St Judes Collaboration Knife - Work in Progress- Knife Complete with Pro Photo

[madness522]

Wow looking great!  I was saving my pennies for a shot at this bad boy!  I'm betting it will raise over $2000 for the kids.  Or at least thats all I have saved so far.

[Wickles]

Very cool!

[Jim Jackson]

Any updates?

[speedbump]

Nice work man. I too, can't wait to see the finished product

[TWarrows]

looks great so far..

[Jim Jackson]

TTT!

[Lin Rhea]

More pictures coming soon.

[kbaknife]

Current production pictures coming soon!

[kbaknife]

Sparks flyin' again!
I'm in the process of getting my portion of the knife done so I can get it sent to my good buddy, Doug Campbell.
My main task is to get the knife in its final and refined dimensions prior to hardening.
Once the knife is hardened, changing things becomes an entirely risky process, so the closer to its end shape, the better.
Here I have clamped a carbide faced clamp to the blade and I am refining the precision of the grind so it matches on both side geometrically.
I might add here, that working with steel is an entirely different game than shaping other materials like wood and such.
It's just far more difficult and arduous.
 

Now it's important for me to remove ALL of the lateral grinding scratches prior to hardening. This is done with steel bars and silicon carbide paper to a completely clean and straight 220 finish.
 

 

This knife was made with a clipped front end and includes a false edge.
It's important that the false edge be not only symmetrical from side to side, but it must be sharp and crisp as well.
Nothing is more slipshod than edges of a false edge that are washed out.
A now-gone knife maker by the name of Buster Warenski, who was one of the only people on the entire planet to be allowed to fondle and inspect King Tut's daggers for reproduction purposes, once said that a person should almost be able to get CUT on the bottom edge of a false edge. That little ledge where the false edge makes the transition to the blade flat.
I go to great extremes on both symmetry and crispness on my knives, and every time I do one, I think of Buster.
The only way I've found to do this is by draw filing the clip and false edge and refine with steel-backed paper.
I know there are TONS of other makers who just grind them in.
But not at Andersen Forge.

 

Draw filed:
 

Hand finishing:

 

Sharp and crisp:

 

[kbaknife]

Now we're going to establish what are called the "guard shoulders", that junction where the slotted guard butts up against the back end of the working portion of the blade.
I once again resort to using my carbide faced file guide which allows me to crisply define the junction.
   

Here, it's in place where the excess material will be removed:

 

And here, the final product:

 

Now, she's ready to harden.
Here's the quick metallurgy tutorial on hardening a knife blade.
After forging and some post-forging operations, the knife is relatively easy to grind and drill, etc, but that blade is worthless as a knife! It's basically soft.
So, we need to make it hard.
Here I have the forge coming up to a proper heat.
 
My task is to alter the internal arrangement of the alloys of the steel by bringing it up to around 1500 degrees.
If, at that point, I was to remove the blade from the forge and simply let it cool off on its own, the steel structure would revert to a worthless and soft condition. It would sort of go to its 'Happy Place'.
But we want it hard.
So, I bring it up to that 1500 degrees and quickly quench it in a properly designed quenchant that has certain additives appropriate to THAT! steel type.
We want to extract the heat out of it QUICKLY! so as to remove the heat that the steel would require to be able to revert back to its 'Happy Place' and FORCE it to create a new condition.
That new condition is hard and very brittle.
Some steel must get from that 1500 degrees and down to about 900 degrees in under 2 seconds, and other steels need to make that jump in 8-10 seconds.
So, there are different additives in different oils that accommodate the different steels.
The steel used in this knife needs to make that transition in just a few seconds.
Lot's of makers use sub-standard substitutes that only allow small percentages of the transformation to take place and it's easy to tell a properly made knife from one where the maker took shortcuts.
Here is one of the quench tanks I use and will use on this knife.

 

After quenching:

 

Now this knife is hard, but at the cost of also being brittle.
So, we will temper it.
We'll put it in a digitally controlled heat treating oven at about 425 degrees for two tempering cycles about 2 hours long.
This gives that steel structure just a little bit of extra heat so that a controlled portion of it can go to it's 'Happy Place' and leave a knife blade that is rather hard, but no so hard as to shatter, and can be sharpened easily.

[kbaknife]

So, the hardened and tempered knife.
 

Here are the components of the knife assembly:
The blade, guard, spacer, Ceylon Ebony handle block, butt cap and finial.
 

It's important that I get the sides of the ricasso/flats perfectly flat and parallel.
I do this on a granite surface plate that is true to less than .0001" inch across the face.
 

 

Now I do a re-grind of the blade and finish it all over again! The hardening and tempering process sort of "burns" the outside of the knife skin like a piece of toast gets burnt on the outside and this needs to be cleaned off by re-grinding and hand-finishing.
 

 

Only this time, I don't just go to 220 grit.
I finish out the 220 with a perfect 400.
Than finish out the 400 with a perfect 800.
Then finish out the 800 with a perfect 1200.
Then, etch in ferric chloride acid.      

Remember how Lin forged up this blade steel in the begining?
With alternating layers of dissimilar steels?
Those two steels were ALMOST! the same, butone of them had about 3% nickel added to the mix.
This makes that steel very tough to be used as industrial band saw material like that used in huge sawmill blades.
Well, that nickel makes that steel resistant to the acid etch and shows us the pattern created by manipulating the steel billet when we forge it in the beginning.
 

[kbaknife]

It's also important that my assembly pieces be perfectly flat as well.
So, I place little tape "handles" on my pieces and get them flat on the ol' surface plate:
 

 

My spacer piece is a little thick for my tastes, I'm removing about .050" on my small mill and also getting the two sides parallel at the same time.
Then, back to the surface plate.
 

Just a few shots of the shop:

 

 

 

 

[JParanee]

Hi I am kinda new around here but I am not new to traditional Bowhunting .  I have done alot of hunting and have used recurves for the bulk of my deer hunting.

Another thing I am not new to is the world of custom knives. I have been involved with them for over 25 years and what I would like to say is how fortunate ya all are to have  Artisans like Lin and Karl around here to do something like this .. They are just first class Smiths that are masters of there art.   Thanks Guys see ya at Blade this year and maybe Denton Hill If I can make it.


On to the knife

fantastic knife

Great steel to start with and that Belly and the shape of the clip is just perfect in my mind


Thanks Again and I really like this site and the folks on it

[kbaknife]

Thanks, Joe, Glad you could join the party.
And, see you in a few weeks in Atlanta.

[kbaknife]

So, now we take that large front guard piece and mark it for slotting.
 

First, we run down the center of the slot with a 1/8" inch end mill, which in fact is only .124".
 

Since the ricasso area where this will sit is .274" thick, once I remove the slot thickness of .124", that leaves exactly .150" more material to remove.
So I go one way of the slot .075" of an inch and the other side the same distance and we get this:

 
Now, this is why I take so much time getting the ricasso and guard shoulder area not only perfectly flat, but also both sides EXACLTY parallel, and within .001"/less from top to bottom.
When I slide the guard with absolutely no filing or other fitting, I get this:
 

Then, by filing the top and bottom of the slot to fit the guard shoulder radius, I get this:

 

Now, do the same thing to the spacer, and things are starting to come together.

 

[Dryfired]

This is all very impressive. What a beautiful blade. Thanks for taking the time to share the build of this knife and explaining the process, which is akin to magic in the eyes of many  

[kbaknife]

Now that we've got our guard and spacer fitted, we need to get our handle put on.
I've got my tang cut for length according to the drawing, so I need to thread it 10-32.
When I thread my tangs, I like to get them so they look like a screw you bought in a hardware store:

 

 

Now I take my profiled handle material and m,ill the face flat where it will meet the spacer.
This knife will be a take-down and can have absolutely NO spaces visible or physical.
Everything must be a flush, flat fit.
 

Here I lay the handle on the tang and make marks on the face of the handle where the tang enters and exits.
These holes are then drilled and filed.

 

 

[Lee Slikkers]

This is such a great build/project...thanks for taking the time to document and share it with the group.    

[kbaknife]

Upon first fitting, it almost goes on but stops a little short.
This is because I only drilled and filed the hole from the front to fit the major portion of the tang.
Note that the first .300" of the tang behind the spacer is larger than the remainder.
This is where the handle stops abruptly.
 

 

So, I take a high speed rotary die grinder and remove material from the inside of the slot to accommodate this larger area.
When the knife goes together, I want to have to just gently push it into position without any slop in the fit.
 

This is the way things are supposed to go together.
 

[kbaknife]

Now for the butt cap and finial to pull it all together!

The 3/16"/.185" thick butt cap is marked and drilled.

 

I drill it with a step drill.
 


This creates a ledge that will mate up with the shoulder I turn on my finial when I make it on the lathe.
This is a temporary one to show the mating surfaces.

 

 

Together: