WIP on a 19 knife group buy

Von Gruff

Von Gruff

KNIFE MAKER
On a hunting forum the guys had seen a couple of my knife projects and it was sugested that a group buy might be in order so this is the result with them all profiled with coarse belt today.

Nine round butt skinners on top with a pair of boys knives, 2 light hunters, a reverse angled hunter skinner, 2 wapiti hunters and 3 boners on the bottom row. May get the egdes all tidied up with fine belts tomorrow and start cleaning up the faces.



 
Von Gruff said:
On a hunting forum the guys had seen a couple of my knife projects and it was sugested that a group buy might be in order so this is the result with them all profiled with coarse belt today.

Nine round butt skinners on top with a pair of boys knives, 2 light hunters, a reverse angled hunter skinner, 2 wapiti hunters and 3 boners on the bottom row. May get the egdes all tidied up with fine belts tomorrow and start cleaning up the faces.



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Super nice! Do you have a picture of a finished boner? We debone a ton of meat (deer, pork, and beef) during hunting season. Primarily we use DPH's, but I think the boners you have would certainly do a better job on a Boston butt


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This is one I did with walnut scales and jarah bolsters but have lots of choice in wood and some micarta. My email is vongruff@gmail.com if you would like to discuss this further.

 
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Thanks guys. It seems that the round butted hunter skinner, the wapiti knife and the boner are the three most requested of my designs.
 
You have some great looking design's there, and it look's like some busy day's ahead for you!

Kwzito said:
Super nice! Do you have a picture of a finished boner? We debone a ton of meat (deer, pork, and beef) during hunting season. Primarily we use DPH's, but I think the boners you have would certainly do a better job on a Boston butt


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It was a good day in the shed today with 13 blades having the main bevels ground in and taken to 240 grit but the grinder motor was getting warm enough and I needed a spell from leaning over it so left them for today.

And moved on to another project I had needed done. I have a dozen 18 in bar clamps but that is not enough to do the handles on this group of blades if they are all ready at once so I got a length of 4 inch channel iron at the scrap yard and had it cut into 1 1/2 in strip. This afternoon I started the process of turning them into handle clamps by drilling and tapping a hole in one end for a 12mm threaded rod. I had got a couple of 1 metre threaded rods and will cut them into 110mm lengths.
So this is the ones that have been tapped and the rest waiting to be done.

The end of the threaded rod is turned down on the grinder (no lathe for me) and a groove is made to except the head of the clamping piece which is just a short length of 20mm rod that has a hole drilled to suit the turned down end of the threaded rod, then a cut each way with the cut off disc on the angle grinder

And the cut ends can be taped into the groove to make for a clamping piece that is able to swivel and or clamp up to slightly uneven angles. All that is left to do is to weld a handle on the end of the rod and maybe a washer on the end of the clamping head to increase the size but that may be unnessary.
I will have to clean them all up of rust etc but this one is just put together to test the theory.
 
Have these blades all ready for heat treating now with their individual handle scales all marked for each knife with the name of the recipient scribed onto the tang so that will do for this week. There are different handle requests with some having bolsters (jarah or ebony) but all having scales from a rimu board I had set asside for them . There are a couple of foriegners in there with one having jarah scales and the hidden tang with brass jarah and beech. There were some that wernt part of the group buy that are set asside for now but they will be attended to after these are completed.
 
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Von Gruff said:
Have these blades all ready for heat treating now with their individual handle scales all marked for each knife with the name of the recipient scribed onto the tang so that will do for this week. There are different handle requests with some having bolsters (jarah or ebony) but all having scales from a rimu board I had set asside for them . There are a couple of foriegners in there with one having jarah scales and the hidden tang with brass jarah and beech. There were some that wernt part of the group buy that are set asside for now but they will be attended to after these are completed.
Click to expand...

It's really awesome to watch these come together.


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Von Gruff said:
Have these blades all ready for heat treating now with their individual handle scales all marked for each knife with the name of the recipient scribed onto the tang so that will do for this week. There are different handle requests with some having bolsters (jarah or ebony) but all having scales from a rimu board I had set asside for them . There are a couple of foriegners in there with one having jarah scales and the hidden tang with brass jarah and beech. There were some that wernt part of the group buy that are set asside for now but they will be attended to after these are completed.
Click to expand...

It's really awesome to watch these come together.


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I got a few more blades from the drawer ready for heat treating so it will be all done in one session. The ones without handle scales by them are for spec so have drilled them for either bolster and scales or simple one wood scales. The one with all the lightening holes is a piece of 1/4 in D2 that I started some time back and have tapered the tang so may finish it with something nice.
With all the clamps finished and painted I should have no problem getting all the handles sorted without having to wait for apoxy to cure before removing the clamps for another batch.
 
The blades are all heat treated and tempered so the next few days will see a lot of hand sanding and many sheets of W&D paper to get them all up to a 600 grt finish
 
Have finally finished getting these blades handsanded after the heat treating so they are now ready for the handles but that is going to wait for a couple of days as I have something else to do in the meantime.
This is how I do all my handsanding with 220, 360, then 600grit papers round a 3/4 in square hardwood block.

 
Looking good! You're getting good use out of your new clamps....and I like that vise being mounted out from the bench...much handier!
 
I mounted the vise like that more as an aid for when I make rifle stocks but it has been equally effective for the knifemaking and having the swivel base is almost indispensible and allows for much more comfortable working positions.
 
I got back to the shed today and all the blades that were to have bolsters were attended to. The bolsters were all fitted then pinned and epoxied on. It was a real treat to be able to use the little clamps instead of the much longer and way more clumsy clamps I had been accustomed to using. Seeing as we are having very hard frosts in the morning I set a light with 200watt bulb to create a heat shield above them to stop any epoxy degradation from the cold.
 
This morning I got all the knives out of the clamps

Profiled them with the 60grit belt on the 12, 4 and 1 1/4 in wheels, run them through the bandsaw to do the primary shaping then used the 12 in wheel to get them to a rundimentary shape.

Then got a couple handsanded and finished up to 360 grit. I did have to make a new finishing block as my other one will only hold about 10 blades and it will be easier if they are all together in one place when I am doing the finish which is a few of coats of thinned spar varnish (sanded between coats) to seal the surface then the oil finish can be done over the following couple of weeks.
 
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