Three new ones

[Doug Lester]

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Here's three new knives. The top two are Nesmucish knives. Both are differentially hardened 9260, clay coated, with genuine lignum vitae handles. The knives have an OAL of 10" and 6" blades, 1 1/2" wide and 3/16" thick with a distal taper. The top one had nickel silver cutler's rivets and the middle 1/4" brass pins. They were tempered for three 2 hour cycles at 400*.

The small one on the bottom was forged from 52100 3/4" rod, austempered for 4 hours at 440 degrees in an oil bath. The handle is black linen micarta with small nickel silver cutler's rivets. OAL is 7 1/4" with a 3 1/4" blade that is 15/16" wide and 1/8" thick with no distal taper.

The top one and the bottom one are going into my knife block.

As always constructive comments are welcome.

Doug

[Ray Rogers]

Is it just the pictures or are those blades convex in cross section? If they are to be used as kitchen knives a full flat ground blade is the norm although I can see some advantage for convex blades when slicing soft materials like meat ....

[Doug Lester]

It's just my lousy picture taking. Both the primary and secondary bevels are flat. I tested the geometry of the two larger knives by cutting two free standing water bottles. I had a little problem getting the second bottles within the arc of the cut but the first bottle was cut cleanly and the bottom was left standing with water up to the cut edge.

The smaller one is too short for that test but it did slice a lot of cardboard and still shaved hair.

Doug

[Eli Jensen]

The top two do indeed look convex. What sort of grinding set up do you have?

[Doug Lester]

They migh look convex due to the flash on the camera but they were ground on a Coote grinder with a flat platten. I've check them with a flat edge and they are as flat as they can get.

Doug

[Doug Lester]

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Ok, I shoot a couple of more pictures of the middle knife. I hope that this gives a little better look at the knife.

Doug

[Horsewright]

Howdy Doug

What was your thought process on choosing that wood? I've used it a couple of times and had stability problems. Maybe it was just the piece I had. I sure like its looks and also it being really hard but it shrunk a little on me. Also it burned a little on me while sanding but that was my bad. New belts new belts new belts just like ironwood. Did ya just hand sand and then buff a little?

[Doug Lester]

The reason that I choose that wood was that it was dense, hard, and stable. I roughed it with a used 110 grit belt and then went to hand sanding. I had no problems with it burning, which is something that I have had problems with when using Osage Orange, especially on end grain. My only thought on the shrinkage that you obsurved could be that it wasn't full dry. This stuff is so hard and stable it was used for propeller shaft bushings on submarines until the 1960's. The worst part is that it is getting expensive. Fortunantly I found a dealer who sells wood for turning who had a 3X3X12" piece that had a bad check in the middle that was lousy for turning but easily cut around for knife handles. I try to avoid the Argentine lignum vitae because I don't like it's color and grain as much as the wood from Africa plus it's on the CITES list.

Doug