WIP Sidewalker Flipper

Cubane

Well-Known Member
G'Day everyone,

I have been doing a build off on the Aussie knife forum and thought I might post it here too. One of the members there rslt designed the knife and put it on the forum to get some opinions on the design and we all loved it enough that we ended up get a few knifemakers to take part in a build off for it.

Time I got my arse into gear and start my sidewalker build off knife since I was one of the instagators of it in the first place. First up is the design. I thought I would modify it a little since I am not a huge fan of thumb studs so I added a flipper instead :D Hopefully you guys like that change.

sidewalker.jpg


Still not 100 % sure on the tab shape yet or how far it sticks out. There are a few other things to makes sure of yet as well. Making sure a bearing set will fit in there with a 1/4" pivot, that the detent will be covered and not roll off the tang at any point and that the back spacer has enough room for the screws to go through there. Depending on the construction method I do I might alter the handle a bit to mess with the lockbar a touch.

Now for the materials I was planning on using. I was initially thinking Chad Nichols Stainless Damascus blade and a full mokuti handle on both sides. The material cost for that build is pretty damned high though. I prefer a linerlock over a framelock though so I was thinking of milling out a pocket in the handle for a lockbar over doing a framelock but I might need to alter the handle shape a touch to make that work.

parts.jpg


Alternatively I could do the pattern as a linerlock but if I wanted to keep the bearings I would have to have some rather thick liners on it (~2mm). The Chad Nichols Damascus I have isn't real thick 3.2mm so having a thin blade with really thick handles once there is a bolster, scales and liners etc on there isn't going to be the best as well. So I am a bit stuck on what to do at the moment. No matter what I will use the damascus on the blade + the bearings but can't decide on the handle yet. I could use plan Ti for the bolsters or the mokuti as well. The handle scales material I have in the pic is lightning strike carbon fibre. I do have some thunderstrike kevlar on the way as well that might be good to use as well.

I'll be getting started once I have reviewed the design changes making it a flipper and figured out the final material choices.

Alistair
 
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So I got started on this one today. I adjusted the design slightly to ensure the path the detent travels on will be covers as that part won't be etched. Also you can ignore the poll. When I was laying out the parts there was only enough room for 1 blade on the damascus so that solved the dilemma about making 2 or not.

First up was to layout the parts.

wip20130714a.jpg


Then cut them out on the bandsaw. I have left heaps of steel to play with for the flipper tab.

wip20130714b.jpg


After that was surface grinding the blade and then scribe the pattern onto the pieces. I do it in the 2 step process as I find it easier to clamp the pattern to the part when it is separate from the sheet. Doing the outline with the Sharpie is fast anyway so it doesn't really add much time and saves frustration dicking around trying to clamp the pattern down.

wip20130714c.jpg


I love my RadiusMaster but sometimes the design of it just gets in the way. I had to rescribe the pattern on the other side of the blade as the flipper tab was hitting the frame of the grinder.

wip20130714d.jpg


Drilled and reamed the blade.

wip20130714e.jpg


Then profiled the liners and started drilling the multitude of holes needed to get things lined up. I tapped the holes for the backspacer too. I need to decide what material to use for the backspacer. I could go with plain Ti, I have an offcut of Mokuti I could put in there. The pattern wouldn't really show up just the layers in the mokuti or I could use some of the LSCF as the backspacer. At the moment I am heading more toward the LSCF.

wip20130714f.jpg


All up this took about 4 hours for the design work, cutting, surface grinding, profiling, drilling and tapping. It is good to get going :D

Alistair
 
Well I was planning on getting a bunch done tonight as well but I was foiled by my countersink bit. I have a really nice one for deburring but it is 90 degrees. I have a cheapo one for countersinking which is 82 degrees to match the US screws I use and it finally died. I am going to have to try to find a new one at lunch tomorrow
 
Ok with the countersink issue solved I could get going again.

wip20130716a.jpg


That let me screw the liners together so I could drill the stop pin hole in place and then spot the position of the stop pin in the blade in the open and closed position.

wip20130716b.jpg


Then I could open up the tang to let the blade rotate around to the open position

wip20130716c.jpg


After that was done I could do the locking face and get the position when the blade is closed. This also shows how much I have to play with for the flipper tab.

wip20130716d.jpg


Here is the complete progress so far. I have already tried flipping it :D

wip20130716e.jpg


Next up will be cutting and fitting the lock and shaping the flipper tab. Basically to do everything I can to get the blade ready for HT so that will include the detent position. What is your favourite flipper tab style?

Additional time tonight was about 1 hour so that brings the total to 5 hours.

Alistair
 
I think you should do the flipper to mimic the shape of the blade, convex curve on the bottom, blunt rounded nose, and concave on the back. That or just go with something completely off the wall.
 
I think you should do the flipper to mimic the shape of the blade, convex curve on the bottom, blunt rounded nose, and concave on the back. That or just go with something completely off the wall.

Good idea. I might have to run with this and do some sketches
 
So started off by doing some design work on the flipper tab.

wip20130717a.jpg


wip20130717b.jpg


Looks pretty good I thought so I started grinding it out onto the steel

wip20130717c.jpg


wip20130717d.jpg


Once that was done it was laying out the lockbar. I moved the hole on the lock end up and towards the pivot so that it makes it easier to put the detent in there and the cut for the lock face will be in front of the line

wip20130717e.jpg


wip20130717f.jpg


Then lined it up to do the actual cut

wip20130717g.jpg


It was getting a bit late after that so I skipped taking a few photos. This how far I got. I cut across the lock face and bored out the space for the bearings in the blade and the liner without the lockface in it.

wip20130717h.jpg


All up that was another 3 hours about so total is up to about 8 hours. I was hoping to to get the detent setup done as well as the initial lock fitting but that will have to wait until later.

Alistair
 
Ok. The inlaws have been staying but they went out to dinner tonight so I got the chance to duck into the shed and get the final things done for the pre HT blade.

First up was the final lock up fitting. I scribe the lock face onto the liner and using a trick I learn from the Allen Elishewitz DVD I use a carbide cutting bit to make sure I don't over grind the lock face.

wip20130722a.jpg


Next up was taking the backspacer down to thickness. It started as 0.214" and I needed to take it down to 0.138". I came up with 0.138" by measuring the thickness of the knife assembled with the bearings in place and taking away the thickness of the liners.

wip20130722b.jpg


So the difference is 0.076" which ends up as 77.2 clicks on the mill to take down the spacer.

wip20130722c.jpg


I super glued the backspacer in place on the mill and took it down almost to the correct thickness. I did 74 clicks. Then the final sand to get the superglue off etc took it down to the final thickness.

wip20130722d.jpg


I didn't get any shots of drilling the detent out or scribing the lines for the edge thickness of the blade. Everything is ready for HT now though.

wip20130722e.jpg


All up that was just over an hours work so we are at 9 hours now in total.

Alistair
 
So while the blade is in the oven getting heat treated I got started on the handle. First up was cutting out the bolsters. I traced around the liners onto the titanium leaving a bit to grind off for alignment.

wip20130723a.jpg


Then I started the process of matching the holes up on the liners to the bolsters. First up was the pivot hole drilled and reamed. Then figuring out how far back to take the bolsters so that I could place the second screw hole for holding the bolster in place. While that was happening the blade was ready for quenching. This is what it looks like in the foil pouch after quench.

wip20130723b.jpg


and the blade after taking it out of the pouch.

wip20130723c.jpg


For the handle scales I am using LSCF. I wanted to make sure the copper embedded in the LSCF was aligned on both sides of the knife so I used one of the stands to align it to the spine of the liners.

wip20130723d.jpg


I still have to fit the scales to the bolsters and the liners but that can wait for another night. This is where I am up to now.

wip20130723e.jpg


This was about another 2 hours work so that brings the total up to 11 hours so far.

Alistair
 
Well tonight I was back at it. Got started on the handles. There was a bit of mucking around fitting the bolster to the handle scales so it took longer than I was hoping :( After that there was a lot of matched hole drilling, re drilling with clearance holes, counter-boring for the screw heads, threading the holes. It all added up to another 2.5 hours of work.

This was my counterboring setup. Clamped the jig down then drilled and reamed a 1/4" hole to match the pivot. Then used the pivot to align the bolsters before using an endmill to cut the counterbore to depth.

wip20130725a.jpg


This is where I got up to. Next will be screwing both sides together and finalising the profile shape for the handle. Going to be dirty work with all the LSCF.

wip20130725b.jpg


and a hint of the final knife.

wip20130725c.jpg


So up to 13.5 hours approximately now and still plenty to do. Shaping the handle profile and then rounding the handles off. Grinding the blade and finishing it up and etching it.
 
So got stuck into the handle finally. First up was to profile the bolsters. I do this without the handle scales on so they don't get too hot from the titanium.

wip20130726a.jpg


Starting to look a lot nicer with the profile tidied up

wip20130726b.jpg


So then it was profile the rest of it. I started with 60 grit and finished the profile at 240 grit. I will go over it all with a higher grit later. Profiling at low grits can push a burr in between the liner and scales so I deburr all the parts before I do the smaller grits.

wip20130726c.jpg


Now things get a bit dirty grinding the LSCF so I didn't get too many more photos. Here was just after starting to profile the scales.

wip20130726d.jpg


After that I did the bolsters and took the handle up to 240 grit everywhere. Then I sized the pivot, stop pin and screws for the backspacer to their final thickness. The last major thing to do is grind the blade, then it is just finishing work. It is still going to be a busy weekend if I am to get it finished to take photos on Sunday.

wip20130726e.jpg


All up that was another 2.5 hours work so total is now approximately 16 hours. This includes taking my tools out and tidying up the garage each night. If I had a separate workshop things would go a bit faster. I think the flipper tab might stick out a bit far the way it is now so I will adjust it a bit more and also try to allow the index finger more space behind it when holding the handle when the blade is out.

Thanks for looking it is getting close now.
Alistair
 
Spent the afternoon in the shed. Doing a bunch of little things to the knife. Cleaned up the spine of the blade and tang etc before the grinding happens. Then planned out my grind.

wip20130727a.jpg


Here is it afterwards. I started the hand sanding process it is at 400 at the moment.

wip20130727b.jpg


I also decided that I didn't like the screws I was using. Since I did the bolster thinner than usual the screw heads were sticking out. So I turned down some round head screws so they would fit into the counterbored holes I had done for the screws. It is things like this that takes up all my time :)

Add another 3.5 hours to the total so 19.5 hours into the build. Tonight I will do the final fitting of the blade to the lock, do all the finishing work on the handle and carbidize the lock face. Then I will spend as much time as I can hand sanding the blade ready for etching. Hopefully I can get it all done in time.

Also I find hand sanding damascus takes longer than the plain steel. I spend half my time looking for hidden scratches and the other half admiring the pattern :D

Alistair
 
Here is a quick preview of the finished knife until I can get some better photos taken.

finished_06.jpg


This one turned out great.

Thanks for following the WIP everyone.

Alistair
 
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