Swarfy Goodness

Discussion in 'Blades' started by Valkman, Apr 11, 2008.


  1. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Or "The Birth of a Super Camp" [boozingbuddies]

    I've got a bunch of orders for the knife that was in Blade but haven't been doing well as my feet hurt from arthritis, my right shoulder has something wrong with it and my left elbow is about useless for grinding since a bad bursitis attack last year.

    When you draw out a knife on a bar of steel there's a lot of steel that has to be removed to make the outline of the knife - that's called "profiling". Well I can't stand at the grinder and the bandsaw is a POS so I went to the Grizzly mill I bought last year. This is probably the slowest way to profile a knife but at least I can sit while doing it.

    Mill with DRO and power feed:

    [​IMG]

    New - First I draw 3 knives out on a 36" piece of D2 that's 2" wide and 1/4" thick. Then I cut them apart with my 14" cutoff saw

    [​IMG]

    Milling the "Bowie Slant"

    [​IMG]

    Milling the curve of the blade - I don't have a rotary table so I just go as close as I can. I actually drew a kind of "tangent line" that I could follow to allow me to get pretty close. Mill was running when I took this!

    [​IMG]

    It took me a bit over 2 hours to get 2 knives milled but only about 5 minutes to complete the profiling on the grinder:

    [​IMG]

    I grind all 1/4" "sides" to 220 grit so I can apply blueing and mark lines for the blade center. This steel is .250 wide and I want my lines .030 apart in the center so .250 - .030 = .220. .220 divided by 2 gives me .110 which is the setting I put on my calipers and make my lines:

    [​IMG]

    I also measure the blade lentgh or where I want the plunge cut to be and make a mark with a silver Sharpie. This is a 7" blade.

    [​IMG]

    Now I can grind my bevels down to the lines I etched on the blade and false edge. New - Use a worn belt for this as the edges will strip the grit from a new one.

    [​IMG]

    New - Now I can put a new 60 grit belt on and grind the blade and swedge or false edge and "finish" it with 220 grit. That's good enough for now.

    New - Next is laying out the handle holes:

    [​IMG]

    New - Then drill them out:

    [​IMG]

    Now it's just some clean up on the sides with the 9" disk grinder and they look good and are ready for heat treat:


    [​IMG]

    New - Here's the Giraffe Bone I bought for these. It's already not enough but I'll have to bring money in to buy more! :)

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    Thanks for taking the time and effort to allow us "minions" a look into the knife makers' world,
     
  3. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Thanks for sharing, interesting to see the process. Can't wait to see the finished product. [beer]
     
  4. Tracy

    Tracy Insatiably Curious Moderator Founding Member

    Thanks for sharing!
     
  5. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I spent so much time at the mill just staring I thought "Hey I'll get the camera!". Pretty much mind numbing stuff as the mill cannot be set to feed very fast when milling D2 - as slow as the power feed will go is how fast it was milling.
     
  6. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I was just wondering, have you tried or considered trying an angle grinder with a cut off whel for the rouph profileing so it would be take less to get from there to profiled? I know it runs fast enouph that it could be a significant problem if they werent going to be heat treated, but since they are, I was curious if there was a reason it would still be problematic?

    I know for my knives (not NEARLY so well finished but so far seem pretty functional for their intended purposes) its how I cut out the blank or profile then use the sander to fine tune the profile and to take it from there. For mine, which are different type and thickness of steel, it seems to make it work well so figured if you hadnt thought of it it might be worth looking into and if you had I might be able to learn the drawbacks to it.
     
  7. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I have a bigger cut-off saw I use to cut the knife blanks apart but for the lengthwise-running cuts I can't really use it. I usually use the bandsaw but I think the blade is toast. I didn't mind it taking so long - it was the first time I milled D2 with no problems! I think I stumbled on to the right speed and feed. :)
     
  8. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    Cool Don. I am going to save those pics in a file and will have a step by step photo album for mine.
     
  9. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Using the mill is definitely not the normal way I profile but any way you use to get to the next-to-last photo will work. Sometimes I'm just crippled up and have to adjust how I do things and it was slow but I'm just glad I had a mill to go to!

    But when you have a lot of extra metal on a 1/4" bar of D2 it's gets old standing at the grinder taking it off so I didn't mind getting a little more milling experience. I normally only mill the bottom of the handle and where it curves down in front - a 1/2" end mill makes that curve perfectly.
     
  10. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I'm taking more pics of the process since everyone liked them. This was specifically to maybe help someone like Mage who's just starting out but if everyone likes a WIP (work in progress) thread then I'll show more pics of how these get finished. I'll add them between the last twp pics to finish the process. [beer]
     
  11. mage2

    mage2 Monkey+++

    well today i went in and did some work, really felt good.
    will be starting a thread later with some pics.
    the blade is cooling from its third tempering cycle after HTing with olive oil
    wee

    i do appreciate any tips or tricks :)
     
  12. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Holy crap - a guy called today out of the blue and ordered 6 knives! 2 of the one that was in Blade and 4 fighters. Man I better get busy! :)
     
  13. BigUglyOne

    BigUglyOne Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Don, Can you scan (or did you already) the article and post it ?
     
  14. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    +1. I tried to find the magazine around here, there weren't any.
     
  15. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Here it is:

    [​IMG]

    It was in color and it was sweet - I never could've paid for this kind of advertising. It was also in last months Tactical Knives.
     
  16. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Added some pics to the original post! I had the wife take pics of me profiling a knife last night but I was blocking the grinder action so we'll try again with that tonight.
     
  17. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    Don, can you post some pics of mine when you put the ironwood handle on it? I am saving all of these in a folder. Also I am going to send you my copy of the Blade Mag article to sign when I send the check for the knife.
     
  18. Valkman

    Valkman Knifemaker Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    You bet! When I get these last 4 ground I'll have 11 to send to HT and one is yours. Then cut out and grind a few more fighters (ground 2 tonight) to make up 20 knives for heat treat and hopefully that'll happen late in the week - if not then next week.

    I wanted to add more pics since you were saving them. :) I got the wife to take more "action shots" tonight!
     
  19. BigUglyOne

    BigUglyOne Monkey+++ Founding Member

    That's a pretty great article ! You should be proud.
     
  20. BuckBall

    BuckBall Woman Hater

    That's a very mean A** looking blade. Wouldn't mind putting it through its paces to see what it will do.
     
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