Part 4 - I am a noobThis endeavour has taught me so much stuff I wish I could start over. fucked up three things today.
1. I sanded down the handle again on one side to get rid of the
miscoloration. The good thing was that this worked. The bad thing was I was running very low on CCL polish, so opted to try pure shellack politur instead. This stuff is a nightmare to work with, it dries so insanely fast and once it dries, if you havent speeded up a lot and gone easier on the rubbing it tears the entire coat and you gotto start over. so mad. The CCL is expensive as balls, but so worth it. might be possible to get the same feel to the politur, but not sure what I can dilute it with, maybe oil and alcohol, but I will probably just keep trying. last coating went well enough, but you need to do 3-4 and if one fucks up you gotto start over again
here is a picture of the sad knife being sanded down:
2. Apparently my tape to protect the blade wasnt good enough and there has been some rusting going down under it. now blade will never be perfect and have little gritmarks and/or scrathes from removing rust. next time I will oil blade, wrap it in clingwrap, then tape it to avoid this
3. Todays task was to cut in jimping on the top of the blade to rest your thumb or forefinger. Example picture (pretty sure its a spyderco delica):
Its basically grooves that stop your hand from slipping forward on the blade. Tactical (read: for murder) knives need to have this so you can stab ppl without hurting yourself. Its also useful when doing tip work as the finger on the top gives you more control. it also looks nice. There are special files that create these grooves that the pros use. I dont have one and I dont think you can buy one in sweden so going with the GHETTO SOLUTION. I take my dremel tool's cutting blades and stack them together. as spacer between them I cut up an old credit card and drilled holes in it. works pretty damn well actually:
Since I can only fixate one part its really important to only cut ONCE. If you go back to improve it a second time you will miss a bit and scratch the top (did this. wont do it again). Here are the finished jimping (bit blurry):
Next task - sheathI was going to do a kydex sheath, but the way the knife looks I think a traditional leather sheath will look cooler, so I went shopping for leatherwork supplies today. I'm going to do a traditional american fold over design and not a scandi one because its a little simpler, and I prefer the look. This is one design i think looks amazing (also has holder for fire steel):
The problem is I have no fucking clue how to get rivets like that. its way way too thick for regular eyelets (its 3 layers of leather there). Might ask on some crafting forum, but the swedish knife maker guys I talked to today had no idea which bodes badly :S Quite likely I will settle for something like this:
not as cool looking, but those rivets
I also need to figure out a logo to stamp on sheath before I can get going (needs to be done while leather is wet and soft), and maybe also to put on blade if I want to get into the magical world of etching with electricity