Kbar Blood Groove

[cwood3]

Another noobe trying out things. I am going to try and make dimensionally correct K-Bar blades as used in the military. The blood groove is 15/32" wide x 1/32" deep. To use a ball end mill and be geometrically correct, it would require a 1.7891" diameter ball end mill. WOW! Ever price one of those? OK, I realize here's where the craftsmanship comes in and do quite well there as my other hobbies are building rifles, electric/acoustic guitars, and tube amplifiers. My machine tool setup does lack a mill.

How would you guys go about making a groove like the above 2-5/8" OAL ?

Thanks.

curtis

[Ray Rogers]

This question was posed a few years back and some pretty creative solutions were offered - none of them particularly easy. The proper way, of course, is with a mill but anything that can remove metal is a possibility. A die grinder, an arbor with a set of stacked and shaped cut-off wheels, a small hand held belt sander using the wheel at one end, a hand held rasp and lots of elbow grease, etc. Some kind of fixture to hold your blade against a grinder's small wheel attachment perhaps. None of these methods will produce a clean groove without some follow up hand work. Probably the best thing to do would be to simply take the blades to a machine shop and have them do it.

And, for what it's worth, the term 'blood groove' is a misnomer, the correct term is 'fuller' and its purpose is to add structural rigidity to the blade ....