
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05-07-2013, 11:22 AM
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Well, apparently I'm a lot better at hardening steel than I am at annealing it. I tried to anneal the blade twice and I still wasn't able to re-drill the pivot hole. I'll let this one be my lesson on making sure to drill all my holes the right size before heat treat. I'll start on another blade tomorrow.
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05-09-2013, 12:06 PM
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So I spent yesterday afternoon working on a new blade and spring. Originally I was just going to remake the blade, but I decided to go for a bit different blade profile and also make the blade slightly larger than my initial attempt. I made sure to get the holes drilled to the desired size before heat treating. There's still a lot of work left to go, but I've got high hopes for this one. The pics were taken post heat treat and one temper cycle. The spring still needs to be softened some more. I'll post more pics as it gets closer and closer to being finished.
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05-09-2013, 10:21 PM
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Steel Addict
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Dorena, Oregon
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looks like a good second start Nick.
i think I have learned far more from my mistakes than my successes. well at least those are the ones that i remember best... ha
Erik
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05-10-2013, 08:01 AM
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Yes, that's a good start.
Did you do a mockup and set the rise and fall of the spring?
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05-10-2013, 08:13 AM
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Yeah, I always learn more from my mistakes than I do from my successes, and I've learned quite a bit lately.
Don, I mocked everything up and set the rise and fall of the spring before I heat treated the blade. I don't have a rise and fall gauge like I've seen people use here, so I just drew a line and eyeballed it. Needless to say, it isn't perfect, but it's very close.
I worked on the spring some yesterday afternoon after work. It still needed to be drawn back to spring temper, and I had to use my torch to do it since I don't own a heat treat oven. I heated the metal until it was blue from the tip of the spring to past the center hole. I was a little paranoid about spring tempering O-1 without an oven, so I did the process three times instead of just once. The spring also needed to be thinned a little on the inside since the action was too stiff once the knife was mocked up again.
I'm going to try to work on the liners this afternoon.
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05-10-2013, 08:17 PM
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03-18-2014, 08:25 AM
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Registered
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Join Date: Mar 2014
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Hi there, is not an allen, what you need is a Torx T-10 key, also if you put some blue loctite on the screw it should keep put forever.
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Tags
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art, back, blade, bolsters, drill, folder, handle, heat, heat treat, knife, made, making, o-1, pivot, post, scales, solder, steel, surface, tang, temper, torx |
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