Suzanne wrote: |
Nice Vinnie !! Wondering how you got those nice notches in the blade. Did you use a really small round file? I like how the wood swooshes out onto the tang (or whatever you call it). Bit of tricky, careful work. The leather sheath has enough doodads to start a Boy Scout. It appears to be screwed to the table? Those tabs on the side with screws? You also have a sort of retention strap on the knife. I wanna see how that works, it looks easy to use.
curious
Suz |
Thanks everybody...I must admit, I have got more pleasure from making this "project" knife than I have from any other.
To put the notches into the blade to form an interrupted edge (as opposed to a serrated edge) I actually used a small "barrel" stone on my Dremel. The stone is, or was,
about 1/8" in diameter. It was a fairly simple job to just hold the stone doing 30,000 rpm at the appropriate angle to the blade edge until I had the edge I wanted. As Elvis says, it can be done with a chainsaw file as well, but I think that is a little larger than 1/8"...not sure though.
The wood work coming down on to the bolster/ferrule really took some work. To do it successfully you must use hard wood and be mindful of the direction of the grain. Unfortunately I aligned the grain of the wood the wrong way (along the scales rather than across), consequently it took very careful and gentle work to shape it without chipping out the very thin ends at the bolster/ferrule...I actually ended up making four handle scales because of this problem.
The screws you mention are actually Chicago Screws. The main body of the scabbard is one piece with four "tags" (two top and bottom) that the screwws go through and secure the straps that go around the scabbard to hold the Fire Starter and Striker pouch. I also attached a belt loop to to back between the straps.
The retention strap is fairly simple...a length of paracord passed through the opening in the rear scale retention tube then joined (one end pushed inside the other and carefully sealed together with a flame)...then two lengths, 22" each, of paracord of contrasting colours, joined at one end, then "knotted" into a Snake Knot
(Snake Knot info). The Turks Head
(Turks Head Knot info) is a sliding knot that you slide along the loop to tighten the retention strap onto your wrist.
Punkin...the guard/ferrule is actually welded to the blade/tang. The blade and tang is all one piece and I made the guard from an off-cut from the file. I also cut another piece from an off-cut to form the curved shape of the handle/ferrule joint and welded that in place. You can epoxy the guard into place, but as I wanted this knife to be very strong, sorta like a survival knife, I decided to weld it into place. Note that any welding and shaping needs to be done before the knife blade is heat treated to harden it again.
Cheers, Vince