Knife project

[Rippy]

I had posted some pics of a knife project in the What's Happening In Your Shop This Winter thread. Doug, in a PM, has encouraged me to do a build thread of this project.
First I'll share a little background on my hobby. In 1989 while visiting my older sister in Denver Colorado, I spent a few days scouring the yellow pages for sporting goods shops trying to find a custom sheath knife to purchase. I had allowed myself a budget of $150-$200 to spend. The knives I found in that price range were disappointing in quality. On the third day my sister, knowing that I have a machinist background, made the statement "you could have made a knife in the amount of time you've spent looking". A light bulb lit in my mind and I went back to a shop that had some pre-made blades for sale. At the time I just wanted a knife not a hobby. Anyway, I bought a blade and took it home and made a "kit knife". Upon completion I showed off my pride and joy to some friends who commented "that's really nice, did you make the blade?". Ouch,,,, head drooped, eyes on shoes, uhhh no. For some reason, due to the way I'm wired between my ears, I now had to make a knife from scratch for it to be legitimate. In 1994 I quit my job and made knives full time for two years. I also did odd jobs to supplement my income. I had a table of sheath knives at the local gun show. Things were going fine till I started hearing the comment "These are very nice, do you make folding knives?". Ouch,,,,eyes on shoes, uhhhh no. Summers were my slow time in the knife shop so I set a goal of building two folders from scratch that summer. I needed to start with a blank piece of paper so that the design would be mine and not reverse engineered. Things went fine for a while and I started selling a few folders as well, till I started hearing "you should make switch blades". That was twenty years ago. This year I finally got around to doing it.

 

[Rippy]

My project for this winter was to take my model three folder and redesign it to be an automatic knife. Automatic knife is gentlemen's code for Switchblade, as automatic knife doesn't seem to raise eyebrows.
I designed my Model Three folder in 2004 and I still have the first one. It has been my companion on trips since then. Pictured below is my starting point. It is a lock blade folder with a thumb stud for one handed opening, but still not a automatic.

 

[Iskweo]

The thing about your knives is they have style, are esthetically pleasing to the eye. Most of the knives I see now, including custom ones, are ugly as sin. This one is gorgeous. As was the Ripster.

Christine

 

[Rippy]

After giving it allot of thought, about 15 years worth to be exact, I settled on specifics for the mechanism. It would have a coil spring as apposed to a leaf spring, and it would be opened and unlocked (to close) with the same button. In the process of making it I discovered that I would have to redesign the front bolster to make everything work out. Below is one of the drawings to give you an idea of what I was working from. Dimensions are hole locations to be put in on the milling machine. There is also a detail of the coil spring pocket. I also had drawings of the blade detail and the cursed button. More on the cursed button later. If the drawing doesn't make sense that's OK. I posted it to give an idea of the shape of the parts that make up the folder.

In the next pic are the blade and liner blanks after the holes and pockets are cut in the mill. The liners are 1/4" thick Nickle Silver. You can see on the middle piece the pocket for the coil spring that provides the force to open the knife. It is the circle with the slot going to the right. The other pocket is for the cursed button that locks the blade open and closed. It is spring loaded from the bottom. The bottom piece is the blade after holes are drilled. Two of the holes are for the button lock. The largest hole on top is for assembling the lock.Tiny holes are for the coil spring to hook.

 

[Rippy]

The thing about your knives is they have style, are esthetically pleasing to the eye. Most of the knives I see now, including custom ones, are ugly as sin. This one is gorgeous. As was the Ripster.

Christine

Thanks Christine, your comment means allot to me. Ever since the "kit knife" I have strived to come up with my own designs so they don't appear to be "copied". Of course I have influences that combine depending on the knife that make up my style.

 

[dougd]

Rippy, Glad to see this thread! I've always been impressed with folks like you who have the skills and mostly patience to work through such a project! Me, making gunwales and thwarts is about the top of my skill level and I mess up there on a regular basis! ;-) I lost perhaps my most favorite folding knife in a house fire and have been on the hunt to replace it but haven't found what I'm looking for yet and as Christine said a handmade knife such as yours is eye candy! Looking forward to following this! Thanks for sharing!

dougd

 

[Canotrouge]

Thanks Christine, your comment means allot to me. Ever since the "kit knife" I have strived to come up with my own designs so they don't appear to be "copied". Of course I have influences that combine depending on the knife that make up my style.

And that is normal to be influenced by other knife, styles, designs, cause it is hard now a day to come up with something totally of your own when you think that a lot of knifes have been made in the last 1000 years!! Same with furniture making, hard to reinvent the wheel!! But in the end that's the details that really make a design your own, Small details at the right place and all de sudden you have something unique even thought the form is common!!

 

[lowangle al]

My project for this winter was to take my model three folder and redesign it to be an automatic knife. Automatic knife is gentlemen's code for Switchblade, as automatic knife doesn't seem to raise eyebrows.
I designed my Model Three folder in 2004 and I still have the first one. It has been my companion on trips since then. Pictured below is my starting point. It is a lock blade folder with a thumb stud for one handed opening, but still not a automatic.

That's a beautiful classic look and a one handed opener. I'll bet you can't find many of those.

 

[Guest]

Rippy, I look at the detail and tolerance exactitude of a knife build, especially a folder or flicker, and think to myself “Jeeze Louise, I can’t even put outfitting on a canoe in the correct orientation”.

Amazing stuff to a cobber like me.

 

[memaquay]

Truly a thing of beauty!

 

[Odyssey]

..."detail and tolerance "...
Dave, just like you my Dad was a machinist. He was a detail guy, and he was tolerant. And man was he picky and precise. But patient.
Years ago I worked in a couple foundries in Quebec. The first was straight out of a Dickens novel. Low tech, no health & safety and gritty dirty grimy work. I quit for another foundry in a nearby city. Clean, corporate and controlled. I bounced around some low skilled labour jobs until I reached the casting shop floor, where I blasted the poured pieces free of casting sand, cut and trimmed the metal product in preparation for the machine shop. I'm no metallurgist but even I could tell the pieces apart by sight, workability and even smell. High copper content heat exchangers (very soft to grind, hammer and saw), high brass content fittings (very hard to grind and saw), high aluminum content parts (fairly soft to grind and saw), and ferrous pumps and impellers ( moderately hard ). As you can tell I did a lot of grinding and sawing. Ha. My favourite tool was a large overhead saw/grinder suspended by a chain pulley with changeable blade-stones. I felt kinda like I was in a Mad Max film some days, what with all the sparks, smoke and molten stuff going on. I loved it. And I got pretty good at it too. Until one day the foreman walked down the factory shop corridor and gave me a glare, pointed his finger at me and barked. He made me follow him into the office where he told me off for costing the company dozens of man hours and many thousands of dollars. Then I was made to follow him to the machine shop where he showed me the piece I had prepped only the day before sat in place for the machinist to begin his magic. The machinist gave me a look like "Sorry buddy." It seems I hadn't left enough tolerance after overcutting-overgrinding the expensive piece. Oops - Ka-ching. I felt terrible, awful. A total failure.
It's funny. I remember the whole thing like it happened yesterday, and what I was thinking at that precise moment was "I'd sure hate my Dad to see this. He'd be so disappointed sitting there at his machine, not being able to do a perfect job."

Your project is looking perfect so far Dave. We all know it will stay that way. You are a master craftsman. (I promise not to touch anything.)

The locking design is going to be fascinating to see. I've never seen inside a folder before.

 

[Rippy]

In the last picture I had finished cutting holes and slots in the blanks. Next, having scribed some lines I rough sawed the pieces out on a band saw. I didn't take a picture of sawing this project so I'll have to cheat and use a picture of me sawing the knife that Memaquay won a few years back.

In this picture I have pinned the two liners together and am sanding the profile until the lines just disappear. The sander is home made and has different size backing wheels depending on the operation I am doing.

Can't see the lines as good as I used to for some reason. The Optivisor gets worn allot these days (to keep my head warm of course).

Pieces are looking more like a knife. The blade piece probably makes more sense after having excess material removed.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Rippy - maybe I'm getting ahead of things, but what is the blade material?

 

[Rippy]

Rippy - maybe I'm getting ahead of things, but what is the blade material?

Steve this one was made out of some precision ground 440C because that's what I had laying around. I use D2 hardened to 60 RC on my sheath knives and have used 440C hardened to 58 RC on folders in the past. My choice back then hinged on the thought that a folder might be subject to more corrosion carried in a pocket, and 440C is high in chromium content. 440C doesn't get much respect anymore, and I am eyeing CPM 154 as my future folder steel of choice as it does have some superior qualities over 440C and is a more respected material in the knife community. It sacrifices some corrosion resistence for greater edge holding and greater toughness. That said, I have carried this knife pictured below for over 14 years and have never had a reason to regret my choice of materials. There is a lot of hype thrown around in the knife community, and while one material might out perform another in lab conditions, IMO most people couldn't tell in the using of a knife, one material from another. In fact, most knife owners, me included, don't use a knife very much anymore. All that said, I am looking at using a "better material" in the future.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Rippy, I use a knife a lot. Have several that are 440c and have worked just fine. Several others in carbon steel, and rust hasn't been a problem (I like a patina). In fact, I kind of prefer the carbon blades these days, when I'm not around a lot of water. Not that picky about it though - it's the build that matters most, IMO. The new high-tech steels are intriguing, but I haven't convinced myself I should pay for them (like I need another knife, anyway - but I'd dig an auto!). That is one handsome knife!

 

[Jim Dodd]

Many Many Moon's ago, I favored a Schrade Sharp finger. Bought it new in the mid 70's. It held a great edge, and was always with ,when I bow hunted deer. It did however rust in the leather sheath.
I'm sure finding the Perfect blade material, is a lot like finding that Perfect canoe !

I picked up a piece of broken Bandsaw blade, from a Saw mill (not Alan)

Rippy, have you ever used such steel for blades ? It was thin, but seemed like it would make a decent fillet knife.

Jim

 

[Rippy]

Many Many Moon's ago, I favored a Schrade Sharp finger. Bought it new in the mid 70's. It held a great edge, and was always with ,when I bow hunted deer. It did however rust in the leather sheath.
I'm sure finding the Perfect blade material, is a lot like finding that Perfect canoe !

I picked up a piece of broken Bandsaw blade, from a Saw mill (not Alan)

Rippy, have you ever used such steel for blades ? It was thin, but seemed like it would make a decent fillet knife.

Jim

I have never tried it Jim. People have asked me if I would make them a fillet knife in the past and I have politely declined. It seemed to me that grinding something that thin would be a pain in the butt. I figured they could buy a better fillet knife than I could make them one.

 

[Boreal Birch]

I am liking this thread, true artist in action, never having seen the inside of a folder before.
I really like knives, I've been fascinated by them since I I found a sheath knife stuck in the center of a old logging trail, when I was really small boy. I spent most of my life buying knives that were never what I had hoped they would be. Once on a whim I bought a Puukko from Finland, it was a cheap, factory knife that was better than any of the knives I had ever used. Since then I have found that that hand forged knife blades from Finland are even better, the best being forged from what they call silver steel (whatever that is). Wish I would have known about Finnish knives when I was a boy, I would have had the Finnish Farrier that lived in the neighborhood make me a Puukko then. Would have saved me a bunch of money and disappointment.

 

[memaquay]

Rippy, here are two reasons why Canada is no fun:

1. We can't have any of the fun guns.
2. A folding knife you can open with one hand is considered to be a prohibited weapon. In fact, only a few months ago, the Border Patrol folks declared the import of any kind of folding knife to be illegal.

I love folding knives. My Buck is ok, but it is a poor cousin to the slice of beauty you have constructed.

 

[Rippy]

Rippy, here are two reasons why Canada is no fun:

1. We can't have any of the fun guns.
2. A folding knife you can open with one hand is considered to be a prohibited weapon. In fact, only a few months ago, the Border Patrol folks declared the import of any kind of folding knife to be illegal.

I love folding knives. My Buck is ok, but it is a poor cousin to the slice of beauty you have constructed.

That's good to know if I ever make the trip up north. I would have assumed an auto knife was a no no, but I wouldn't have guessed there would be a problem with a thumb stud equipped folder. Not a problem anyway as I always bring the Ripster's older brother camping. I guess he's sort of a half brother being wood and antler.