Ratdog68
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So, a few months ago I see an ad in a Rockler Woodworking mailer. They've added DIY knife kits, and offered a how-to class. I missed the chance at that class, but it sparked my interest. I few rabbit trails on YouTube since then, and Rockler sends out another mailer with another class offered yesterday morning.
I got there early, my buddy shows up at start time (he's not looking his best, been fighting the cruds). The store Mgr. is putting on the class. Most of what he's presenting is right in line with stuff I'm learning in my studies. These are a nice little kit, reasonably priced too. The kit comes without scales. The blade is shaped, hardened, polished, and sharpened. It includes a fair leather sheath (machine stitched, but the stitches aren't bedded), and scale pins. One knife is coming out of the vise when I get there, scale blanks glued/pinned, ready for shaping.
The class starts with opening a fresh kit. Shows us the layout/cutting of scale blanks from billets. Next, cutting pins to length and drilling the blanks for glue up. While that one's in the vise, he shows off their rendition of a band/disc sander to shape the wood, then gives everyone a chance for some hands on. One of the guys took a rather long turn... and got ahead of himself, trying to contour before getting the edges of wood meeting the tang metal. He kind of garfed it up a bit, touching the bolster to the belt... but with some careful work, could be finished up ok.
Many filter out as he's pulling the second knife from the vise. Now there's three of us, my buddy, me, and one other guy. The third guy loses interest and isn't interested in taking a second turn, so my buddy and I take turns. Tool's platen wasn't in place, so the belt had no support backing, and the table wasn't installed on the belt side of the tool. But, the disk sander had its work table.
I started there by flattening the scales/pins. Then, laying the scale face on the table, begin taking the wood down to meeting the tang. For work down near the bolster, I had to hand hold the work (no table in front of the belt) to shape the wood near the bolster. Once I had one edge shaped, and the area around the bolster, my buddy takes a turn shaping the other edge, following my lead on technique.
Class over, my buddy and I are the last two there... and got to keep the two knife kits! I managed to score the one that didn't get garfed! I decided to buy an unopened kit of a different model knife, mostly as a template. I'll make Masonite templates from the blade blank before doing that kit. My plan, take a billet of high carbon steel (m'be O2, or 1095) stock, shape the blade profile, bevel the blade/drill the tang, harden/temper, polish/hone the blank, and then repeat my efforts on these two kit knives. No forging, just material removal technique. I already know my capabilities for making sheaths, ready to learn more.
The knife is rough shaped, I can finish working the scales/tang by hand. After making my templates, I'll do the second knife kit to completion to further refine my scale making technique.
For now, this is what you get in the kit, this is the kit I bought for a template baseline. The blade is 440 Stainless. The pins are aluminum. The sheath is Veg-Tan leather, riveted and machine stitched. This kit cost me less than $20.
This model is the knife I'm now working, sheath does not come dyed black, looks like the one in the package above. I'll take pix before I proceed with work on it. For this knife sheath, I'll rip the stitches, cut a groove in the stitch line so the stitches are bedded, and do a hand sewn saddle stitch on it after I oil/dye/finish the leather.
I got there early, my buddy shows up at start time (he's not looking his best, been fighting the cruds). The store Mgr. is putting on the class. Most of what he's presenting is right in line with stuff I'm learning in my studies. These are a nice little kit, reasonably priced too. The kit comes without scales. The blade is shaped, hardened, polished, and sharpened. It includes a fair leather sheath (machine stitched, but the stitches aren't bedded), and scale pins. One knife is coming out of the vise when I get there, scale blanks glued/pinned, ready for shaping.
The class starts with opening a fresh kit. Shows us the layout/cutting of scale blanks from billets. Next, cutting pins to length and drilling the blanks for glue up. While that one's in the vise, he shows off their rendition of a band/disc sander to shape the wood, then gives everyone a chance for some hands on. One of the guys took a rather long turn... and got ahead of himself, trying to contour before getting the edges of wood meeting the tang metal. He kind of garfed it up a bit, touching the bolster to the belt... but with some careful work, could be finished up ok.
Many filter out as he's pulling the second knife from the vise. Now there's three of us, my buddy, me, and one other guy. The third guy loses interest and isn't interested in taking a second turn, so my buddy and I take turns. Tool's platen wasn't in place, so the belt had no support backing, and the table wasn't installed on the belt side of the tool. But, the disk sander had its work table.
I started there by flattening the scales/pins. Then, laying the scale face on the table, begin taking the wood down to meeting the tang. For work down near the bolster, I had to hand hold the work (no table in front of the belt) to shape the wood near the bolster. Once I had one edge shaped, and the area around the bolster, my buddy takes a turn shaping the other edge, following my lead on technique.
Class over, my buddy and I are the last two there... and got to keep the two knife kits! I managed to score the one that didn't get garfed! I decided to buy an unopened kit of a different model knife, mostly as a template. I'll make Masonite templates from the blade blank before doing that kit. My plan, take a billet of high carbon steel (m'be O2, or 1095) stock, shape the blade profile, bevel the blade/drill the tang, harden/temper, polish/hone the blank, and then repeat my efforts on these two kit knives. No forging, just material removal technique. I already know my capabilities for making sheaths, ready to learn more.
The knife is rough shaped, I can finish working the scales/tang by hand. After making my templates, I'll do the second knife kit to completion to further refine my scale making technique.
For now, this is what you get in the kit, this is the kit I bought for a template baseline. The blade is 440 Stainless. The pins are aluminum. The sheath is Veg-Tan leather, riveted and machine stitched. This kit cost me less than $20.
This model is the knife I'm now working, sheath does not come dyed black, looks like the one in the package above. I'll take pix before I proceed with work on it. For this knife sheath, I'll rip the stitches, cut a groove in the stitch line so the stitches are bedded, and do a hand sewn saddle stitch on it after I oil/dye/finish the leather.
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