Follow along slipjoint project!!

JD Brown

JD Brown

Active Member
Hey guys , starting a new slipjoint this morning ! This is a Chris Crawford design so all credit goes to him, it’s a great little everyday knife . I’m going to be using PG 01 tool steel, .040 nickel silver liners , 5/32 nickel silver bolsters (that will be worked down a lot thinner) and some pretty 50 year old stag I robbed off an old table carving knife set . I intend to post pics of the process , not every step but hopefully enough you can walk through the build with me !

First few pictures are of all the parts except the bolsters roughed out , ready to start fitting !! IMG_3798.jpegIMG_3799.jpeg
 
de-burring and flattening everything on a small piece of tempered glass, unfortunately my big chunk of micarta I use for layout work has a bow in it and I can’t use it for flattening . I need to find a slab of granite or a bigger piece of glass ! IMG_3800.jpegIMG_3801.jpeg

I roughed out the stag after I split it on a 4x48 belt sander it does a good job but you still have to fine tune the flattened part. I hand sand until I can hold the liner to the scale material with little to no pressure and you can’t see light under it IMG_3802.jpeg
 
Now time to grind the blade, I like to set the spring and blade on the liners when I’m working the spring and tang down to fit so I grind the blade to keep from scratching my liner too awful bad. I’ve got to warn you though my blade grinding skills are the equivalent of whittling a pointy stick with a dull knife , so I use a lot of elbow grease and sandpaper/files to get it were I want it after rough grinding . Don’t pay attention to the hot spot , we’ll call it a momentary lapse of judgement! IMG_3803.jpegIMG_3804.jpegIMG_3805.jpeg
 
opaul said:
Are you using the rear pin hole to put the tension on the spring?
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Yessir ! I will set the tension with the rear of the spring on this one. I leave a little extra meat on top of the spring and liner to be ground flush once the tension is set and spring is heat treated.
 
JD Brown said:
de-burring and flattening everything on a small piece of tempered glass, unfortunately my big chunk of micarta I use for layout work has a bow in it and I can’t use it for flattening . I need to find a slab of granite or a bigger piece of glass !
Click to expand...
Check into places that do countertops for a piece of granite. They always have cut outs from sinks and will usually give you one for free. That's where I got my first one.

Nice WIP.
 
Now it’s time to start on the tang and spring pair up as you can see from the first set up there is going to be a lot of material come off both the spring and tang. IMG_3807.jpegNext up I coat The spring with some tool makers dye, I like this stuff because it seems to get darker when it gets hot when sharpie in just kind of burns off . IMG_3811.jpegAfter the dye has I dried I lay out the knife on my rise/fall indicator again and get the angle I want the blade to rest in the open position and scribe my line to where I want to take the spring down to.IMG_3812.jpegIMG_3813.jpeg
Now it’s time to work the spring to the scribe line and see how much meat I’m going to have to take off the tang to get it all the match up and still have the blade angle I want. Once I get close to my scribe lines I work very slowly and move the blade and spring back and forth between grinder or vise if I’m filing a lot ! IMG_3814.jpegIMG_3809.jpegIMG_3810.jpeg

I move pretty slow in this step and the next because I’ve had to remake several springs and blades by taking off too much material.

Now I have the spring and blade paired up pretty well where I want them it’s time to zero the indicator and I’m going to start working through all the positions ! Just takes time ! IMG_3816.jpeg
 
JD Brown said:
Now time to grind the blade, I like to set the spring and blade on the liners when I’m working the spring and tang down to fit so I grind the blade to keep from scratching my liner too awful bad. I’ve got to warn you though my blade grinding skills are the equivalent of whittling a pointy stick with a dull knife , so I use a lot of elbow grease and sandpaper/files to get it were I want it after rough grinding . Don’t pay attention to the hot spot , we’ll call it a momentary lapse of judgement! View attachment 84193View attachment 84194View attachment 84195
Click to expand...
How did you do the nail nick.
 
Heikki said:
Check into places that do countertops for a piece of granite. They always have cut outs from sinks and will usually give you one for free. That's where I got my first one.

Nice WIP.
Click to expand...
Or go to a granite tile supplier. The give away small samples.
 
Well after a little grinding and a little bit of file work , we have the blade even in all three positions, I left 2 thousandths rise in the half stop and closed position because I cannot apply as much pressure with my thumb as the spring will when loaded. This usually works out to be about flush when the knife is assembled if not then the spring will set a little high and can be ground down with the blade in the open psotion to marry the spring to the knife and blade run up.IMG_3819.jpegIMG_3820.jpegIMG_3821.jpeg
Next is to refine the spring a little bit , you only need enough around the pins to hold the pin, no need for any extra weight in the back. Then heat treat and finally turn the spring into a “spring” !IMG_3822.jpegIMG_3823.jpegIMG_3824.jpegIMG_3825.jpeg
 
Time to set the spring tension, I like a fairly stout spring so using the calipers I lined up the rear of the run up on the blade with the top tip of the spring and moved the spring .050 under the tang. This allows for a decent pull weight.IMG_3826.jpegThen we drilled the rear spring hole in the first liner creating a template for the second liner. IMG_3827.jpegIMG_3828.jpeg

First assembly ! And she walks and talks, need to round the corners of the tang slightly , I will do that before heat treat IMG_3829.jpeg
 
After tearing the first assembly apart I hand sanded the tang of the blade with 600 grit sandpaper to remove those awful precision ground grinding marks and got the majority of the file marks out of the blade, she’s ready for heat treat…. After her oil bath I will temper the blade twice at 375* for an hour long soak each time ..IMG_3833.jpegIMG_3834.jpeg

P.S. I forgot to radius the corners of the tang before I hardened it, no biggie I will do it after tempering
 
Blade is tempering for a total of two hours so now what do we do? We start building the handles ! First I flattened the outside of the liners again to get rid of any burrs around the pin holes, then I cut and squared bolster material and flattened the side that will be soldered to the scale.IMG_3836.jpegIMG_3837.jpegIMG_3838.jpegnext I cleaned everything with acetone to get rid of any grease or oil that may be On the material, I then flattened out some solder and cut it into tiny chunks getting ready to tin both the bolster and scale.IMG_3839.jpegIMG_3840.jpegIMG_3841.jpeg

Next up is the tinning process, low and slow. Burnt flux will not allow solder to flow and you have to sand off what solder did stick and start all over again ! IMG_3842.jpegIMG_3843.jpegIMG_3844.jpeg

After tinning I use a piece of tape to get my bolster line even on both scales, I’ve seen some guys use a file guide for this , if I had one I would probably use it . IMG_3845.jpeg
 
After scribing my line in the solder I marry the bolster to the scale keeping the bolster in place with a little spring clamp. IMG_3847.jpegIMG_3848.jpeg

Then after a little grinding you have something that halfway resembles a bolster , I grind the bolster slow and dip it often because nickel silver takes heat really fast and I don’t want to risk ruing the solder joint!IMG_3849.jpeg
 
Now to drill some pin holes just for a little extra hold on the antler IMG_3852.jpegIMG_3851.jpeg

And start fitting the stag to the liners, this is a slow process , I like to minimize the gap between scale and shoulder of bolster the best I can. IMG_3853.jpegIMG_3854.jpegIMG_3856.jpeg

After fitting I glue them to the liners and let them set for a while to cure , then I grind the rough outline of the liner/scales.
 
I like the put the two halves along with the spring together to grind down the handle scale material, it gives me a little something extra to hold onto. IMG_3858.jpeg

I made a huge miscalculation in the thickness I left the stag and how thick the bolsters were to start. So I ended up grinding off most of the nice stag, and ended up with a polished stag look. Which suits me just fine . I couldn’t thin the stag out anymore from the rear or I would have lost too much width and it wouldn’t have fit on the liners. So polished stag it is…. But since polished stag is a bit boring and seeing as how Scagel is my idol as far as cutlery goes I decided to add a little Scagel tribute with my own flair…. I’m going to put on an arrow head shield scagel style without recessing it into the scales. IMG_3859.jpeg

IMG_3862.jpegI made this arrowhead a few weeks ago while I was working on another project and never used it, I made it from an old silver quarter like the one in the photo. So now to drill the holes , bend the shield and pin the shield to fit …IMG_3863.jpegIMG_3864.jpegIMG_3865.jpeg
 
IMG_3867.jpegEverything laid out , ready for a dry fit test before pinning everything together …

IMG_3868.jpeg
Now it’s time to spin the heads on the spring pins , I hand premed the scale pins so I’m going to leave just a little pin material sticking out of the scales so they actually sit above the scales like the hand peened pins IMG_3872.jpegIMG_3873.jpeg

I must have forgotten to take a photo after I spun the pins, sorry guys..
 
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