MDA Slipjoint WIP

[J S Machine]

I have decided to go ahead with this knife. This will be my second slipjoint. It will be very similar to my first slipjoint WIP, as some of the parts are actually left over from the batches I cut from that.

The story behind this knife is kind of interesting. I hope it raises some interest. Talking to my fire Asst. Chief about MDA the other night, we came up with this idea. Ever year, We collect money by standing in various locations holding a boot. I'm sure many of you have put money in one before..

He suggested that I make a knife, and we raffle off chances to win it. As of right now, we are talking about guaranteed 200 tickets at a cost of around $20 per ticket. If this is done and all the tickets sell, this will raise $4000 for MDA.

What I have decided to use for this knife are some materials I have had around for a while. As many of you know, I don't work very fast, or often for that matter. I had considered making myself another pocket knife to carry because the one I am currently carrying needs to be replaced, but this came up. I will be doing this for the next couple of weeks.

I have chosen a damascus blade from some damascus I got from a member here. He is from Pakistan; or the company is, and I got in on a buy one get one free deal he had going last year. I actually bought four bars of this stuff. Whether or not the stuff is any good was hotly debated and the thread was actually closed because of it, but I chose to pull the trigger. Fortunately, I got mine but I just haven't used it yet. Maybe no issues will arise with it.

The handle scales will be fossil mammoth tooth. Maybe not the best choice for scales, but let's see what we can do to make them work. The other parts will be a mix of 410SS and I think the spring is AEBL. my first blade and spring were AEBL and I have had no problems with it. Seems some are unsure about AEBL, I'm not sure why.

We start with some simple materials. Here we have the billet of damascus with the blade drawn out, the liners, and the scales. They are glued to Black fiber spacer material for support. The mammoth tooth came from Charles Turnage, and he actually recommends that you do that to stabilize it more-

In this second picture I have cut the blade out with a portable band saw. My saw is set up where I can stand it up and use it like a vertical pedestal saw-

Here I am starting the notch in the back of the blade where the spring will rest. It is very critical that this stays square and straight, and the two need to match up perfectly when finished-

Making the cut with a file-

After realizing that I wasn't far enough in, I cut in about twice the depth. It is now the right depth for the blade and spring pair. Here we are cutting it at two different holds in the vise-

And here they are matched up. These still have to be touched up to fit perfect but this is close-

More to come, Stay tuned

 

[BRad704]

Ok, you have my attention...

 

[McClellan Made Blades]

Lookin good little brother!!! I just don't know how you keep making these things, I was all geared up to give a liner lock a chance, then the screws which were about a step above microscopic for my eyes and looked like King Kong holding an umbrella in my hands, the thoughts that ran through my head were mostly of the 4 letter variety!! See my hands were measured as 2X, I didn't know there was such a thing, I just knew that I couldn't ever find gloves to wear unless they streched, A LOT! So I stuck that idea on the back burner, mostly because I LOVE making fixed blades, big honking CHOPPERS!!!! With a lot of flow and grace, is what I'm striving for, I may have the design I've been looking for nailed down. That will be my first "Return of the Big Daddy", knife, after that, I'm going to explore all kinds of everything! AND(!!!!!) I'm trying to tak John here, to get together with me and work on a collaboration....<crickets chirping>, I guess I'll have to bribe him or something like that, we'll see. Last night went well, and I shoul dbe finishing up several loose ends tonight, the only thing I need to make my forge work is 4 bolts, the psi gauge I p/u at Blade won't fit, the needle valve I p/u at Blade is for brass tubing, of which I have none, or the tools to use it, so I'm back to the drawing board on that stuff, I'll still need to get a pyrometer, and the rest of that stuff so I can test the efficiency, but as far as running, it will be fired up tonight after testing, I'll keep y'all posted on how it goes, Rex

 

[bootstrap]

I think i need to see more.

 

[J S Machine]

Rex I wasn't planning on doing this project, but it just kind of popped up and I couldn't deny doing it. Charity work is for a good cause brother. We may drop the ticket prices down a bit, not sure yet. I will be getting in touch with the Coop guy who does the "Sharp by Coop" photography, because we need to get some good pictures of this thing once we are finished. I've seen his name on several high end knives. Anybody who knows how I can find this guy or get in touch with him please let me know.

Now, we get in to the early stages of slipjoint building, which are a total pain in the rear lol. I'm serious, I just realized why I didn't pick right up and build a second one after I did the first ha. Anyway, fussing aside, here we go. Last night we were left with this. It is very close to what the closed blade and spring assembly will look like. I have to constantly remind myself to not take off too much material while everything is still soft, because after heat treating we still have to clean up the edges and all.

Let's shape the blade profile a bit.

Be sure to keep it cool as you grind. You are working with a material that will work harden very easily and you don't want to destroy the metal. Always keep a cup of water or coffee can of water near by and dip it in often.

A word on keeping things square: Like I mentioned in my other WIP, it is an absolute necesity to keep everything square. If you do not do this, it will throw things out of whack down the road that will end up killing your momentum and maybe even your projects. You don't want that, so try to make good practices about checking your equipment and doing the best you can a habit. A little work now in this regard will save alot of heartache later. As I mentioned in my other WIP, I may not always show the practices that I take and the things I do to ensure that everything is correct, but I do.

Now, lets drill the hole for the pivot. You need to take a center punch or a sharp tap or something and mark it before you drill in any material, especially if using a drill press where the work can move. In a vise on a mill table is different; but in this situation it is essential to keep the drill from walking. Be sure you are in the right place too, because if not the drill will follow the mark you made and then you are in trouble..I always center drill first, and in this case I ream this hole. It needs to be true, so reaming is a great practice. Many people use bushings here, but you don't have to. I couldn't find my pics of my center drill and reamer, but here are the tap (used a center punch) and drilling pictures

This pic is me working the notch in the back of the blade. I also have to do the spring this way to ensure they are exactly square and I get a good fit up. There is a granite surface plate under the sandpaper, and the piece I am holding the blade against is a hardened and ground (square) punch block from work. The punches are what was needed and now in service, and this part gets scrapped. These blocks make good small square blocks for work like this.

Now we can mount the spring and blade up in the fixture and start checking for zero. To do this, I first drill a hole where the rear pin goes in the spring down into the movable piece in the fixture. It is the piece that has "top" and "pivot" written on it. I have drilled this thing so many times it is starting to look like swiss cheese. You can also see where I have circled some holes with blue sharpie to keep up with which ones I am using. Once you have the rear pin hole drilled, place a dummy pin in the hole and move it up to where it is horizontal and under the indicator plunger. Then when you have your blade and spring mated together and fitting perfect, hold them that way and punch through the tang hole into the piece underneath. You may have to hold this and get somebody else to punch it for you, that way it is right. Mess this part up and you are screwed. Once you get the pivot hole drilled (and reamed in this case) you can begin the job of zeroing in all three positions - full open, half stop, and closed.

More on this-

This is a direct quote from Mr Bill Vining's post on how to make a Texas Toothpick. This is the absolute best way I have ever seen this explained and he has permitted me to include this in this tutorial. Thanks Bill

The most difficult part of making a slipjoint is getting the geometries of the tang and spring to work in harmony. Many custom makers are designing their slipjoints so the backspring is flush with the back of the knife when it is opened, closed and at the half stop. The illustration below shows how the dimensions of the tang works in conjunction with the backspring. For illustration purposes, the dotted lines are for reference only. The distances from lines A, B and C to the center of the pivot must all be the same in order to obtain a flush backspring in all 3 positions.Dimension “A” should be approximately 10% longer than dimension “B”. This is to keep the blade from extending beyond the end of the backspring when the blade is rotated.

I could not have explained that better myself.

You must remove material slowly and carefully, and over time you will get a perfect fit in all three positions. Take it slow, because it is easy to overshoot. Trust me

First here is a pic of me taking of some material from the half stop position

Then, Zero in all three positions

In these last two pictures for tonight, I have worked the blade profile to better fit inside the spring in its closed position. You will see what I mean when we get the spring and liners all mounted up together.

 

[McClellan Made Blades]

John,
Bro' I wasn't bustin your chops about this knife!! No WAY!!! One of the many reasons I like you, you're an anomaly of men your age! Not many guys your age ( or many others) would consider anything like this, quite noble of you! I aint going anywhere, whenever you have time or whenever you would like to do some forging, just give me a call! Sad thing is that the boys are going to be bummed, they wanted to see the Vette again!!!

Just give me a holler whenever you get time or just want to hang out in the shop with me, guaranteed a good time!
Talk to you soon, Rex

 

[J S Machine]

I just realized that in the last couple of pictures, the rear pin on the spring already had the hole drilled. The reason for this is because I grabbed this spring from another project I had started but didn't complete. It had already been cut and partly profiled, so this is the reason it was so far along to begin with.

I found my decent digital camera, so the pics from here on out ought to be more clear. I had been taking the others with my cell phone.

When we left the project the other night, it was time to start working on putting the holes in the liners. This must be done where both sets of holes are exactly the same in each liner. If not, the chances of getting the holes in exactly the same place on each liner will be a shot in the dark, and cause the pins to not be square when the knife is assembled and it can actually throw the blade out of alignment. This happened on my first slipjoint, and was corrected with a new set of liners done the right way, after I discovered the problem. The best way I have found to do this is to super glue both liners together and then super glue the back spring to the set of liners.

Here the liners have been glued together, and a pin placed in the pivot hole to maintain that placement

A prior placement of the blade and spring on the liners will ensure that the spring is in the right place and is clear of everything before it is glued

Once the backspring is glued down, we can drill the rear pin hole through the backspring into the liners

After you have done this, you can remove the spring from the liners. I use a flat ground piece of tooling metal that has a wedge to seperate them. You will need the spring to be seperate from the liners to do the next step. once you have cleaned off any remaining glue which was left from where the spring was glued to the liners, place the rear dummy pin in the the spring through the liners. place the pivot dummy pin in as well, and set up the blade and spring where they will be in the open position. hold down the spring firmly, and remove the blade. Once you have done this, bring the spring down towards the pivot about 1/32". You don't need too much here. This move will create the tension you feel when you open and close the blade. Too much and you will have a blade that can be dangerous to open / not a pleasure to open, and too little will cause an unsufficient lock in the open position. The good news is that if you don't have enough tension, you can always bend the spring a tad. This is a whole 'nother deal though, and I won't get into that here because this step should work out. If not, pm me and I will walk you through the steps of bending the spring to regain the needed tension.

Drilling the spring middle hole with the spring moved down and glued in place

And then after this, you can seperate the spring again and then the liners. Here you can see the tool I was talking about I made to seperate the liners

Once you have everything seperated, you can then clean up all of your burrs from drilled holes and excess hardened glue on the surface of the liners and spring. Then you can pin it together. I usually put the rear pin in, and then the front and then you usually have to tap the middle pin in because it is now under tension. Care should be taken to not open and close the knife repeatedly, because the spring is not hardened and relieved at this time. You can easily bend the spring in the opposite direction from which you want it to provide tension, or loosen up the tension it does have and render it too loose. The only reason to pin right here is to see where the liners are in relation to the back spring and grind the liners down to it.

Pinned up

In this picture you can see where the blade material is actually about 5/32" (.156" +/-) and the back spring material is about 1/8" (.125" +/-). The blade will have to be surface ground down to match the spring.

Now we start rough grinding the liners down to where they almost meet the spring and are almost to what they will be in final assembly

After this is done, we can take everything apart, clean up all the burrs and lay it out

When we reassemble the cleaned up knife, we see what we have accomplished through the roughing in process

Then we can start working on the bolsters. I am using 410SS here because I am trying to use it up. The liners are also 410. Here I am squaring up the material. First step is to grind the back of the bolster material to get it flat. Once that is flat, place the material ground side down and square off one of the edges. This will produce the edge that will face the liner material, and the bolster will now be square with the liner when installed. Always be extremely careful when holding things with your fingers and grinding them. It is easy to slip and grind some of your fingerprints off. This usually produces a burn that sucks pretty bad and is an adequate cuss word initiator. Never wear gloves while grinding either. Never have long hippy hair and lean down close to the grinder. Never wear jewelry: rings, necklaces..

Here I am taking my tap and center punching the bolster on the side opposite the one I ground. You want the ground (true) side down on the drill press table, that way the hole will be perpendicular to the bolster

Next step will be drilling the bolsters.

 

[McClellan Made Blades]

Lookin Good Little Bro!!!
I'm waiting for you to get to the Mammoth tooth, I LOVE the stuff...well, to look at, I'm a big ole chicken when it comes to buying and attempting to use the stuff! Too expensiive for my wallet, anyway! Now if I ever find all the materials to do a framed type of fixed blade then I may reconsider, something a little more expensive for handles....maybe...I just know how many pieces of expensive wood (for me) I've gone through, which wasn't near as expensive as Mammoth tooth or Mammoth Ivory, my two favorite handles. I guess if I ever get to selling mine more regularly, I'll be a little more confident and can afford it,
Keep it coming, it's looking great. when you get done with that one, maybe we can work on a liner lock and you can teach me some of this stuff we'll have to make some tools so I can hold to the screws!!Thanks Bro, Rex

 

[J S Machine]

The mammoth tooth is super fragile, so the two smaller pins on either side of the scales will be screws. Not sure exactly how I'm going to address the pin for the center of the back spring yet. That particular pin is peened (spelling?) and that could cause a crack in the tooth. I have something up my sleeve..

 

[Keith Willis]

Looks good,can't wait to see it finished.

God bless,Keith

 

[J S Machine]

Glad to see some replies to this. I started to put it in the main section of the forum, but I figured it might get moved here anyway. I wish some more people would chime in.

 

[Sticks]

Rex,

I have been following the tutorial and want to thank you for putting it together. I have been wanting to try a slip joint for some time, but I have limited equipment. No surface grinder or mill. But it seems that a surface grinder may not be necessary if I start with flat ground stock for the blade and spring. Am I correct with that assumption? I was thinking if I hand sand the pieces they should stay acceptably flat and the same thickness. I'm more concerned about "relieving" the liners. Maybe you'll address that issue as the tutorial progresses. That is whether the liners can be relieved without a mill.

I had a few other questions. Your picture of the indicator plunger shows the guage fixed to a frame. Did you fabricate the frame? I've seen the guages for sale but only as stand alone items. Also the temororary pins are essential. Did you make that set or are they something I could buy?

Are some steels better than others for the spring? For example I have some 1/8" flat ground CPM 154 that I would like to use for the blade and spring, would that work?

Thanks agian for the tutorial,

Jay

 

[McClellan Made Blades]

The mammoth tooth is super fragile, so the two smaller pins on either side of the scales will be screws. Not sure exactly how I'm going to address the pin for the center of the back spring yet. That particular pin is peened (spelling?) and that could cause a crack in the tooth. I have something up my sleeve..

With the back spring, couldn't that be a hidden pin? I have no idea, these things make me use dirty words!!! You're doing a fine job! Keep it coming! Rex

 

[J S Machine]

Rex,

I have been following the tutorial and want to thank you for putting it together. I have been wanting to try a slip joint for some time, but I have limited equipment. No surface grinder or mill. But it seems that a surface grinder may not be necessary if I start with flat ground stock for the blade and spring. Am I correct with that assumption? I was thinking if I hand sand the pieces they should stay acceptably flat and the same thickness. I'm more concerned about "relieving" the liners. Maybe you'll address that issue as the tutorial progresses. That is whether the liners can be relieved without a mill.

I had a few other questions. Your picture of the indicator plunger shows the guage fixed to a frame. Did you fabricate the frame? I've seen the guages for sale but only as stand alone items. Also the temororary pins are essential. Did you make that set or are they something I could buy?

Are some steels better than others for the spring? For example I have some 1/8" flat ground CPM 154 that I would like to use for the blade and spring, would that work?

Thanks agian for the tutorial,

Jay

Jay,

On your availability of equipment..A mill and a surface grinder are definitely pluses for this kind of work, but not all of us have them. I have access to a mill and surface grinder at my day job, because I work in a tool room. I have to do any stuff like this off of the clock though. At home, I have adapted a rotary table to work in a drill press, but it doesn't work like it should. I will detail that step in the next picture and process update. A mill will be my next purchase, but at about $900 it will be a while.

As far as surface grinding stock, you can do it with a disk sander, although tedious. You could even use a belt sander, just as long as it has a flat platen behind it. I imagine the process would cause some burnt fingers though with the metal heating up fast.

The guage (or check fixture as I call it) is something I made, and put the indicator in. If I am not mistaken, there is somebody here on the forum who can make those for anybody interested in buying them, but I don't know who it is. The small dummy pins I have are simply drill shanks with the flutes cut off and then a point sharpened on them. The three fancy ones are some others I made just to be eaiser to hold.

I never have been able to get a clear answer on spring material. Some steels are better suited than others, but I am not sure what works best and what to avoid. Maybe someone can come in and tell us more about this.

 

[J S Machine]

With the back spring, couldn't that be a hidden pin? I have no idea, these things make me use dirty words!!! You're doing a fine job! Keep it coming! Rex

You are a flipping genious Rex. That's it! peen the pin there to the liners, grind flush, and install the handle scales over it!

The scales will be held with screws and the liners tapped so this will work!

 

[Josh Dabney]

JS

Following along buddy.

Detailed, intelligent, clear WIP with lotsa pics ! Keep up the good work !

-Josh

 

[Bruce Bump]

I just found this one. Nice work so far. Anxious to see how it comes out. Dont worry people are tuning in just not posting replies. You've got 5 stars.

 

[J S Machine]

First thing to do for this update was to drill the bolsters. I had marked them with a center in the last post. Place the ground side down (to maintain squareness) and drill. I ream the pivot holes in the pivot bolsters. Hold the little pieces with something besides your fingers. I use a pair of bent needle nose pliers. They seem to do ok for this task.

Tonight we are going to relieve the liners. This step is cruicial because it keeps the tang of the blade from dragging on the liners when the knife is opened and closed. I do this a little different than most, because I don't have a mill. I have a rotary table, which I highly recommend for this step. I had to pick this up when I made the first slipjoint.

The concept is simple with the rotary table. The table basically moves in a cirlcle and creates perfect arcs or radius cuts, provided you do the math or figuring to get them. The basic way to use one is to find the center of the rotary table with the spindle, clamp the part on to the rotary table (which is clamped to the bed, or drill press table in the case) and go from there. Whatever part you are building will have a center of radius defined, or you may have to figure this. Once you have this number, move the bed in either the X or Y direction the calculated ammount. Plunge the tool down into the part, and turn the crank on the rotary table so that the surface spins while the tool cuts and makes the radius. That's about the best way I know how to explain it...

In this case, we don't have an X or a Y bed movement, so I simply slide the rotary table to the side (in what would be the X so to speak) and clamp it down.

As stated in the other slipjoint WIP, a drill press IS NOT the machine to do this on, but I don't have a mill. A drill press is not designed for sideways loads to be placed on the spindle, and because of this it chatters and bounces all over the place. Making an accurate cut is at best a lucky strike, but you can do it with a little patience. An endmill is not supposed to be used in a drill chuck. They are designed to be placed in holders or collets which will spin them as true as possible. While the precision drill chuck I have on mine may center the endmill correctly (or better than a keyed chuck), the sideways play in the spindle renders everything a moot point anyway lol. The other issue is that there is no lock on the Z axis. You can bring the spindle down with the handle, but there is no lock that will hold the tool at a certain depth. In this situation, you must bring the tool down and touch very carefully (like removing a little material at a time - .001" or so) and repeating the process untill you get to about .010" deep. If you try to take that whole ammount all at once, it will simply bounce all over the place and probably throw something out anyway. A mill would take whatever you want; but remember, we are in the trusty drill press..

So we have the liners here with the places that need to be removed marked

Here the rotary table is sitting on the drill press table, and I am pointing to the center pivot pin with another drill. This pin comes up out of the center of the rotary table, and the pivot hole in the liner locates on it. This way, when I make the cut, I am revolving around that center pin.

Here we are clamped down and cutting

And the finished liners, after being rubbed faced down on a stone to remove the burrs

 

[McClellan Made Blades]

You are a flipping genious Rex. That's it! peen the pin there to the liners, grind flush, and install the handle scales over it!

The scales will be held with screws and the liners tapped so this will work!

FINALY!!! Someone recognised that I'm a fart smeller...err I mean smart feller!!!
No problem John, BTW, you do know I have a Mill...dontcha'?
You can use it ANYTIME!!! It's not the best and getting in worse shape not being used a lot, it's a Harbor Freight Mini Mill, suitable for the things I do, mostly guard slots, and other tickering around stuff I do, I will say it's probably not square, like most of my machines, something I hope you can help me with one day.....

 

[J S Machine]

Yesterday at work during lunch I got a chance to surface grind the blade. I got it down to about .115", which matches the spring thickness. Still more will be taken off, but this gets them the same thickness for the time being.

Last night I went through the process of soldering the bolsters to the liners. This is one of the hardest parts of making a slipjoint, but with a little patience you can do it. First thing I have done is put all of the materials I will need right here on the work bench. We have the spring and blade (not needed, but hanging out here anyway), the liners, the bolsters, the flux, the metal clamps, the stone, the socks (retired holey socks - washed - used for shop rags), and a couple drills. Also needed but not pictured is the solder and the brushes used for flux.

I don't have pics for every single step of this process but I will explain. This is tedious and you really need to concentrate on getting it right. Sometimes I forget the pictures. The first step is to be sure everything is clean. You can use alcohol, nail polish remover, wax and grease remover, gas, err..wait..maybe not gas! ..but you get the idea. Clean up the bolsters and liners really well. This step is probably not necessary given the heat the parts will encounter, but I think it could be so I do it. Second step is coating things that you don't want solder to stick to with lead - pencil lead. Just take a sharp pencil and rub it on the parts you don't want solder to stick to. In this case, the main thing is the dummy pins or drill that you will use to pass through the bolster and liner during the soldering process.

Next you need to prime everything up with flux. If you have never done this it is best to do it one step at a time. Just do one bolster and once you have it move to the others. It's easy to mess up if you try to do much at once. Be sure you are on the correct side of the liner before you start the next step. You don't want to accidentally solder to the wrong side. To get them primed up, take one of the liners and put a drop of flux on it. after this, briefly hold it over a propane torch flame. As soon as it starts to get a little warm and boil, pull it away and brush the flux around a tad and be sure it covers the whole entire bolster area. it won't hurt to stick it back up over the flame and heat it a little more; just don't boil it all off and create a crispy mess. Easy to get a little overzealous here.

Once you get them primed up, take your propane torch and hold some solder over the liners in the primed area. Drop a few drops of solder there about the size of a bb. Hold the liner up over the torch flame and slowly melt the solder. Take your time here because there is no need to hurry. You can usually maneuver the liner up and down in such a way that the molten solder will "flow" right to where it covers the whole bolster contact area you have just primed. Once you ge the solder warm and flowing, you don't have to continue to hold it over the flame. If it starts to harden up while you are trying to get it over this area, briefly stick it back up over the flame to warm it back up and get it moving again. Sometimes you can take a brush or something and "spread" it around to get over the whole area. A brush will usually melt in the presence of molten solder so don't plant the brush in it. Just quickly touch it and pull it away. If the brush melts in the solder it will leave contaminants in there that we don't need. Once you get it evenly spread, try to hold the liner flat and level so that the solder evenly settles in all of the contact area as it cools and hardens up.

Now, you need to prime up the bolsters in exactly the same way you did the liners. Put a little drop of flux on them, hold them under the torch flame until they start to boil a tad, and spread the flux around until it completely covers the contact area. Also, be sure you are on the back side of these which you had previously ground. Here are the lineres with the pivot ends tinned and the bolsters that have been primed sitting above them

Take one of the bolsters, and place it on the liner over the tinned end. be sure the edge of the bolster that you ground is facing the scale area. How these are orientated in relation to the liner is a matter of personal preference, but whatever you do, be sure both sides match each other in the end. If they don't they will stick out like a sore thumb. Place the pin or drill you have coated with pencil lead through the hole, and clamp up the hole assembly. I use these two metal clamps and also needle nose vise grips occasionally.

Now, add a drop of flux that will fall down in between the clamped up assembly. Take this whole asembly and either hold it above the torch evenly or take the torch and heat the assembly evenly, whichever is easiest for you. Once it is hot enough, the whole thing will flow together, and the bolster will lay flat all at once down to the liner. You will see the solder squeeze out of all the edges and the parts will bond. Take the whole assembly and slowly pour some water over it. This will cool it faster than just sitting it down on the bench, and freeze the parts where they need to be. Be sure you do this before you remove the clamps. Once you put as much heat as will be needed into this, the solder will not harden for a little while because of the retained heat within the parts, so if you take the clamps off, the bolsters are just going to settle wherever since the solder will still be molten. Very important to clamp firmly, check after the bond takes place that the parts are where they should be, and then cool them with water. If you do this, you greatly reduce the chance of messing up. I've had one bond incorrectly before and it is more trouble than it's worth to have to reheat and pull the pieces apart to do the process over again.

Then, you have your first bolster bonded to the a liner

Once you complete the process for all four, you have this

More to come.