Hello again, and a knife.

[TravisFry]

Hello all. I've been around here before back in 2014-2015, but all of my user info was lost to the ether (or the fog of memory) in the years since then. Anyway, I'm back because of a renewed interest in kitless pens. I got bored with components, still have a bunch of them unused, etc., but I traded a custom fountain pen for a kitchen knife I made with an IAP member (Danny Clarke, @More4dan) and he's been slowly trying to reel me back in to the penmaking world. It might work.

I'm really a knife maker by hobby, but dabble in all kinds of things. If you're interested in the knives, check out MY WEBSITE. It's recently been updated. My most recent one currently in progress borrowed a lot from the pen experience, and has a blue lapis Trustone handle. That stuff is HARD! Here's a shot of the current state. Still a fair bit to go, but you get the idea I hope. Apologies in advance if the size is ridiculous. I laid out the flutes with a clever little jig on the lathe, and cut them in with tiny files. It was about as fun as it sounds, but the results can't be beat. Left to go is final shaping of the middle part of the guard, final polish, fitup, and glue, then a ridiculously elaborate sheath. I'm about 15 hrs in, with about 10-15 to go.

 

[magpens]

Nice to see you back again, Travis !!!

Your knife, above, is extremely beautiful and unique !!! . Thanks for showing !!! . .

 

[PaulWitmer]

Welcome back Travis:

The knife looks extraordinary. I love the blue. Thanks for sharing.

Paul

 

[Jontello]

Beautiful work!

 

[Dehn0045]

Beautiful knives, your website is great. "Riots were started" lol.

Danny Clarke goes by @More4dan here

 

[carlmorrell]

Really nice. I am very curious about the process (jig) you used to create the flutes. Might not sound fun to you, but for those of us that are ignorant, knowledge is power.

 

[TravisFry]

So @carlmorrell this jig isn't really rocket science, and I didn't come up with it myself, AND I made it slightly more complicated than necessary, but here's a pic. A circle divided into even pieces (16, in this case, got the wife to do it in Photoshop) with a rod (preferably threaded) that goes through the center of the handle piece. Nut holds it tight (in this case it wasn't threaded, and I didn't use a nut, but there were good reasons for that...), other end of the rod goes through the circle and into a drill chuck or collet in the headstock. Assuming the rod is the same diameter as the hole/tube through the handle and the hole is centered on both the piece and the circle, all of the lines will be perfectly equidistant. I used the tool rest as a guide to mark lines down the length of the piece, making sure to keep everything parallel. I'd suggest a flattened half pencil for this, but I used a sharpie because I'd already finished the Trustone once (flutes were no in the original plan). It worked ok. Then, with calipers I marked equidistantly spaced parallel lines around the piece and connected the corners. Start the cuts with a file and go to town, making sure that the ends are even in both terminus and shape. Fun!

@Dehn0045, true story. Two, in fact.

 

[More4dan]

So @carlmorrell this jig isn't really rocket science, and I didn't come up with it myself, AND I made it slightly more complicated than necessary, but here's a pic. A circle divided into even pieces (16, in this case, got the wife to do it in Photoshop) with a rod (preferably threaded) that goes through the center of the handle piece. Nut holds it tight (in this case it wasn't threaded, and I didn't use a nut, but there were good reasons for that...), other end of the rod goes through the circle and into a drill chuck or collet in the headstock. Assuming the rod is the same diameter as the hole/tube through the handle and the hole is centered on both the piece and the circle, all of the lines will be perfectly equidistant. I used the tool rest as a guide to mark lines down the length of the piece, making sure to keep everything parallel. I'd suggest a flattened half pencil for this, but I used a sharpie because I'd already finished the Trustone once (flutes were no in the original plan). It worked ok. Then, with calipers I marked equidistantly spaced parallel lines around the piece and connected the corners. Start the cuts with a file and go to town, making sure that the ends are even in both terminus and shape. Fun!

@Dehn0045, true story. Two, in fact.

Welcome back Travis! Many wood lathes have an indexing feature that allows you to pin the spindle at fixed increments. That will also work the same as your jig but will be limited to the divisions that come with it.

 

[Dehn0045]

Many wood lathes have an indexing feature that allows you to pin the spindle at fixed increments. That will also work the same as your jig but will be limited to the divisions that come with it.

Another option is a spin indexer or dividing head, fairly common in the machining world, the spin indexer being the cheaper option at about $80 on the electronic bay.

 

[TravisFry]

Another option is a spin indexer or dividing head, fairly common in the machining world, the spin indexer being the cheaper option at about $80 on the electronic bay.

My lathe is old school and doesn't have indexing, but that's ok.

I hadn't ever heard of a spin indexer before, but now I think I have to have one. There's one available for ER32 collets that I already have for around $100 everywhere. It'd be easy to layout with the same grid system using a height gauge or even a marker stacked on top of something flat at the right height. Plus it would make it really simple to drill precise holes on knife handles like Bruce Bump did on this Ming dagger. Bruce used an angled rotary table on his mill, but the spindexer is even simpler. Ditto to making the ends of the flutes perfect with a ball end burr or end mill. There goes another $100....

 

[howsitwork]

if you get one that takes 5C collets and an ER32 conversion collet you have the best of both worlds

 

[Dehn0045]

There goes another $100....

Just don't watch too much OxTools on YouTube. Pretty soon you'll be buying a knee mill, an optical flat and expanding your shop to store all your tools - because who doesn't need an optical flat. You'll long for the days when learning about new tools only cost you $100.

 

[TravisFry]

Some day I'll have a mill and a surface grinder and a metal lathe and an hydraulic press and an additional forge, but I don't ever plan on getting too fancy. I'm already about $10K in on equipment--it just accumulates. I've had to downsize considerably space wise, so I'm a bit stuck on further major equipment purchases. But that just means I'll have more money to spend later.