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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #16  
Old 03-20-2013, 12:35 PM
Ed Tipton Ed Tipton is offline
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bobasaurus...I have never had any problems with epoxy sticking to brass. I think your problem could be from the heat being generated during grinding. Being a good conductor, a thin piece of brass could reach a relatively high temp during grinding pretty quickly....and would also cool down just as quickly. Most epoxies will lose their grip at relatively low temps. Any knife left in you car on a warm summer day could suffer from epoxy losing it's strength. Many knives have been assembled using the type of epoxy you received from Jantz, so I doubt that it is defective or weak.
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  #17  
Old 03-21-2013, 08:58 AM
Imakethings Imakethings is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bobasaurus View Post
I bought the spring stock already tempered from Jantz. It works great. I actually do have a cheap angle grinder... maybe I could give it a try. Seems like the discs for it are pretty large for the small things I'm trying to cut out, though. That's a good idea with the small screws, too. I might just buy some thin screws and brass standoffs to use as pins in the future (like really small loveless-style bolts).
Go take a gander at the cut off wheels at your local home improvement store, there are thin ones that do quite nicely. Hell of a lot faster than the hack saw, if you have any problems locating them drop me a PM and I'll send you some links of what to look for. Shouldn't be hard to locate though.

As a reminder, gloves and goggles when you're cutting, try it on some scrap steel first to get a feel for things, clamping is also important.
Be sure to check the area you're working in for anything flammable and wear a leather apron or something else non-flammable, I caught a shirt I was wearing on fire once from the sparks. I don't recommend it.
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  #18  
Old 03-21-2013, 04:13 PM
bobasaurus bobasaurus is offline
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Good idea with the cutoff discs... I'll pick up a few next time I'm there. The tiny dremmel-style cutoff discs are just too fragile.

I'm afraid of using gloves around power tools. In woodworking (and I'm sure many other disciplines), it's a major safety hazard to do so (if a moving part catches the glove, kiss your hand goodbye). I also like to feel the metal while grinding to determine temperature... if it gets too hot, I either quench or switch to a different piece.

My shop is pretty darn flammable with all the wood dust/shavings. I'll give the area a good cleaning and setup a backing board before doing any serious grinding. I did prop a sheet of plywood behind the spindle sander to control the sparks during my earlier shaping. Thankfully I have a fire extinguisher nearby. Good call with the apron, too.

I use safety glasses and a respirator at all times in the shop. I sometimes also use ear protection muffs and a full face shield as well.

Last edited by bobasaurus; 03-21-2013 at 04:16 PM.
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  #19  
Old 03-21-2013, 10:29 PM
bobasaurus bobasaurus is offline
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More progress pictures:


Hand planing a bocote knife scale flat on one face and one edge. I'm going to resaw one scale into two on the bandsaw, and this needs two flats square to each other for good results.


Close-up of the planned bocote. Very nice looking grain.


Resawing the single bocote scale into two thin bookmatched scales on my bandsaw.


Bookmatching the grain looks pretty nice.


Flattening the thin scales on a granite block. They're too thin for hand planing at this stage, so abrasion gets the job done (though slower and with less finesse).


Gluing a brass liner to one of the scales. I used the super glue with curing spray trick again... it has been working great so far.
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  #20  
Old 03-22-2013, 05:37 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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The full face shield is a good thing with the sidegrinder and cutoff disc. They sometimes bind and blow apart. Not often, but once is enough. Larger chunks at higher speeds equal nifty and not so nifty scars!
Get some tight fitting "mechanics'" style gloves, tight cuffs and no loose ends to snag. Very tactile for good control. If you use the sidegrinder without gloves you can really mess up you hands.....sure they will heal but they don't grow back. You're not going to be able to hold the steel in you hand and cut it with a SG, that will get you hurt in a lot of ways.
I'd also recommend moving that kind of operation outside totally away from your wood shop and dust. The rooster tail from a SG shoots a long way and any form of fine dust is an explosion waiting to happen....fire extinguisher won't handle something like that.

Nice bacote slices, will look great when finished.


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  #21  
Old 03-23-2013, 09:18 PM
bobasaurus bobasaurus is offline
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Worked more on this thing today:


Gluing on the scale pattern.


The superglue bond held up well to initial grinding with no visible gap. I did have to re-do one of the brass pieces due to a fumbled first glue-up. Superglue sets extremely quick... it's hard to get things into position fast enough.


I cut out the center of the plywood fitting jig to act as a drill guide for the scales.


After drilling the scales.


I pinned together the newly-drilled scales to do some rough shaping on the spindle sander.


Test-fitting the rest of the knife to the scales to determine the final shaping geometry.


Scale outlines are done. The bocote grain looks nice.


Another shot of the finished-outline scales.


Drilling the thumb stud/opener hole in the blade.


Grinding and filing the blade bevels while trying to make a "plunge" line where the edge ends. Lots of work, and I kind of suck at it so I gave up on the fancy grind I initially planned and just straight beveled the sides.
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  #22  
Old 03-24-2013, 06:16 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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With your determination it will get easier and better, just keep at it. Looking pretty good so far.

If your SG is settin too fast for comfort, switch to the gel formula. Good bit slower. The last I used was by Gorilla and it works well for me....but never used it for scale retention.


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  #23  
Old 03-24-2013, 02:01 PM
Imakethings Imakethings is offline
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Other option for a slower set adhesive that I like is a bit odd.

Dissolve Styrofoam in acetone, it sets slower and you can separate it with more acetone. Works pretty good for doing layups to check and see if things fit the way you want.

If you want a slower set, more solvent.
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  #24  
Old 03-24-2013, 03:27 PM
bobasaurus bobasaurus is offline
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Originally Posted by Imakethings View Post
Other option for a slower set adhesive that I like is a bit odd.

Dissolve Styrofoam in acetone, it sets slower and you can separate it with more acetone. Works pretty good for doing layups to check and see if things fit the way you want.

If you want a slower set, more solvent.
Interesting trick there. I wonder if that's similar to using gorilla glue (consistency of the foam is about the same at least). I'm mainly using the superglue because it works okay and I have it handy. In the future, I'll order some better adhesive. Reading through the forms here, it seems like the best are golf shafting epoxy, K&G, Loctite E-120HP, and Acraglas. I've also used Epoxy 330 in the past with good results (it's made for bonding smooth materials, like gemstones to metal). At work I've also used the Hardman DOUBLE-BUBBLE Very High Peel Strength Epoxy and it is amazing, though a very dark grey color that's thick enough to probably make a visible glue line.
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  #25  
Old 05-06-2013, 09:02 PM
bobasaurus bobasaurus is offline
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I'm back from a long business trip and working on the knife again. Not much progress, but I thought I'd post a couple more pictures:


Playing around with electroetching to put a makers mark on the blade. I can use the toner transfer technique with any logo I can print from my laser printer. Here is an etched logo on a test sheet of steel (unfortunately flipped because I am stupid).


After some sanding and buffing, I did the heat treatment process. I didn't get a picture of the process, so here is my kludged-together buffer instead (1 HP buffing machine is probably overkill, but I like it). Hardened at 1500 deg F, quenched in oil, then 400 deg F and quenched again for tempering. It ended up with a neat-looking texture after heat treating that I left on since it looks cool.


The post-heat-treatment texture after buffing. I think it looks nice, and will hide blemishes from future use.


Getting ready to etch my logo on the blade. Toner transfer technique using a laser printer and an iron.
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  #26  
Old 05-07-2013, 02:55 AM
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hondo76 hondo76 is offline
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That texture is very cool looking man.
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  #27  
Old 05-07-2013, 08:23 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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I'm concerned about your heat treat description. You said 1500 and quench, then 400 and quench. The tempering at 400 should be done for at least one hour (which maybe you did but didn't mention) and then the blade is allowed to air cool. The air cooling is part of the tempering, don't quench it in oil. I'm not really sure if it hurts anything but I'm pretty sure it's messier and doesn't help since no commercial process I've seen ever specifies an oil quench after tempering ...


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  #28  
Old 05-07-2013, 08:57 AM
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smithy smithy is offline
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Just as a side note to using a jeweler's saw to cut steel---it just takes the right kind of saw blades that differ from the normal. They are called skip-a-tooth blades and are available in 3 sizes that I know of. Try any major jewelry supply house for them. These make the job doable...but no fun at all. ...Teddy
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  #29  
Old 05-07-2013, 09:18 AM
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WynnKnives WynnKnives is offline
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You may have issues with your HTed blade surface... particularly where your blade pivots, a good perpendicular flat clean surface is best for a smooth action, and a blade that is inline with the rest of the knife
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  #30  
Old 05-07-2013, 11:39 AM
bobasaurus bobasaurus is offline
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Thanks for the input. Reading more about the tempering process, it looks like quenching isn't the usual way of things... I had heard differently from somewhere and ran with it, but next time I'll let it cool slowly. It seemed to work fine though, the straw yellow color was there and it seemed the slightest bit flexible but still hard when hit with a file.

I held it at 1500 deg F for 20 minutes, quenched in oil, then held at 400 deg F for about an hour then quenched. The texture was from a soap coating (that was kind of uneven) to reduce scale build-up.

Skip-tooth blades are a good idea, though next time I'll just buy a hacksaw and use cutoff discs since the jewelers blade sawing really sucked.

If the pivoting of the blade is a problem, I'll sand the texture off on the ricasso and re-do the etch.
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