Stainless - No Cigar

I thought it turned out pretty well, considering.  The epoxy doesn't really hold, even though I roughed up the tang. I had to re-glue one side and the other is loose at the butt. Oh, well.  It also looks sort of ugly. I guess I could have done better.  If I have to, I bought two cobalt 1/8th bits, and I could try to pin it, but I would really just start over.  Something ain't right with the front of the handle. (It does look better in person.)

The wood is a slightly different type of South American hardwood from shipping crates. It's a little softer than the other I was using and doesn't shine up as nice. I'm deducting 4 points for minor blemishes, 4 points for weak glue and 4 more for general ugliness: make it an 88/100.

The End of Act 1

I need to get new belts and my friend said he would give me a small belt sander, so I'm not grinding any metal right now, but worn belts work pretty well on wood, especially the #80/100 grit is much more forgiving. I managed to do most of this with the coarse belt. It's the same unknown wood I'm using for scales; this was a roughly wedge shaped piece of waste wood. Cut the kerf with the edge of the sander and used a lot of my new-found inner radius "talent".

Good practice, plus I'll be set if I get any letters on the other side of the metal detectors.

My friend gave me two sheathe knives that had gotten rusty on one side from being in the sheathes for at least twenty years. One is a big fat Pakistani bowie that's thick enough to grind the rust off, which I'm in the process of.  I'll post photos when I'm done.  This one is kind of cool: tight stag handle, hard, thin and very flexible blade and only light rust, which I'm taking off by hand because the blade is so thin. Too bad it looks like a bread knife, but it would be quel formidable in a between the ribs application.  Think I'll stick with bread.

My next project, which I didn't put handles on before because it's too hard to drill stainless. But now that the epoxy only knives are holding up well, I'm just going to glue it and grind it. Then I have the last damascus blank, that I still haven't figured out how to handle.

The first four Damascus USA knives, done for now.  Time to order more steel.

First Four Finished

Improving...

Bowie Day 3

It actually turned out better than I expected. The good points; didn't mar the blade, the components all seem strongly attached, wood fit is very close and the tang as close to perfect as the oversize guard will let me. I tried to make up for the flaws by polishing the daylights out of it with #220 and #320.  There's a few smudges and scratches on the metal that I could get out starting over with #100 grit, but I unfortunately cracked one of the scales when I tried to pin it, because I hadn't fine-tuned the holes.  Next time I'll only use three pins for the glue-up and drill and fit the rest before sanding.

The guard was made from a scrap of a door hanger. It's kind of thin, but solid brass and feels good against my hand and extends past my fingers enough to function as a guard, plus the pointy tip of the heart on the bottom has good potential for pokin' and gougin'. If I couldn't get to my .357, this is what I would want.

I'm deducting 3 points for wayward solder, 3 points for the cracked handle, 2 for misfit wood, 1 for a somewhat wavy line on the tang. and 1 for small scratches. I could spend a couple of hours to sand out the last two flaws, which would bring it up to a 92, but my arm is tired so it's a 90. I think it's fair to give it a B+.

While Waiting for the Epoxy to Set

Here's my knife collection, including the "Cell Block" series.


This is most of the cell block series, good work knives, anyway. Note the two-handled "Mexican Fighting Knife". It may have been my first. Also note pop-rivets and sloppy glue work. Back to the grinder for those two at some point.


The one in the middle could be nice if I wanted to spend a lot of time getting the scratches out of the blade. After I finish the all the damascus.



The one on the right is the small-tang "Classic Modified" which I'll rehandle, the next is a french damascus folder that I was given. It's really nice. I could never do it. The next is a thrower blank I couldn't finish, because stainless is too hard to drill, I learned the hard way. I might put some sides on it if the glue holds on the damascus blanks.  On the left is my injun knife, or might have been if Indians had large, ugly copper rivets, a grinder and a drill press.