I am starting work on a set of three hunting knives all based on Bob Dozier Patterns which are based on Bob Loveless patterns.
Here is your treat for tonight, the first patten:
If you make knives or are interested in making knives, go get a copy of ‘Knifemaking with Bob Loveless‘ right now and read it. This book is a good one.
Happy making,
Jim
I finished the dagger today!
Making a two edged knife was a bit of a stretch for me but I am really pleased with how it turned out. It has a 5.5″ blade length and 10″ OAL. It is made out of 1095 steel. The fittings are hammered bronze.
The pommel is heavy and almost 3/4″ at its thickest. Having the weight there offsets the weight of the blade and makes the knife feel agile in your hand.
Because this was a gift, my friend gave me a silver coin so the knife would not cut our friendship. I expected a nickel but instead I got this beautiful solid silver handmade Baron Guglielmo Bardicci coin!
This was a great project. Next up, hunting knives.
Happy Making,
Jim
For my current dagger project, I am worried about getting the plunge lines straight and equal; that and the edges of the ricasso where they meet the guard. I have known about file guides for a while but have a hard time spending fifty dollars to get one. Or even $150 to get the really nice carbide faced one from Uncle Al’s.
Here is one I made last night in the shop.
The most expensive parts on this jig were the bolts. Two of them for $0.98. The rest is scrap from around the shop. I spent a couple hours getting it together.
The jaws are O-1. The guide rods were scrap 3/8″ rod stock. I drilled four holes and tapped two opposing holes in each piece. I checked that everything was ground flat, square, and parallel as I could get by hand. I don’t have a mill. I hardened with straight soybean oil from the grocery store. I just barely tempered the O-1 (350 for an hour). I wanted to leave the face hard so files will not wear thorough them.
These are not as pretty as store bought but I think they will work just fine.
A friend had this blank for years. It was started by his pal. He told me that he wanted to make or have it made into a finished dagger so he can return it to its original creator as a surprise. Maybe there is a little romance in the fact that he has carried it around all this time. I get sentimentally attached to objects myself, so this project interested me.
I’m all in when I think there is a little history or romance in a project. I spent a little quiet time with it last night and here is where we got:
The blank was still hard as diamonds when I got it, so it went in the forge and got annealed. After, I ground the sides flat just enough to put the purple layout dye on it, scribe a center line, and begin to layout the tang.
More to come soon as I can get back into the shop.
Happy Making,
Jim
I love the blade on the Victorinox florist knife. It has a great shape for what I need in my EDC. I do wish though, that it was a little more sturdily constructed.
This weekend, I set out to remedy this issue.
Here is my trusty apple slicer:
You can see that it is well loved! Well, I loved it so much that I felt the need to grind the pins out and take it apart 😛
This knife is really well thought out and well made but I wanted it to be a bit heavier. Also, I am really surprised that they do not put a half stop in the blade. A half stop makes the blade pause at 90 degrees when you are closing it. A nice thing if your fingers might be in the way!
Here are the new brass liners (to replace the light aluminum ones that came on the knife), red liner material, and micarta scale blanks I planned to put on this lovely knife. I also ground a flat on the end of a blade to make that half stop I was wishing Victorinox would have done for me.
A little time passes (internet magic and epoxy…) and here is the spine:
And here it is, sitting so safely at that hoped for half stop:
My knife now has the heft and safety features I was hoping for. My lunch apples are very nervous!
Happy Making,
Jim
Two weekends ago, I was lucky enough to attend the American Bladesmith Society’s Heartland Bladesmithing Symposium at Steve Culver’s shop. It was incredible. I learned more than I thought you could learn in two days.
Looking around at all the tools he had, I saw a really cool knife makers vise. It let you clamp a knife in it and rotate the blade to work on all sides while still holding it securely.
I checked online and a store bought vise is around $100.00. I am saving for a propane forge and can’t afford a finished vise so I made this one.
You can put one of these together in a couple of hours if you have access to a small welder. Here are the parts I used:
The main body (gray pipe) is the top tube of an old swing-set I found in my garage and is 2″ in diameter. The gray pipe in this picture does not become part of my finished vise. It is just to show what the yellow pipe looked like before I started.
I cut a piece of this pipe 6″ long and drilled a 3/8 hole in the side. For the hole, I came in about 1 1/2″ from the end. Next, I welded a nut over the hole. You can see this on the yellow painted pipe.
For a tightening handle on the inner vise (yellow pipe), I cut a ‘U’ bolt in half. That gives me the L shaped threaded rod that has a little yellow paint on it. That is what you use to tighten the inner wooden jaws that hold your knife.That might be cheating but it made a really comfortable handle for less than a dollar!
Next, I made the outer vise jaws. These allow you to spin the inner vise and clamp it tight where you need it. I made this from a heavy 2″ fence gate clamp that I got at a farm and feed store. At seven dollars, that was the most expensive piece of the entire vise.
To make the outer vise open and close easily, I bought an extension nut and welded a scrap of 3/8″ mild steel rod on it for a handle:
I also added a spring from the hardware store to make that outer clamp jaw want to open easily. I couldn’t find a spring that was exactly the width that I needed, so I cut a longer one down a bit for this.
Lastly, I made some wooden jaws to go inside directly against the knife itself.
Any 1″ x 2″ hardwood scraps should do for the jaws. I used Barge Cement and put leather pads on this set. I believe that I will make several sets of jaws for different work. I will make one pair with a long lower jaw to support the blades while I am filing them.
There really isn’t much too it. You clamp the bottom bit of the silver chain link fence gate hinge into your regular vise and you can hold a knife in any orientation.
While this isn’t nearly as elegant as the one I saw in Steve’s shop, it holds a blade tight while I am working hard on it.
Happy Making,
Jim
It’s late so I will be brief. I forged this from a leaf spring at my friend Dave’s forge.
I haven’t decided if I will put an antler handle on it or just a para-cord wrap. I had a great time making this knife.
While we had the fire lit, I also made a couple plant hangers for the house:
Thanks for everything Dave!
Happy Making,
Jim
I spent a lot of the weekend painting the house but somehow still managed to sneak in forging a new knife. I have made several stock reduction (grind away everything but a knife) knives. I wanted to try making one mostly in the forge.
This is the knife sitting on a piece of the spring that it was made of. In this picture, the knife is shaped but not yet hardened and tempered.
Here is the knife completed. I hardened and tempered it then blued the entire thing with gun blue. I wanted it to keep that blackish look it has right out of the quenching oil.
I wanted the knife to look like the steel had been lying on an abandoned barn floor in Montana for 50 years. Unfortunately, the blank my friend roughed out from the spring was smooth and straight. A few minutes with a fifty cent garage sale hammer and a welder came up with this texturing hammer:
Here is a detail of the ‘rustic’ area of the knife…
Here is a closeup of the file work on the spine. I tried to stay pretty simple in accordance with the rustic style of the knife:
This was a great project and I learned a ton. My blacksmith friend is teaching me more bit by bit. I am trying hard to soak it all in.
I hope you had a great weekend.
Go make something,
Jim
This all started with a rusty ring:
I have been wanting to do some blacksmithing for a while now and I just got my excuse. My neighbor had a bucket full of these rings. They are end cut offs from larger springs. His company had thrown them out and they were just rusting away in has back yard. When he offered that I could have as many as I liked, I took him up on it. Spring steel is lovely high carbon stuff and I have had a need for a curved bladed carving chisel
I could certainly buy one of those beautiful new Flexcut brand scorps, but then I wouldn’t get to make one myself! There is magic in making things and double magic in making tools I’m sure.
We lit the forge up and after some instruction, I got the ring mostly straightened and the curve in the end roughed out.
This picture is just after the initial shaping. I took the the chisel out of the coals and dropped them into a bucket of ashes to cool. Letting it cool slowly like that left it soft (annealed) for finish shaping. I took the rough chisel to the grinder and got the blade edge ground down, close to done.
Once the blade was mostly shaped, it was back to the coals. I got the piece good and hot, almost translucent on a piece this thin, then dropped it into a vat of quenching oil.
This picture shows the chisel with blade shaped, holes drilled for rivets, and fresh out of the quench. (click on any of the pictures to see them larger)
When the blade comes out of the quenching oil, it is too hard to use. It is really brittle like glass – you have to temper it. Tempering is a way to leave the blade hard enough to stay very sharp but not so brittle that it chips or breaks. I polished it up so I could watch the colors change and into the oven it went. When it got to a the right color for the temper I wanted (I went into bronze-ish), I cooled it again.
Here is the finished chisel:
I had this piece of walnut burl in the scrap bin and I used 1/8” brass rod for the rivet.
I am really happy with how it turned out. Now, we will have all the wooden spoons we can stand! I enjoyed this work so much that I may have to make some for other folks.
Happy Memorial Weekend,
Jim
Could it be that I have a sneaky ulterior motive? Well of course. Sort of. Except, it is not sneaky, nor ulterior.
I love to teach, I really do. I want to teach classes on how to build things. I want to write books that help people learn how to build things. So many of the techniques that I use, I learned in books and I want to write one of those great books. I want to write something as amazing as The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking by James Krenov. I want to write something as useful as Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking. I want to write something as beautiful and inspiring as Sam Maloof, Woodworker. This is why I am here. I practice my writing so I can put my thoughts in words and pictures for you – even as I practice my craft. This blog will help me write a book that will be easy to learn from and full of amazing projects that you will want to build!
I surely did not figure all this out just with books. My dad is a maker and put tools in my hands straight away. I also had an amazing apprenticeship with a master carpenter. Besides being a carpenter, he had an art degree, and was a musician. He stood next to me every day for years and he taught me how to make things. When I asked him if I could be his apprentice, he told me that I could if I promised to pass it along. Passing along making is why I write Make Stuff With Your Kid. I apprenticed under a master furniture maker for a year and he and I inspired each other – then we made a ton of wooden hand planes and patted ourselves on the back a little too much. (but anyway…)
I am going to keep writing for you. I will share my projects, and if you ask, I will help you with yours. I am making teaching and craft a part of every day of my life. It brings me great joy and I and hope that I can help you like others helped me. (John, you said I had to promise, and here I am!)
I promised you some draw-knives and here are some draw-knives:
My dad made these little beauties out of an old hand saw blade. I hope to turn some handles for them this weekend. I could not wait for handles, so since I took this picture, I sharpened them and tried them out. The are as sweet as they look. I took a few pulls at a duck decoy I have in the works and they are lovely. I can already tell that these will be my go-to tools for roughing out a new carving.
Thanks for coming by,
-Jim
Make Stuff With Your Hands 