S30V, 304SS and Mammoth Ivory Fighter WIP

[Frank Hunter]

Alright, here's my first WIP for the forum. This is a knife commissioned by one of my friends who also owns some of my earlier work, so I'm going to really try to knock it out of the park for him. If there are any missing photos or content as I post this up over the coming days I am sorry, remembering a photo for each step is something I'm still getting used to. There aren't any particularly tricky parts to this pattern of mine, just making sure all the gaps are tight. Comments, questions, and criticism are welcome.

I'm starting with a .207-.227 bar of S30V that measures out an actual thickness of .200 prior to any descaling. If it was any thicker, I would taper the tang and have in the past with some built on .270 and .312 steel. With the 7" blade of this pattern and this overall gauge of the bar, the balance will be right at the first finger under the guard and give an appropriate handle thickness when I finish it up.



I did a quick outline of my pattern onto the steel to get approval on the overall shape before I started cutting into it. This one has a 3" sharpened swedge requested so I laid everything out with a narrow sharpie to get started. The shop is unusually clean.



The mammoth ivory handle scales, from usaknifemaker. These are a very nice light caramel set that's matched well in color and very solid. I'm shooting for a similar color Kydex for the sheath and the leather retainer paddle will be dyed as close as I can get it as well. I like the color to all be either very similar, or directly contrasting. As I'm mitering the bolsters to pin the ends of the scales down, this grip is getting six small pins at the perimeter instead of Corby fasteners run up the middle. With mammoth, stag, and some woods the larger heads can be disruptive and hard to finish clean and flush if you're trying to save any of the surface character. With this smooth set it's not so much of an issue but if this pair had a lot of bark it would be even more important.



Now for profiling the blade out of the raw S30V. I've left the mill scale on for this part. I color the surface with a large marker and scribe tight to my pattern. This gives me a very tight go-no-go line of just a couple thousands of an inch so it will match previous ones built to the pattern. I could possibly optimize my stock more than this but have another knife coming out of the same bar that let me rotate and shuffle things around and kill two birds with one stone.



I do this the hard way as I don't have a metal cutting band saw yet. I nip off any large sections with cut off wheel on my 4 1/2" grinder, then grind to the line using my work rest and backing platen on the KMG. This is dirty and not efficient for thicker stock but I have to still invest in better tooling. You tear up the cold-roll platens into a grooved mess and your belt will occasionally explode. I use a push stick, welding glove, and a face shield, running the belt off the edge of the platen to clean up inside corners. I currently make this knife with a large top bolster/guard that's pinned from the sides instead of slotted and slid up from the pommel like a bowie as my first ones. That is a miserable fitment job with drilled overlapping holes and filing the interior square, especially without a milling machine on 304 stainless, so I do it this way now with the large top bolster. That is why the pattern doesn't show the guard protrusions the finished blade has, I scribe those in and try to keep them uniform. I'll make a new pattern reflecting the change at some point. Here's the finished work after awhile and some stainless swarf all over everything.



I lay out my bolster locations using a 1" bar width for the top guard and a 1 1/4" chunk for the pommel. You have to remember to allow extra material from your handle scales to account for the miter cut. It sucks to think "Great, 2 7/8" inch long scale inserts", cut them, and actually need 3" because your included miter means the scale is longer against the tang than at the outside rounded area of the handle where the bolster is longest. After getting this decided, drawn on and checked, I lay out my pin holes. The grip pins get one pair of 1/8" holes centered between the bolsters, then the other two pairs eyeballed an appropriate amount from the center. Getting too close to the bolsters with the end pins can cause some cracks or appearance issues. The pommel and center bolster holes are 3/16" with the outer two on the "wings" of the guard are 1/8". Here's everything after it's drilled, I start the holes with a fine punch and use good drill bits, although the S30V annealed is a dream to drill compared to the 304 fittings that are coming. I use just straight water as a lubricant and coolant.



I lay out a line to grind to a uniform height from the edge using a sliding combination square. Also, I use the wide marker on the edge itself and scribe a pair of lines using a drill bit and profiled blank laid flat on my wood bandsaw table. I do one side, then flip it over. With the 3/16" bit it gives me two lines with about .050 spacing in between which is what I'm shooting for.




At this point I'm only a few minutes into the build.

 

[Frank Hunter]

Hollow grinding to get the most of the metal off prior to heat treatment. I don't enjoy working these CPM super-steels after they've been hardened and tempered. I do leave some extra meat, about .075 overall edge thickness at the long trailing point as I've had it swing one way or the other during the plate quench and I'd rather be able to grind it back to center than try to repeat the process. I also didn't cut the end bevel in as I find leaving the spine or center thick all the way to the point on these tanto patterns ensures any distortion at the tip is minimal. I've had several end up shorter than designed due to wicked warp at the very tip. In spite of ourselves my apprentice and I were able to get good photos of this part. I'm pretty heavy set so my forearms lock in right on my hips with my gut over them and gives me a very tight and secure platform for the hollow grinding. No gloves or jigs here. The scribed center lines show in these photos. I rest the spine on the side of my bent first finger of my off hand, and I start right handed to let my somewhat smarter left side catch up.



Here's the blade with the grind pushed up nearly to the final desired height, the swedge ground in, and the remnants of my bolster layout lines showing. At some point prior to hollow grinding I descaled the bar against my flat platen with a 120 grit belt as that stuff is really wicked to try to get back off if you heat treat it. On this particular type of knife I try to leave a large radius at the ricasso where the hollow grind rolls in. These also don't get a choil as it is rumored to be a stress riser and I suppose it's true. I also stay back away from the final depth and distance from the guard with the heavier belts as a slip can force a design change. This will be slow going after heat treatment but I'll be running finer grits and really watching for uniform, mirror images to the grinds.



I utilize a plate quench and my digital Evenheat 27" furnace for stainless blades. The high-temp tool wrap does a great job, I double up each fold of the wrapped package. Following Crucible's austenitizing chart I eyeballed my temperatures and chose 1975 degrees with a 30 minute hold for this particular blade. The hold is probably excessive with the thin grinds but with the tool wrap I am likely not causing any decarburization. My quench technique is two room temperature 1" x 6" x 16" 6061 aluminum plates with an air blast between them, leaving the blade in the tool wrap and a light clamp on each end of the plates for several minutes until I can handle it with gloves. The blade came out dead straight and will skate a file. Here it is laid back on the plates after removing the tool wrap, which is visible cut open below laid on the sliding pony clamps. My local Pacific Steel takes any stainless grade so I stuff the used tool wrap into a bucket with other stainless scrap and turn it in. The last bucket got me $1.80 but I hate to throw it away. Tempering is two cycles at 600 degrees for an estimated 59 Rockwell and excellent toughness. I'll be able to get right to finishing the blade and fitting bolsters now. If I was to mirror polish this one, which isn't likely with the S30V, I would have taken it to at least a 15 micron or 600 grit hand finish prior to heat treatment. However, this blade is going to take a 45 micron then scotchbrite + buffed finish for a bright brushed satin finish which will be easy to apply after heat treatment.



These photos are from earlier this week. More to come, I'm pleased with my lack of screw ups so far, feel free to chime in if you have anything to say. Thank you for looking!

Edit - Went over both posts and added content, corrected my grinding procession, and a few other things. Might want to re-read it as the first version is a little rough. Thanks again.

 

[ricky_arthur]

Looking good, I will be curious as to how you cut in the grind on the point. Will the ricasso area be trimmed back? It appears a bit wide by the guard.

 

[Frank Hunter]

I'm likely to slim the base of the blade down at the spine. It does look awfully heavy in that photo.

 

[Bev8200]

I can see everything now

 

[Bev8200]

Is it possible to to mix gold with high carbon steel to make a tough super hard completely corrosive resistant knife metal

 

[Frank Hunter]

I don't know what the benefit of alloying gold with ferrous metals would be, I'll have to look into it. I know they use exotics like vanadium and tungsten and cobalt. Gold is much, much more expensive by weight than those, even. Titanium has some followers for saltwater dive knives and some grades harden to about 50 HRC - cheap kitchen cutlery level but usable.

 

[Frank Hunter]

This is the second half of the WIP on this custom. It was based off a previous pattern of mine with some additions, namely the 3" sharpened secondary edge and the mammoth ivory handle scales.

With the blade heat treated and the finish on it nearly complete, I tape it up so I don't damage it while I finish out the rough parts of the handle assembly. I progress through the grits from 100 down to 15 micron on the flats, then the hollows. At this time I also cut in the point, making sure the grinds mirror from side to side and the point is centered. Right before I tape everything up, I make the stencil for the custom etching, my logo and serial number, and etch the blade. After this, it's onto the bolsters.



I used 304 stainless steel for the bolsters on this knife. I find the durability of it exceeds the other options even if it is harder to work. It's gummy and tough to drill but I get it done. Here's a section of 3/8" thick stock laid out, the bolsters are cut out slightly oversize with a 4 1/2" cutoff wheel on my small angle grinder. I grind them with my KMG and the flat platen, checking with a machinist's square to make sure I have the faces very flat, leaving a rough 60 grit finish that I then clean with acetone in preparation for temporary gluing. With superglue, the bolsters are secured to the tang and left to dry. Then, using a clamp to give added insurance that they stay put, I first spot all the holes through the tang with the 3/16" bit then drill them through. By spotting all the holes first, if the bolster spins I can finish drilling it off the knife and be assured my spacing will be correct. First one side, then back through those holes after the second set of bolsters is affixed. I put the pins through at this point and grind the bolsters to the same profile as the tang.

 

[Frank Hunter]

Now, with the bolsters flat and sized to the tang, I make sure the area that will bear against the handle scales is perpendicular to the tang. I use the KMG again for this with the work rest at 90 degrees to the belt. The front face of the top bolster needs to be finished before I mount it. I shape the front to it's finished profile then go through the grits on it from 60 down to 15 micron, then buff it with a coarse sisal wheel and white compound, then a softer cotton buff with green. This allows me to cut the miter next and have all the bolster angles match on both sides of the knife. After the miter is cut in on all 4 bolsters, I fit them to the knife with the pins and check to make sure everything is flush and lines up closely.



I peen the 5 3/16" and 2 1/8" pins until they mushroom. For added insurance on the smaller ones, I center punch them deeply after peening because I'll be shaping the outside of the bolster assembly extensively. This leaves a deep divot that will be ground out but assures the pin is blended well with the bolster material. After everything is pressed together to my liking, I shape the bolsters to very close to their final shape. This is an aggressive operation that puts a lot of heat into the handle and is best done before the handle scales are affixed.



At this point I'm ready to put on the handle scales. They're carefully cut and ground to very close to the final overall length required to tightly fit between the bolsters, then I sneak up on the final fit using the KMG with the platen at the same angle I cut the bolster miter with. The ivory requires a slow speed and very fresh abrasives, as you can't get it wet to cool it. I work slowly and check the fit many times until I get them to slide in as far as I'd like. It's tough as they're rounded and want to rock back and forth, so there's a lot of incremental fitting here to get it tight.

 

[HHH Knives]

Great WIP Frank. Thanks for sharing. Looks like a BEAST Knife! Lovin it

 

[Frank Hunter]

After fitting the handle scales into the miters, I epoxy them in place. When I drill the six 1/8" pin holes, I layer the face of the scales with tape and also set the handle into a rough hollow I ground into a piece of wood to support the face against chipping out. From here, it's pretty standard clamp and epoxy treatment for both scales after I rough up the 1/8" handle pins and slide them through the holes. I carefully saw these close to the handle to limit the grinding I'll have to do to level them out, as heat is a real enemy of natural handle materials like ivory. I fill any voids and cracks with thin cyanoacrylate glue and shape with a new 60 then 100 grit belt, being careful not to damage the material, and then final shaping using the flexible Norax belts at a slow speed. The handle is taken to a worn 45 micron finish, then buffed carefully to keep it cool. After the handle is finished, I go back over the knife with fine finishing belts to get the last few scratches and rough spots.



After some sheath work, which is another WIP entirely, the knife is done. I'm getting to be a big fan of the S30V and the ivory is very satisfying to work with. Feel free to ask questions or critique my methods - there is a lot of looking things over for accuracy, repeated checking, and elbow grease in my process.

 

[Sticks]

Frank,

Thank you! Great WIP! I'll be referring to this when I make my next fixed blade.

Jay

 

[BonhamBlades]

thanks for taking me along on the ride.

 

[Frank Hunter]

Thanks, guys! This was a really fun one to build. There's a lot of things left unsaid in this WIP, it was my first one and I wanted to get a feel for how to make it flow and the quantity of photos I'd need. A simple sentence of "Then I drill the holes" can turn into a long thread itself with a dozen photographs if I really illustrate the process and make all the little specifics known. For the next ones, I'll break down a certain selected process at a time, so if someone is having an issue of lets say, "Getting the last scratches out" they can refer to that instead of it being buried in an epic thread that takes longer to assemble than the knife it's based on. Again, if there are any questions let me know, I got to the point of being able to build these with help from this forum and intend to pay it forward.