Knife #12 WIP - Asian Influence??? - PHOTO HEAVY

[Erin Burke]

Well... it has been a few days, and some minimal progress has been made. I figure it's time to post some more shots from the handle process. I am really nervous about this particular handle because there are so many layers/segments to stack and so much potential for gaps. My mind is always visualizing multiple paths several steps into the future to figure out how I might screw something up... and which path will help minimize the chances of that.

So this first photo shows me drilling the tang-hole through the first handle segment. If you look closely, you should be able to see two faint lines drawn on the side of the block. This helps me line up the drill bits for a nice fit. I am still not completely comfortable drilling tang holes - I seem to do a lot of "pecking" to clean up the webs afterward - but so far they seem to be turning out OK.

The photo below shows the first block "test-fit" to the tang.

One area of concern for me was how I would be able to shape multiple segment of the handle as one unit prior to final fit-up... which will involve the very untraditional use of epoxy. I want to be able to maintain alignment even though pieces may be removed and reinstalled multiple times. So, once again, I employ alignment pins. The photo below shows my "pin stock"... small nails from my wife's picture-hanging kit. Just cut off the heads and tips and they work wonderfully. One thing I learned during this process however, is that it is REALLY EASY to shear off those tiny drill bits in copper. I went through at least three of them on the two copper "spacers". And with the tips of the drill bits left stuck in the holes, it was just easier to start a new hole. Needless to say, my alignment holes are not exactly symmetrical, but this is probably a good thing so I can't accidentally install pieces backwards.

I've realized that I don't have any really good photos showing the alignment pins in-place. I'll try to remedy that later.

This next photo shows a step that I talked about previously, but neglected to photograph. After I have rough-milled the slot in the middle handle spacer, I have to clean it up with a file to match the semi-diamond cross section of the tang. As you can see, I clamp the spacer between two pieces of wood in my vise.

Yes... I do bite my fingernails. It's a nasty habit.

Here is a photo with the second spacer rough-fit into position.

 

[Erin Burke]

A Few More Photos for Today

After fitting the middle copper spacer to the tang, my next step was to drill the tang hole into the second wood section. Unlike the tang hole drilled in the first wood section, this will not be a "through" hole... making it slightly more difficult (in my opinion) to fit.

It seems, at this time, like the good Lord is pulling for me on this one. Everything seems to be fitting together OK.
Here is the handle mounted and squared-up (with alignment pins installed). Starting to come together sort-of?:nothing:

 

[opiy]

Erin I don't remember if you said the answer to this before (kinda off topic really) but did you have much prior milling experience or are you figuring it as you go? It all looks great to me but the reason I ask is because it may be something I would like to have in the future but wonder how easy/hard it is to learn to use it.

I can't wait to see the finished product on this. The handle alone will be amazing. Good job and thanks for the WIP.

 

[Erin Burke]

... did you have much prior milling experience or are you figuring it as you go?

Larry,

Milling is completely new to me... no past experience... none... zippo... zilch. And I'm sure that I am doing a zillion things wrong too.:shush: Below are some of my uninformed recommendations: :shortbus:

• Visit with somebody who has experience milling. I didn't do this... and I'm sure is shows. A couple of hours of hands-on instruction goes a long way. I found this out early on when learning how to run my grinder.
• Search the internet. There are a ton of forums out there... sites like LittleMachineShop.com, mini-lathe.com, figNoggle.com, practicalmachinist.com, and tons of others have heaps of info on mills, milling and tools.
• Search and ask questions here and on other knifemaking forums. :helpsmilie:

I posted a couple of threads HERE (which I know you've already seen),HERE, and HERE while I was in the process of deciding on and ordering my X3.

Finally, if you have the money, I HIGHLY recommend installing some DROs on your machine. I feel kind of like it is cheating, but they make everything SO MUCH EASIER. :s11798: I can tell you that the mill is already proving itself to be extremely useful in my shop. I can't imagine how I got along without it for so long.

Good luck brother.

 

[VaughnT]

Hoss, that's going to be one sexy piece. Very inspirational and I can't wait to get back out to the shop to see what I might be able to come up with. Thanks for that!

 

[Erin Burke]

I'm really trying to keep the momentum going on this one. It's easy for me to start thinking about the next project and lose interest in the one that I'm working on. :yawn:

I left off a few posts back with the handle basically squared-up. Now I start rounding it off using my 8" wheel. I didn't catch any photos of this, but it is similar in essence to what I am doing in the second and third photos of THIS POST (except with the 8" wheel as mentioned). Once I get a basic elliptical shape, I start "shoe-shining" the handle with a strip of 120-grit shop roll. It's kind of crazy, but this really begins to blend things into a very natural shape.

Next I start hand sanding to even things up. This is a dirty process and not all that fun. And this photo makes makes me look like Huge-Hands-Hans. :huh:

Here's a quick photo showing the handle partially cleaned up.

Next you get to see my convoluted kashira construction. Try saying that three times fast.

 

[Erin Burke]

Funky Kashira

Back in post #14 I asked if anyone had a chunk of copper of the dimensions to fit my kashira design. Well in a stroke of mad genius (or rabid stupidity... you make the call)... I decided to make a piece that would fit from my existing copper supply. I figured, what the heck... I'll solder a couple of pieces together to make a block that is big enough to work. :huh:

This first pic shows the two blocks after I had milled them to fit together. Kinda cool huh. Mills are awesome.unk:

Before I soldered it together, I milled a slot through the vertical piece. I also drilled and treaded two holes for the screw segments that will help affix the kashira to the handle. Then I soldered it all up. If my written description is lacking here, this next photo should clear things up.

Next I drill corresponding holes into the handle.

And here is the kashira block sitting in place. If you look close you can see the solder line where the blocks are fit together.

Finally, I grind and hand-sand the piece down to shape. It still needs some clean-up, but so far this is working way better than I had thought it would. :sweatdrop::biggrin:

I think that I'll hold off on filing the grooves in the fittings for a bit. So now, unfortunately, comes my least favorite part of knife making... hand sanding the blade. This will probably take me several weeks, as I will likely procrastinate for a while. Did I mention that I don't like hand sanding? :no: :thumbdown:

 

[opiy]

I thought I could see the solder joint but not in these pics. That is good stuff. When you start sanding just think about all of the people in suspense waiting to see what happens next :biggrin:

Edit to add: So how did you connect the scews to the wood. I saw they were in the copper but did you epoxy the screws into the holes you drilled or what? Just trying to understand. Thanks

 

[Erin Burke]

I thought I could see the solder joint but not in these pics.

You need a better monitor. The solder line is visible... but it kind of reminds me of the movie "Tron" for some reason. :les:

So how did you connect the screws to the wood. I saw they were in the copper but did you epoxy the screws into the holes you drilled or what? Just trying to understand. Thanks

You are absolutely correct. The screws are threaded and soldered into the copper and I used Acraglas epoxy to hold them in the handle. This is somewhat similar to what I did on my one-and-only KITCHEN KNIFE.

 

[Diamond G Knives]

Erin
Great looking knife! I really like the way you are working "ouside the box" very nice design also. Cannot wait to see it finished! thanks for sharing this with us as a WIP!

God Bless
Mike

 

[Erin Burke]

So this thread has been really dragging lately. I lay a lot of the blame on hand-sanding. It's just no fun. :49: But if there is one thing that I dislike more than hand-sanding, it's miscarriages. This last few weeks has been a rough one in the Burke household... we were charging along ready for our third child to be born next Feb when things all-of-the-sudden went pear-shaped. :sad: In the past three days, we've been in the ER twice and in surgery once. It seems like things are starting to settle back down today though. I'll be back in the office tomorrow. :31:

I did have a chance to do some work on this knife, and snap a few pictures however.

First I thought I'd post a quick pick of my hand-sanding set-up. It's primitive but it works.

Let me describe what you're seeing here. First, you can see a chunk of African Padouk board clamped in my vise. I have the blade clamped to the board at the tang with the two Irwin clamps. You'll also notice a piece of black leather under the tip of the blade providing support. Sitting next to the blade is a syringe containing some Mobile 1 oil. I thought I'd give this stuff a try after reading some of Frank's posts. It definitely seems to be an improvement over the thick mineral oil that I was using... but some of this may be due to the evolution and improvement of my technique as I get more knives under my belt. My sanding stick is a chunk of aluminum angle bar (approx 12" long).

This next photo is represents an idea that I had that turned out to be a failure. After sanding the blade down to 2000-grit using Rhynowet Red-Line paper, I came up with a plan to polish the blade using green buffing compound on regular white computer paper. I employed the same sanding stick technique that I was using with the sand paper. It seemed like a good idea, but the buffing compound ended up washing out the hamon, so I went back to 2000-grit. I may be imagining it, but going from 2000 to the buffing compound and back may have brought out a tiny bit more detail in the hamon. :les:

I've since done some etching on the blade and am fairly happy with the results. I must admit to stealing some ideas from Nick Wheeler's hamon finishing thread over on BF... mainly the multiple etches with hot vinegar and dish soap rather than dips in diluted FeCl. I don't plan on posting any photos of the etched blade until it's all mounted up and finished... I don't want to ruin the surprise. :shush:

But I will post some more photos of the fittings as they progress. This next photo shows me laying down some guide lines for the groove in the "fuchi". I am using my height gauge and some blue layout dye. The middle line represents the center of the groove... I will use this line as a guide to start the process.

Next I want to create a straight "starter groove" along the center line. I came up with the genius idea :stevef mounting my dremel cut-off wheel in the mill and setting the height match the center line.

After making the starter groove I mount the fitting in my small suction vise (stuck to my one of my granite surface plates) and begin working the groove with files. I start with a tiny triangle file then progress to a small round, then a bigger round, then an even bigger round.

I work with the round files until I get close to the outer scribe lines that I made earlier.

Here's a photo of the fuchi after I finished filing. I will need to follow up with sand-paper to clean it up.

 

[amcardon]

Lookin' great, Erin!

 

[VaughnT]

Dude, that's just awesome. I really need to buy a mill.

Prayers out to the family. Hope all turns out well.

 

[JAWilliams]

Keep the pics coming. Tagging this thread.

 

[Erin Burke]

Tsuba w/ a little frustration (vinegar & bleach)

I've moved on from the copper fittings for a while and decided I'd put a little effort in to spiffing-up the tsuba/guard. So far, I have done a bit of stippling around the oval area where the seppa will sit and have sanded things smooth. While laying in bed a few nights ago, I had an "ah-ha":Idea: moment where it came to me that some mosaic pin might look kind of like a "mon" or japanese crest. I figured that I'd ad some mosaic in a few spots, including the guard. The photo below show me drilling the holes for the pins.

Next is the guard with mosaic pin inserted and JB Weld curing.

Finally, I sanded everything flat and polished it up.

With the brown highlights in the wood and the copper fittings (that will end up with a dark brown patina) I decided that I'd like to artificially darken the 1080 guard. I'd heard of some folks using a mix of vinegar and bleach to develop a nice patina. So that's what I tried... a 50/50 mix of white vinegar and bleach. I took the mix outside (because I'm always concerned about fumes from unknown chemical mixes). Below you can see some before and after shots from this process.

BEFORE

AFTER

The AFTER shot illustrates a VERY FRUSTRATING problem that I am having. The patina is forming very unevenly. In fact, one small strip on the edge of the front face of the guard (easily seen in the photo) will almost not react to the chemicals at all. At first, I had assumed that there was some oil or grease in this area that was inhibiting the process, so I re-sanded, cleaned with acetone, with soap/water, and with rubbing alcohol and tried again... with the exact same results. I have sanded repeatedly. I have rinsed and washed with everything under the sun... still that same spot will not react to the vinegar/bleach. I am using a hooked section of wire to dip the guard in the mix and agitate. Any ideas on what the problem might be and how to resolve it?:confused1:

 

[Erin Burke]

Well, I never really figured out why that one spot on the guard refused to patinate like the rest, but I did eventually get things looking OK by employing a little flitz. The knife is now clamped-up with epoxy. I'm getting closer to finishing this bad-boy.

 

[howiesatwork]

Nice pictorial! Looking good. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Stew]

Nice clamping jig, Erin.

 

[Diamond G Knives]

Erin
Sorry to hear of your Families misfortune. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.


God Bless
Mike

 

[Bennie Lovejoy]

Looking good so far. Thanks for the WIP.