Little walk thru making a knife - CHARITY KNIFE - FOR SALE ebay lin inside!

[TomTerrific]

I am fascinated with your guide thru the process, and I really appreciate your doing it.

 

[cbr900son]

I am fascinated with your guide thru the process, and I really appreciate your doing it.

Its really fun and addictive. Like i said im just a hobbyist and mess up plenty but kinda fun seeing a bar of metal turn into something nice.

 

[cbr900son]

UPDATE

So today i heat treated the knife. Due to needing several sets of hands I couldn't take pics and heat treat at the same time. Every type of steel has adifferent way it needs to be heat treated and its a whole process. First I "normalize" the steel which means heating it till its red hot then letting it air cool which takes about 30 mins - 1 hr. After that is the actual hardening part. With 1090 you want to heat it to critical temp. Critical temp is where it is red hot and no longer magnetic. Once it reaches that we quench it in oil that has been warmed to about 120 degrees. I use motor oil and heard of others using vegetable oil. After it cools off and is out of the oil it is oily and has a lot of "scale" on it. Scalre is a mixture of the carbon in the blade getting hot and mostly burnt oil from the quench.

Now I take it to the grinder with a 220 grit belt and clean the flat parts off.

I left it on the bevels because I want to hand sand it to keep the bevel line crisp.

So the heat treating part isnt over yet. After its cleaned up it needs to be tempered which is going in the oven at 400 degrees for 2 hours and air cooling then doing it one more time.

 

[cbr900son]

Trying to decide on handle material. Got some cool grey and brown micarta scales that actually glow in the dark. Or some really nice stabalized red burl. Still not sure on wether or not I want some bloster son it or not.

 

[whbonney26]

Very interesting. I have some good knife making threads saved on my comp. I will be adding this one to them also.

 

[SVTFreak]

Awesome. Can't wait to see his you make the line crisp along the bevel. Always wanted to try making one myself.

 

[cbr900son]

Guys I make knives cause I love it and a knife is one of the most used tools. Wether it be a kitchen set or skinner or whatever. If you ever want to talk knives or ask questions or even need help making one wether it be advice or coming to my shop Id be more then happy to help if I can. Im not saying Im perfect or know everything there is but Im more then willing to help. All of my contact info including cell number is on my website www.bishopcustomknives.com.

Now last night and this morning I did the 2 temper cycles in the oven (which my wife just loves when im baking knives in her kitchen lol). Today Im gonna work on some hand sanding thru different grits (prob try to go from 180 ish to 400/600ish today). Also gonna work on a few other knives Ive got going. I usually have a handful of orders I work on also and need to actuaaly get a customers kitchen knife finished and my buddys wedding present's handle put on and start shaping it. Ill try and post some pics later.

 

[FRANKEIGHT]

What about white bone or ivory micarta?When I heat treat my blades, which is not often I find that vegetable oil does not leave as much slag as motor oil and if you invest in stainless steel foil to wrap your blade you get no slag at all.
cheers
frank cole

 

[cbr900son]

What about white bone or ivory micarta?When I heat treat my blades, which is not often I find that vegetable oil does not leave as much slag as motor oil and if you invest in stainless steel foil to wrap your blade you get no slag at all.
cheers
frank cole

Hmm bone might not be bad. A warm clean look.

 

[cbr900son]

UPDATE kinda

Well got some sanding done and noticed a few spots i need to sand smooth. I work some this week but over the week Ill probably work my way up in grits with sanding to about 600 then decide if its meant to be used or not. 600 grit by hand is a nice hand rub satin finish (better then most knives come from the factory and a little better then kitchen ware thats mass produced). If i take it past that it will get into the mirro polish category which will take more time sanding and will make it more of a collector or showpeice type knife. Ill take a few pics of sanding just so you can see the difference every few grits but not gonna bore you with each grit I work thru.

 

[cbr900son]

Sorry for no recent updates but had to put the tanto on hold for a wedding gift for a super close friend. He wanted a japanese chef knife and at the last minute I got to thinking. WAIT most japanese chef knives come with a wooden sheath to protect it and store it. So the MORNING of his wedding shower (where im gonna be giving it to him) I started on the sheath lol. This handle was a super super nice piece of stabalized curly koa wood Ive been having for almost a year and saving for a special occasion. Unfortuanetly I couldn't find a black lacquer in time for the sheath so I used red oak with a red oak stain and a light coat of tung oil. Also called a local trophy store to have the name plate made. Ill get back to the tanto this weekend but I do have a few order ill be going back and forth from also.

 

[cbr900son]

OK time for a TANTO UPDATE!!!!
I know I know im slow but this heat sucks and I pretty much refuse to work mid day unless I have to.

Sooo the past few days talkign to a few knife making buddies on forums and found out something interesting. They were telling me that the traditional japanese knives and swords didnt have the clean crisp lines most of the time. They said when you did have a line it was kinda blended. Hmm so i made a decision. Im gonna do some sanding by hand and not just by block so I can slightly round the edge. They went on to go into the history of swords and next thing I know It sounded like we were at a chinses restaurant ordering food... So I started to finish he side I was working on before. I left it in the 300ish grit range but had some minor blemishes I needed to sand out. So I went back a grit and very lightly coated the blade with mobil 1 oil (helps smooth sanding out) and went to town. Finished up the 330 grit and we are looking good. I also Decided this was gonna be a nice looking user so I will probably do a hand rub to 600 grit.

Blemishes - Very hard to get on camera and can barely be seen much less felt.

The worst one that made me go back a grit with the oil

Comparison of the other side which was stopped at 120 grit on the grinder (rule of thumb is whatever grit you are on a grinder go back a girt for hand sanding) so equal to about 80-100 grit.

Now it looks worse then it is. If you took your time grinding and have a pretty flat bevel to work with it doesnt take long to get it from that 100ish grinder grit to this

Its all about stopping alot to look. Notice the crisp line is there just not so crisp and slightly rounded like I was talking about earlier. Take your time and make sure the step before was done right so the next step will be even easier. In this case I had to take a step back in grits and make it right. Will try to work some more tommorow if i get a chance.

 

[cbr900son]

Hope yall are enjoying.

 

[cnodie1]

Very much my friend

 

[SirIsaacNewton]

Hope yall are enjoying.

Yah super cool!

 

[pntbllr228]

Is this knife gonna be for sale?

 

[cbr900son]

Is this knife gonna be for sale?

Actually late last night I was talking with a youth from new orleans who comes to town and works with our youth group at church alot. Next year we are going to Alaska on a mission trip and he wants to go but his mom is a single parent and money is tight. The church can put up a decent amount and he will be working fundraisers here and there when he can but I might sell this knife and donate the profits toward his trip next year. In fact Im pretty sure over the next 6 months I might have to sell several knives to make the trip possible for him. Unfortuantely like most money is tight for me also but this is one thing I can do to help out. Most of my knife profits cover material cost and usually go to charity.

 

[cbr900son]

Oh btw had a few emails and this is a western tanto design not the original tantos style from japan. In fact it is based off of Mr. Bob Lums tanto design with some minor changes in sizes here and there. Actually the only difference is the handle. This is a full tang vs a hidden tang.

Lum style

Classic style

The main difference is the handle and minor variation in the grind even tho after doing more research mr lum's style does use traditional grinds from certain periods. Good info here on how complicated and the different variations on traditional japanese blades http://meiboku.info/guide/form/index.htm

 

[TomTerrific]

Hope yall are enjoying.

We certainly are.

 

[bonewagon]

Excellent work. Really enjoying the walk through. Maybe I can afford one one day. Keep up the good work.