Working the Pivot

I made a little progress on the Bobcat knife this weekend.  Most of my work on the knife was done on surface grinding the heat-treated blade, fitting the pivot, and setting the open and closed positions of the blade.  Here are a few progress photos of the work accomplished.

In this photo you can see all the parts that will make up the pivot; two bronze washers, a pivot pin with screws, and a pivot bushing.  The blade in the photo has been surface ground on my surface plate and is good and flat.  I have also reamed the pivot hole in the tang with a carbide reamer.  Waiting to ream the hole until after the blade has been heat treated has really helped to tighten up my pivots.

This photo shows the inside of the front bolster about to be drilled.  In order to conceal the pivot pin screw heads, a pocket needs to be drilled on the underside of the bolster.

Here are the two bolsters with the pivot screw pockets drilled in.

The spacer needs a little work before the blade will rotate properly.  At this point, the length needs to be trimmed back and the inside curve needs to be made wider so that the blade seats in a little deeper.  I have colored the tip of the spacer with black marker and scratched a mark where it needs to be ground down to.  After a little bit of grinding, the spacer will be ready to go.

In this photo I am working to set the closed position of the blade.  I have added a stop pin and grind down the tang slowly with a 1/4" sanding drum in my Dremel until the blade folds in all of the way.  Just a little bit more to go and the blade will be seated perfectly.

The last thing accomplished was to begin the shaping of the handle.  To do this step, I use the slack belt attachment on my grinder.  Here is the knife assembled and the handle finished up to 120 grit.  I will take it up to at least a 600 grit finish, but I might decide to take it to a full mirror polish.  I decided to try shaping this handle a little differently than I usually do.  I think I'm going to like it.

Thanks for stopping by the Robinson Edge and for following along with me on my knife making adventures.

-  Brandant Robinson