Large run of Chefs

Alden Cole

Alden Cole

Well-Known Member
I'm about to do a run of a lot (for me) of 8in chef knives (maybe 50) this summer before I head out of state to college. I'm thinking about using NJ steel barons water jet service. I'm not familiar enough with CAD to send them a dxf file, so am planning on sending them a sketch and pattern. Anything I should know before sending the pattern, getting the steel cut? I'm thinking of having all the pin holes spotted (do they do that?) and a weight relief/epoxy slot cut out in the tangs.

Also, I may be getting the cart in front of the horse, but am wanting to think this through before I start. I've been making covers from cardboard and wrapping them in painters tape. I want something nicer than that for these knives. I know John Wilson makes kydex covers for his kitchen knives and like that idea. Does the kydex scratch the blades? I would think that would hurt more on a high polish chef knife than a "tactical knife". Has anyone used those plastic or cardboard sleeves or zippered cases? I like the idea of the zippered cases, they and the kydex covers seem classier than the sleeves. Thoughts? Thanks,
Alden
 
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I had a friend of mine convert my patterns to dxf. I literally used only my phone for my part.

I made a master knife blank, and traced that with a single, fine and dark pencil line on a clean crisp page in the sketch book. I used the "scan" feature on my iPhone to take a pdf pic of that. I sent that to him and they all imported perfectly. A single dimension will allow it to be scaled perfectly. To my understanding, NJSB can do the same.

I say get the holes jetted. Unless the tolerance for size is outside of what you're able to work around.
 
Thank you, I will have to ask a friend if he can do that for me.

Do you know what tolerances the pin holes would hold? I'll be using 3/32 pinstock which really doesn't take to long to drill out, esp. once spotted I would think.
 
My local guy is .005", or less usually.

I'm thinking some here have used NJSB. Perhaps they'll chime in with specifics.

ETA: that's +/-, so .010" total.
 
tkroenlein said:
My local guy is .005", or less usually.

I'm thinking some here have used NJSB. Perhaps they'll chime in with specifics.

ETA: that's +/-, so .010" total.
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So, if the holes are too large, probably doesn't matter. If too small, I could either drill out the blank or take a few swipes on the four foot rod of pinstock with sandpaper. Didn't know whether spotting would be cheaper than cutting the whole hole, I really don't know anything about water jets. Thanks!
 
I have them water jet blanks for me. I sent templates out of 1/4” plywood and they did the cad work. 8 designs cost me $90 for the cad work.
Their cuts are not perfectly square by about .004” on 1/16” thick blank. I have them cut 1/8” pin holes and they are slightly under sized. I just drill them out to 1/8” or 3/16”.
I can’t cut blanks out for what they charge. Let alone drill all the holes. Any design I plan to add to my lineup will be sent to NJSB to have water jetted.
 
Gene Kimmi said:
I have them water jet blanks for me. I sent templates out of 1/4” plywood and they did the cad work. 8 designs cost me $90 for the cad work.
Their cuts are not perfectly square by about .004” on 1/16” thick blank. I have them cut 1/8” pin holes and they are slightly under sized. I just drill them out to 1/8” or 3/16”.
I can’t cut blanks out for what they charge. Let alone drill all the holes. Any design I plan to add to my lineup will be sent to NJSB to have water jetted.
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Thank you.
 
I don't have much useful info to add... BUT I will say that learning CAD isn't too terribly hard (as long as you don't mind sitting in front of a computer for long periods).

My go-to at the moment is Fusion 360. Since you're about to go to college you'll be able to get the educational license. That's a big deal. When I had an educational license, I was able to access all of the paid features for free. That includes their cloud services like running simulations.

Anyway, it's certainly worth learning, even if you aren't into 3D printing or CNC stuff.

I fabricated a transom motor mount for a small boat the other day. I just drew it in CAD, printed it out, then cut the template out with a plasma cutter.

It saved a TON of time.

Frankly, for a 2D profile, I'm hesitant to say this since I'm not formally trained in CAD, if you send me a drawing of your knife, I could probably make the CAD drawing for you. Free, of course. It wouldn't take very long.

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52 Ford said:
I don't have much useful info to add... BUT I will say that learning CAD isn't too terribly hard (as long as you don't mind sitting in front of a computer for long periods).

My go-to at the moment is Fusion 360. Since you're about to go to college you'll be able to get the educational license. That's a big deal. When I had an educational license, I was able to access all of the paid features for free. That includes their cloud services like running simulations.

Anyway, it's certainly worth learning, even if you aren't into 3D printing or CNC stuff.

I fabricated a transom motor mount for a small boat the other day. I just drew it in CAD, printed it out, then cut the template out with a plasma cutter.

It saved a TON of time.

Frankly, for a 2D profile, I'm hesitant to say this since I'm not formally trained in CAD, if you send me a drawing of your knife, I could probably make the CAD drawing for you. Free, of course. It wouldn't take very long.

Sent from my Champion Forge using Tapatalk
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Thanks for the offer, I may take you up on it.
 
Fusion 360 used to be the "goto" 3D cad program. I spent years with 2D autoCAD (electrical schematics, loopsheets, etc) and Fusion just came hard for me. I've recently started with FreeCAD, a totally free program and you save your work on your computer, none of this "cloud" stuff. It has a lot of similarity to Fusion, but I stumbled across some tutorials on YT that just seemed to click for me.
 
KenH said:
Fusion 360 used to be the "goto" 3D cad program. I spent years with 2D autoCAD (electrical schematics, loopsheets, etc) and Fusion just came hard for me. I've recently started with FreeCAD, a totally free program and you save your work on your computer, none of this "cloud" stuff. It has a lot of similarity to Fusion, but I stumbled across some tutorials on YT that just seemed to click for me.
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Free cad? If I am going to be a cad, I expect to be compensated.
 
I use nanocad for all of my knife patterns. Redbeardops on YouTube has a decent tutorial that will get you started.

After you get them plasma cut, who will be doing the heat treat for you? I'm assuming you're sending out for that as well, correct?
 
Goot said:
I use nanocad for all of my knife patterns. Redbeardops on YouTube has a decent tutorial that will get you started.

After you get them plasma cut, who will be doing the heat treat for you? I'm assuming you're sending out for that as well, correct?
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Thanks, I do have nanocad, just haven't really used it and am presently incapable of sending off a file that will be used to blank out my summer's work. I would like to get good enough at it to do so, but am unsure whether I will be able to or not, again, probably rushing things. I'll be heat treating them myself.
 
I have done only one multi piece knife design (30 units), I used the folks at NJ Steel Barron's waterjet service and was very pleased.
 
The blanks came in the other day, they look pretty good! Already started grinding up my hand (I'm reshaping some of the blades). Drilled the pin holes out to 3/32 and chamfered them like I normally do to prevent stress risers. Took probably fifteen minutes to do 26. Question: Do I have to chamfer the slot edges and clean up the waterjet cut marks pre-ht? Getting pretty excited. Thanks 52 Ford for getting a drawing made up!waterjet3.jpgwaterjet2.jpgwaterjet1.jpg
 
Alden Cole said:
The blanks came in the other day, they look pretty good! Already started grinding up my hand (I'm reshaping some of the blades). Drilled the pin holes out to 3/32 and chamfered them like I normally do to prevent stress risers. Took probably fifteen minutes to do 26. Question: Do I have to chamfer the slot edges and clean up the waterjet cut marks pre-ht? Getting pretty excited. Thanks 52 Ford for getting a drawing made up!View attachment 80829View attachment 80830View attachment 80831
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Glad I could help! Those blades look nice.

Some advice - grind the blades, NOT your hands. :)

Edit: addressing your question... I'd clean them up now. A carbide burr in a rotary tool aught to make fairly quick work of it.

The key to deburring and chamfering with a rotary tool is to ONLY climb cut and to use light pressure, that way the cutter doesn't dig into the part. If you need to take off more material, take a second pass. Don't try to remove all the material in one go.

0ea538eb13f635add464809743b5c329.jpg
 
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I realized I didn't give any reason for why I'd clean up the slots pre-HT...

I have 2 reasons.

1 - It'll be much easier while the metal is still still fairly soft.

2 - You'll be eliminating stress risers that make cause issues during HT.



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52 Ford said:
I realized I didn't give any reason for why I'd clean up the slots pre-HT...

I have 2 reasons.

1 - It'll be much easier while the metal is still still fairly soft.

2 - You'll be eliminating stress risers that make cause issues during HT.



Sent from my Champion Forge using Tapatalk
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For those of us who are not experienced knife makers, could you explain what "stress risers" are?

Thanks. :)
 
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