One Down, Two More to Go

A very happy new year's greetings, my fellow knife lovers!  I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.  I sure did.  Spending time with my family is always a wonderful experience.  I hope this year will be a good one for everyone.

With the time off during the holiday, I got to spend a few extra hours out in my little shop.  In that extra time I was able to complete my "Polished" razor and make a little more progress on the two "Glaucus" knives.  Here are some pics of my weekend's work.

Here are the handles after they have been assembled.  The scales and bolsters were too thin to use my customary machines screws, so I used pins to hold the bolsters on and epoxy and pins to hold the Micarta scales in place.

Together with the handle scales is the finished blade.  It has been hollow ground and hand finished to a 600 grit satin finish.

I just received my new maker's mark stencil and I was excited to see how it would look.  I'm very pleased with the results.  The gentlemen on the knife forums often push the idea of having the maker's name and not just initials or another mark on their work.  It makes researching the maker much easier.  I think my new mark looks pretty classy.  How about you?

Here is the first assembly of the knife with the pivot and the stop pin in place.  Well, I'll be... It looks like a razor.

The back spacer has been added to the tail end of the handle.  Now it just needs a little shaping.

Here's a photo of all the finished parts ready for final assembly.  The scales have been rounded off a little for comfort and finished up to a nice mirror polish.

And here are a couple photos of my first finished razor.  Pretty cool if I do say so myself.  I took it for a test run and found that it worked quite well.  It was my first time shaving with a straight razor, so I looked like a teenage boy after his first shave.  But, I'm sure that after a little practice, I'll be using this razor on a daily basis.  There is something special about using a tool that you made with your own hands.

Now, for the progress on the two Glaucus knives.

Here are the handles of the two knives after the scales and bolsters have been fit together.  All bolsters and scales get a 30 degree dovetail for a little something extra.  From here, I will profile each handle and start working on the blades.

This photo shows the blade for the first Glaucus knife after it has been hollow ground.  It's a small little thing, only 2 inches long from the tip to the bolsters.  My hopes is that it will make for a great knife to always have in your pocket.

I decided to work a little more on this knife, and maybe even finish it, before tackling the second one.  I fit the spacer, assembled the pivot and stop pin, and began the work of shaping the handle.  It still has a ways to go before it will be finished, but it's far enough along for me to begin its evaluation.  So far, it's meeting all of my design criteria.  It's small enough to be carried in the coin pocket of a pair of jeans and just the right size to pick out splinters, open mail and packages, and perform all those every-day tasks that one needs from an EDC.  It's also quite comfortable in the hand for such a small knife.  I'm very pleased with how this design is working out.  This should be a terrific little knife.

Well, that concludes the progress on these knives.  Stop by again next week to follow along with these builds.  Thanks for coming along with me on this knife-making adventure here on the Robinson Edge.

-  Brandant Robinson