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

[kbaknife]

In the morning, I will place alignment pins from the handle face into the spacer, and from the butt cap into the butt of the handle.
This will allow me and Doug and the new owner to take this knife apart at will and play with it!!

[Kevin Evans]

Hey Karl this is WAY COOL ,now every Bow Hunter in America will be making these.LOL
Guys just a little hint it is way way harder than it looks!!I have spent all day watching in person ,come home and try it ,within ten minutes I am on the phone with Karl
Wait till he shows use how he files the handles

 Lin Rhea, Karl Anderson and Doug Campbel are doing a great thing for the kids and on top of it all someone will get a true one of a kind colaberation Knife
My hats off to you guys ,
Kevin Evans

[Doug Campbell]

Awesome job Karl        

Kevin is right your making it look way too easy.  

[GRINCH]

Awesome work.

[Lin Rhea]

Karl,
         I could not be more proud of your craftsmanship on this knife. Your take downs will soon be legendary and it's an honor for me to be a part of it.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Looking great guys!

[The Whittler]

Can't wait to see it finished. It looks like it's going to be a beauty.

[Jim Jackson]

Beautiful work!  Fascinating to watch, and what an addition to the auction.

[hunt it]

Sweet my friend!! Looking real good and the pictorial is fantastic! I can't wait to write the article on this project. We'll need to get a picture of the cheque it brings in!

Keep up the great work guys!!!! You make all of us at Trad Gang Proud.      

[kbaknife]

This is the part I enjoy and also represents what I consider to be about the strongest assembly possible for a hidden tang knife.
These alignment pins allow the maker the ability to repeatedly disassemble the knife during creation, and allow the new owner the freedom of being able to check the "health" of this knife and take care of it like a fine weapon, and be able to reassemble it in the exact position necessary.

Here, the pin locations have been determined in a prior step and shown here:

   

The pins I use are 5/8"/.625" long and 1/16" diameter stainless steel pins.

 

Here I will set the pins into the handle .425":
 

and into the spacer 200".
 

Note the little dot right at the top of the tang slot? This is to indicate "up" so the spacer does not get put on upside down.

 

Here we show how they slide together:

 

Since this knife has a butt cap, I will perform a similar procedure on it.
However, since the butt cap is only 3/16"/.185", I can't go .200 deep. So, I only drill the holes .125" in the butt cap and .500" in the handle.
This way, any of the pins can be used in any of the holes to eliminate confusions.
I originally had the bottom hole located and actually started to finalize it before I decided to raise it some due to the profile of the handle and the depth necessary for the handle pin.
So, there are two little "dots", but incomplete and of no significance.

 

[kbaknife]

Now to make a permanent finial and retire the temporary.
For this I turn a piece of 3/8 416 stainless stock.
Remember that hole I drilled into the butt cap with the ledge?
That ledge was .100" deep.
So, I turn a shoulder on this finial that is .110" long.
When assembled, this keeps the larger portion of the finial from scratching the face of the butt cap.
 

Now, thread the finial 10-32 to match the tang:

 

Check fit and mark for length:

 

and the give it a little shape of its own and assemble:

 

[kbaknife]

Originally posted by Lin Rhea:
Karl,
         I could not be more proud of your craftsmanship on this knife. Your take downs will soon be legendary and it's an honor for me to be a part of it.

I appreciate that, Lin.
And make no mistake, I don't want to go down in history!
That said, sure, my take-downs are assembled with a lot of care.
But even my fixed assembly knives are created in EXACTLY!! the same fashion.
Every time.
Threaded tang and finial and pinned for strength.
Every time.

[kbaknife]

For those who may question the strength of the take-down finial, I did a little test one day for some doubters.
I made up a little assembly just like I would make for one of my knives:

 

 

Then, hooked up a log chain and all the concrete blocks I had to my deer lift:

 

 

And gave it a crank!
 

I think it'll hold up.

[hunt it]

Thats my kinda field testing right there!      

[Gil Verwey]

Boy do I have a new appreciation for knives. Great job and a lot of hard work and effort!

Gil

[kbaknife]

Now, the new owner needs to be able to take that knife apart, so I turned a take-down "wrench" to fit the hole in the finial.
And, we can't consider it complete without a little checkering!
 

And here are just a few of the tools - maybe 1/2 of the hand tools I used - not including all the power equipment I used here and the forging equipment that Lin used to forge the Damascus and the blade.

 

[kbaknife]

Her she is, ready to  be sent to my good buddy, Doug Campbell.
It will now be his task to take all these parts to their final dimensions.
They're just squared off and blocky at this time.

It has been an incredible honor to work on this with such a fine group of people.

 

[SveinD]

My oh my, that is one fine looking knife! And very cool to see all the hard work you guys put into your creations! That is inspiring  

[LC]

Awesome work! It's amazing what work goes into something like this! True craftsman.

[kbaknife]

Originally posted by LC:
Awesome work! It's amazing what work goes into something like this! True craftsman.

CraftsmEn.