Have you ever had your life changed with a single telephone call? For good, or for bad, your life can change in an instant. Luckily, this time, it was for the good. Because of this new direction in my personal life, my shop time has been limited for the past couple of weeks. Hence, the absence of any progress on the project knives. After all the craziness, I was still able to get some file work done on the blades and back spacers. Here are some pics of the new progress on the Virtue knives.
The first step in the process of adding file work is to blacken the edges of the pieces with a black, permanent marker.
The next step is to make some layout lines to keep the file work uniform. To do this, I scratch lines at 1/8" increments with an Exacto knife.
I chose to do a twisted ribbon pattern on one of the knives. This pattern starts out using a jewelers saw to cut angled lines at every other mark. I don't cut too deep at this time, just deep enough to keep things aligned.
I then use a small 1/8" round file to cut grooves in between each saw mark. I then use a slightly larger chainsaw file to increase the diameter of the round cuts, taking care to round over the cuts at the edges for a more 3D look.
On the left is the blade with the file work nearly completed. All sharp edges have been rounded over with a three-corner file and the saw marks have been remade on the rounded surface, making the saw cuts uniform. The next step is to clamp the spacer in line with the blade, making sure everything is butted up tightly. The process of filing is continued down the spine to the file work termination point. Butting the two pieces together enables me to make a seamless joint between them. This makes the file work look continuous once the knife is assembled and the blade locked in the open position. Done right, the observer has to look very closely to see where the blade ends and the spacer starts.
Here are the two finished spacers for the two separate knives. I didn't take any pics of the second knife, but the pattern is quite different. Unfortunately, this photo doesn't show off the file work very well. I'll take some better photos later on when the knives are finished and you can see the work up close and personal. File work is very time consuming and can be quite tedious, but in my opinion, it really sets off a handmade knife, putting it on a shelf far above any production knife.
Here the blades are wrapped in stainless steel tool foil, ready to the heat treatment. The blades will get hardened in the electric heat treat oven, followed by a subzero (- 40 degrees F) treatment in dry ice and two tempers to give a final Rockwell hardness of about 59-60.
Well, that about does it for this post. I hope you are enjoying following along with me on this knife making adventure. The next step after heat treatment will be to grind and polish up the blades. That's always the step that worries me the most. I've messed up a couple of blades over the course of this hobby, which is a crying shame after all the work that goes into them. But, with the new grinder to work with, my chances of achieving good, consistent grinds have improved exponentially. Wish me luck. Thanks for stopping by the Robinson Edge.
- Brandant Robinson
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