Finally got some steel in yesterday and was frothing at the mouth. I wanted to see just how much I've learned and see if I could put it to work in one day. I almost made it. :)

So what we have here folks is a three foot bar of 5/32" O1 just waiting to be molested and cajoled into a knife-like object. Everything will be done in-house, though a curse word may sneak out every now and then and float up to the ethers...

First, let's meet Zed:

Okay, next step is to come up with some sort of design. I updated an old tanto drawing I had and extended it a bit in CAD. I adjusted everything to the wheels I had and threw in a couple of stupid knifemaker tricks.

Cool. Time to print it, cut it out, see how much steel I need, then glue it on.

We don't need no steenking bandsaws! (Note ubiquitous bucket of pee)

Since I went groove-alicious, all holes are drilled first. They don't have to be perfect. I used an 1/8" drill; if they're not completely uniform and can make 'em look right with an 1/8" chainsaw sharpener chucked into my Dremel.

I deburred the backside (ooh, momma!) every now and then to ensure perpendicularity on my jacked up DP. Doin' a final deburr on my East LA surface grinder:

Looks kinda cool, huh? Stylin' and profilin' time.

Safety first!

Profiling with the square wheel attachment. I took some big chunks off with the angle grinder first then slapped on the 60g belt and went to work. I just want to get close; I'll bring it to final shape with the 8" wheel and work in the smaller radii with the 3" and 1.5" wheels.

Sparks are COOL.

Bring it to final shape with the wheels, slap it on the glass platen and we're ready to rough grind.

I rough it out with an 80g BZ belt then smooth it out just a tad with a 120g alox belt. I keep the grind line low and the plung forward of where I want it. I can work all that stuff in later when the steel is hard and more forgiving.

Ready for heat treat. Switched cameras since my wife's battery had run down and the fucking thing was set for macros. You'll have to trust me, it was cool. A torch was involved. This is the clearest picture we got.

Figured out the camera (kind of) and on to finish grinding. I start with an 80 micron belt equivalent to 120 or so then move up to a 60 micron belt, about 220-240. I finish with a 400g belt then start at 220g when handrubbing. Yes, I accept Discover cards.

Almost done! Notice kinda cool swirls from the torch. Ready for handrubbing. Since 5/32" is kinda thin for a knife this long I kept the line low anyway to keep it from going bendy on me. It's not beefy but not too thin. Thin enough to win, baby...

Alas, I wasn't able to finish it all up today. I started at about 1 PM and stopped at 6:30 PM since I had to get ready to go to a friend's birthday shindig. I'll finish this up tomorrow with the handrubbing, handle mounting and all the beer drinkage.

I N T E R M I S S I O N

...continued

Last I left off, the little bugger was finish ground and ready for finishing and handle work. For me, this stuff takes just as much time as making the blade since there's a lot of finesse involved that my noob-ass hasn't acquired yet.

All the below was done over the last two nights, totaling about 5 hours worth of work with all the picture taking mmmgliven.

First, let's reintroduce Dr. Zed, hack at large. Drop your pants and get on the butcher paper:

After cleaning the large grooves on the blade spine, I get to gettin'. I take a few swipes on the blade first to make sure I got all the scratches out. Then I cheat with my Dremel and finish that pain-in-the-ass plunge first.


It'll blend right in with the handrubbing. I angle my stick downward to start a the plunge and pull straight towards the tip. Oil, rub, swipe and check . Repeat 173 times then move on to next grit. Like the porno angle my wife used for this shot?

Ahh, satisfied blade. As you can see I didn't do a great job with the rub, but good enough and fine enough for an O1 work knife.

Next stop is the flat platen to finish the flats. This should bring out the any bevel lines I washed out in handrubbing. I stick to the micron belts for a decent finish.

Handle up time. I cut a couple of pieces out on the saw and glue them together to make sure everything's in line. Trace the blade on it and cut some chunks off on my mini bandsaw. Clamp the blade on top and start drillin' and chillin'.

Hot damn, big fucking mistake. I drill right through a .25" lightening hole instead of the three pin holes I intended to use. Oh well. There are now five pin holes. I leadfoot right through it and move on to reaming.

While they're still together, I finish the front of the handle at 400g since I won't have any access to 'em once they're mounted.

Sweet! The front end is where I want it and have about .125" all the way around, enough meat just in case.

Time to split the handles up and clean the glue off the inside. Back to the drill press to put some pockets in for the epoxy to settle in.

Cutting the hollow pins with a pipecutter.

I lay a clean pair of Depends on the bench and clean all parts with acetone.

Or so I thought. Forgot to rough up the inside of the handles and the tang to 60 grit. D'oh! I rough 'em up, clean again then slather EVERYTHING with epoxy and assemble. (I'll epoxy anything that moves!) I cut the pins so they'd stick out a bit. This way I can flare 'em in the vise.

Done n' done. Time to clamp it up real tight and let the epoxy set overnight.

Next night, time to profile the handles.

Breaking the edges and rounding everything off.

Next step is to texture the handles, borrowing liberally from a technique that Eric Blair, Jens Anso and a handful of pimpers are using. This is the first time I've tried this and it turned out okay.

DONE! Now all that's left is sharpening, spraying it with WD-40 then it's inspection time.

Passes muster. It's got a decent edge that's relatively tough. Cuts right through shop towels, newspaper and cardboard. Time to put some lipstick on this pig and let the camera do it's thang.

I can already see several flaws on it. If I was to do it again I'd be more careful to not scratch up the flats, use a better HT method, do a better handrub and be careful to not drill the wrong fucking holes. I'd also be more creative with the handle texturing, but all in all I'm happy with it. It'll make a nice backyard knife or a bedside "tool" for bumping things at night.

It's a relatively simple design and with the bare minimum of tools and a little experience anyone can do it. Next is sheathing and maybe marking. No worries; I won't bore you to death with that.

I hope you enjoyed this 'cause I sure did! I did this for fun but also so knifemakers can take a peek at what I do and offer any advice on anything I've pictured above. This is, by my calculation, my 29th knife ever so there's tons out there to learn and I'd love to hear it.

All of the above was done by me but is actually the product of a massive heap of advice from Larry Davidson, Dav Winch, John Gonzalez, Trace Rinaldi, Jerry Hossom, Brian Goode, Rob Douglas and countless others, including anybody and everybody that's ever contributed to all the wonderful reading material provided by this forum. Thank you all very much for teaching me about something I can do with my free time besides playing video games and watching the Discovery Channel...

Regards,
Ram