Since this thread is full of bad posting I'm just going to link the relevant blog entries from here at the top so they can be read without wading through the filth (there is some good discussion too).
Morel gets bored and makes a knife:Part 1 - AssemblyPart 2 - Shaping & SandingPart 3 - Surface treatment and polishPart 4 - I am a noob + jimpingInterlude - Outdoor picturesPart 5 - Sheath basicsPart 6 - Sheath shapingPart 7 - Sheath dying & stitchingPart 8 - Pics of finished knifeMorel gets bored and makes yet another knife:Part 2.0 - Design and material choicePart 2.1 - Handle makingPart 1 - AssemblyI used to do knife making as a hobby a bit when I still lived at my parents and had a barn etc to work in. now I live in DA BIG CITY so any kind of wood work etc is much harder and dirties up the apartment, so I havent been doing it. Today I said fuck da poleece and get back on the horse. since all the cool kids like chunky and bunk do blogs here is mine.
sadly I didnt think of this until I already got started so you miss all the excitement of prepping the parts, drilling and putting on tape to make me not cut my hands off on the blade etc so we start with final assembly here:
Got a special drill bit which you can see in this picture, you need to prep with a smaller drill, but it has a special non-sharpened tip so you dont fuck up the knife metal. Its used to drill the holes that can hold the handle slabs together with brass corby bolts and also to drill the hole for the brass tube to make the lanyard hole at the end.
the knife materials are: O1 steel blade (its a hard carbon steel. rusts easy but gets great edge which is pretty easy to sharpen and isnt brittle (other common steel for this is D2 which is brittle as hell and will shatter if abused (but otherwise boss mode and a little better rust resistant I think) and 1095 which is just better in every way than O1, but harder to get the initial edge on and to work on for smiths (non issues for me. but o1 was cheaper so who cares) next knife I might use VG-10 which is a favourite of mine, its hard to sharpen, but not impossible and keeps the edge for ages and cuts like a carbon steel while hardly ever rusting no matter how shitty you treat it. its expensive though. a blade will cost about 100$ made of that). The handles will be made from canvas micarta which is a laminate of cloth and epoxy and makes for pretty stuff once polished (
example picture). to make it look n1 I also got a sort of thin bright red vulcanized fiber stuff (fuck knows it looks good anyway) to put close to the blade as a liner.
Step 1:I worked over the blade tang with a file to make the surface rough so I can epoxy on the handles properly. it sits pretty solid with just the bolts, but who knows one day I might be in a tug of war with a giant snake or something, and you cant tighten the bolts ever again after polishing the handle so better safe than sorry:
Step 2:Put glue on one slab at a time and I make sure to get it in the holes too to seal the bolts. I use a super hardcore epoxy. Its a 2 component glue that is mega strong but takes 24h to harden, but in this case that is good because it means if I fuck up I can remove the handle and try again during the first hour or so. I didnt get a picture of the gluing, but its pretyt straight forward (didnt want to get superglue on my phone k?). I use latex gloves here because getting this stuff on my fingers is gay as hell when you lose your skin etc.
Step 3:lots of glue leak out and well, all over my gloves as I fiddle with the handles to screw in the bolts and hammer the lanyard tube through (sorry neighbors), so now I gotto get the excess off. I use MURDER CHEMICALS which, combined with the glue and the fact that I'm an idiot who havent opened the window makes me a bit high. its some sort of paint thinner chemical anyway. This works really well and the parts are shiny now. After this I put ON DA CLAMPS to make sure the handle gets on real tight and tighten bolts and wipe away even more extra glue:
nice and shiny metal now again and you can see the red liners
Next step after the 24h of hardening is cutting down the brass bolts and start work on the handle with files and sanding paper to shape it for its final shape. Will do that on saturday I think