The English internet is composed of multiple layers of cultural references, and to somebody from China (for example), it must be absolutely incomprehensible.
So, I can see how a version of Doge would end up as an emblem on a knife.
I like sodbuster pattern knives but I've never found one that really stood out. But it's something special when somebody does a well-executed modern version of a traditional pattern.
Trademark aside, it does have a few problems. I'm going to drop it in my pocket, and try to get around to doing a writeup after it has some snail trails.
Post by Shorttime on Sept 30, 2018 19:10:01 GMT -8
I've gotten quite a lot of progress without wrecking anything. I was even able to fix the ricasso, when the file skated off the shallow end of the bevel shoulder.
The file rough side looks better than the 150 finish side.
Every time I approach some kind of landmark with this, I wonder if this is the moment I'm going to mess it up. Usually, I feel some kind of satisfaction with these builds.
Yes, okay. "Builds", for lack of a better word.
Normally, there is some kind of satisfaction in getting the bevels set, but this time it was "oh, that's done, now time to try not to screw something else up."
At the same time, I couldn't quit. I suppose that's the definition of masochism.
I'm going to take the bevels up to 220, and then try to finish the rest of it. I'll have plenty more chances to get the guard flats uneven, and then I can work on a way to punch holes for handle pins. Maybe I'll try drill bits.
Last Edit: Sept 30, 2018 19:11:27 GMT -8 by Shorttime
I guess when most people think of the "classic" dagger shape, they're thinking of the Fairbairn-Sykes dagger from WWII.
I read a lot about the F/S dagger, and I forgot most of it. There were some concerns about the relatively fine tip on the F/S. I don't know if any ever broke, but it was enough motivation for Mr. Fairbairn to collaborate with Rex Applegate on a second version, with more steel at the tip.
Just the tip, though.
This second version is what I was aiming for, in a general kind of way.
Post by Shorttime on Sept 23, 2018 15:02:11 GMT -8
Here's some shitty, poorly lit, out of focus shots. I've got the bevels set, and I'm moving on to the other side.
The hardest part(s) of this is going to be keeping the point lined up, and keeping the shoulders symmetrical.
I posted about this in a Facebook group about knifemaking. I was asking for alternatives to the standard dagger/bevel grind, and I got half a dozen suggestions to "use a bevel jig!", and one fella who just posted a picture of his double bevel grinder.
It seems like there are a lot of knifemakers who spend most of their time building tools, instead of making knives.
Figuring that they didn't know shit, I went looking on my own. Somebody out there must have tried something different from the conventional double-edge dagger, and I found Bo Randall's "Gambler" knife.
If it was good enough for him, I can find a way to make it work.
This was a long process, and there is another sketch that I like better.
One of the things I've decided to do with this hobby is go off in different directions, on purpose. Some of it is because of what I like, but a lot of it is because of stuff that I either don't like doing, or don't have the equipment to do efficiently. So this is going to be the only time I do one that looks like this. It looks cool, but there are other ways to get to the same result, and there are dozens of companies cranking out stuff that "looks cool" every day, for prices that I can never hope to match.
Post by Shorttime on Sept 15, 2018 18:46:26 GMT -8
Time to brag to the Internet?
I tried to do some point-on shots, but the autofocus tries to capture the background, even on super-macro. I don't get it.
This was all the further I was willing to push my luck, for the day. I guess I'll wind up the angle grinder tomorrow, and keep trying to not screw it up.
Post by Shorttime on Sept 14, 2018 17:06:40 GMT -8
All I can do lately is these stabby daggers. The design process is all stream of consciousness, and I usually can't make myself go in a different direction. I just have to try different iterations of the same design, until I find something I'm satisfied with. And I will re-visit the same several times, so I just keep wrapping back around to the same concepts, and hopefully getting better at expressing the design, each time.
To be honest, I'm scared of trying these fancy grinds, so I may as well post a couple iterations, to illustrate how this recursive design process works, and because I'm bored AF.
The top four are probably three months old. They've just been sitting in my binder, and I want to do the wharncliffe-looking thing, but I don't have the right width of stock.
That series of drawings gradually became this, which was the design I showed off, a couple days ago.
I figured I would try the handle design from the earlier set, on the dagger blade.
I read about the design process behind the Fairbarn-Sykes dagger years ago, and remembered something about the way the handle is set up being important for keeping the blade pointed in the right direction.
I liked what I had, but I wanted to modify it a little.
Which brought us to this.
It's a subtle difference. The handle is longer, which is mainly an aesthetic choice, but I know it affects the center of rotation for the knife, and you don't want it to be half a gram heavy on the front.
For reference, the squares on the graph paper are 1/4" on each side. It makes it so much easier, because I don't have to do a lot of the set up that I would need if I was using clean paper.
This fast-looking piece has a bit of a story. The drawing has been hanging around for a while, and I never seriously intended to transfer it to metal. Mostly, I don't do these kinds of knives, because I don't understand enough about the "real world" use of "fighting knives", and I hate trying to do symmetrical bevel grinds. Stuff like this, with complicated bevels, is a design exercise for me.
But, there's this girl. Yeah, it's one of those stories.
Kind of.
I've known her for quite a while, and she's trouble in an attractively curvy package. She knows about my hobby, and one day she stated that she would like me to make a knife for her, the kind she can "stab people with".
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I could rattle on about the Twenty-one foot drill, legal decisions revolving around disparity of force, and half a dozen other subjects surrounding why "stabbing someone" is a really bad idea, but she's not the sort of person to know, or care, about knife combatives, or the finer legal points of self defense.
She is the sort who would get mad at ME, if she "stabbed someone" with a knife I made, and had to go to jail.
Still, the idea of trying a dagger grind to test my skill, wouldn't leave me alone. I rummaged, and found the design, but I didn't think I had any flat stock in the right size. I figured I would go down, take inventory, and when I found I didn't have anything wide enough, that would be it.
Except that I did. So, figuring that whatever force drives these things was pointing me in the direction of further masochism, I cut the stock to length, traced it out in Sharpie (works better than Dykem, IMO), and started hogging steel.
The piece left over is 6 3/4", by the way, exactly right for something with a more conventional profile. That's when I knew this was going to work.
There's still a lot of detail work to chew through. I have to do the choils by hand, and then all the narrow flats have to be trued, and the blade has to be sanded to 220 so I can scribe the bevel lines. I'm going to do a symmetrical bevel, instead of a chisel grind. Then, we'll see.
If she really wants to just "stab people", I'm going to recommend she get an insulation knife, and some training. She's going to be horrified at the price I quote her for this beast, anyway.
The first hit, a piece of hot scale jumped off, and burned my arm. I like a hobby that leaves scars.
Most forums have an "injuries and accidents" thread, so I'm going to request that other people post their burns and bloodletting. Sharpening injuries? Bring it. Bizarre sewing accident that ends with a grease fire? Absolutely! Show your skills!
A side effect of being a knife enthusiast is that items of.... questionable quality find their way to you.
Like this one.
This piece was part of a collection that had some worthwhile stuff in it, and a few that I don't feel any remorse about practicing on.
They couldn't even be bothered to get the ricasso stamp right. That's how you know.
I can't do anything about the gap between the ricasso and guard.
But I can do something about the guard itself.
Man, that's a bad picture. Eh. Good enough in this case, right?
These "saw teeth" might actually work, with a little modification. There is science behind getting these right, and on most of the Lile/Buckmaster/Rambo copies, they are more like extreme jimping, than an actual wood-cutting tool.
Ugh. They're even worse, close-up.
I can do something about the clip, too. As you can see, making all those bevels meet up in a clean and professional fashion is something this fella hasn't mastered, yet.
The yellow tinge on the blade (especially visible in the second picture) is lacquer. It's on all of these knives, and I'm not going to remove it, yet. Dry lacquer is pretty durable, and requires equally vicious chemicals for removal. I might see how a little Hydrochloric etch makes this blade look after everything else, because I doubt that it's really all that "stainless".
Is Dow-Corning red silicone sealant. I never call it that. It's usually "red goo" , or sometimes, "instant gasket maker". It's solvent resistant, including diesel fuel, heat resistant, and sticks to many, many, things. So about a week ago, I grabbed the tube from my truck and pressed some of it into the seam. Fingertips being the best method for this job, there was some over-coating.
I used red silicone because
1) It's free for me to use
2) It's already proved itself in the harsher environment I work in.
If this is something you think is a good idea, I wouldn't recommend just any gap-filling adhesive. Superglue and Gorilla Glue, would be examples of things I wouldn't use, because they dry into a hard coating, which does not allow for expansion and contraction. It may be a tiny amount of movement, but the point is to do this once, and be done.
My advice would be to stick with silicone- or some kind of rubber-based glue, which cures into a flexible seal.
IHTK, I think you are actually experiencing what you think you're experiencing, with the lid.
The top of the lid is exposed to ambient temperature, which means it's going to heat up and expand, however marginally, faster than the inside of the thermos. Or, I could be blowing smoke out my ass. Without scientificy, we'll never know.
If there are tradeoffs that have to be made, I would rather have the lid expanding, and sealing tight...
There was also a fella who did some work with threaded fasteners, and he verified that the torque required to break a bolt loose is higher than the force required to tighten it in the first place. This may be a similar situation.
Every year, on the first really hot day of summer, I go to work, and sweat so hard that I can't possibly drink enough water to keep up. So, I get dehydrated, and spend the last 2-4 hours of my shift in Migraine Headache Hell. Because for me, all roads lead to a migraine. The only thing I can change is how long it takes to get there.
The next day, I buy the inaugural bottle of Gatorade, and from then on, refill it until the end of really hot summer days.
This year, I decided to try something different. Part of the problem is that, if I'm off in some corner of the plant, working on something, I don't want to be the guy who has to fuck off every two hours to go get a drink. I also just plain forget, or try to grunt it out, because I'm busy.
If I had one of those fancy water bottles, I could fill it with Gatorade (work provides 1-gallon dry mix, we just have to add water), put it in my truck, and maybe not half kill myself, quite so often.
This is my overcompensating-big brushed stainless steel vacuum insulated water bottle.
How overcompensating is it? 34 ounces, thank you very much.
So fucking what? How big is it?
(Big enough) Eight and one half inches, from table to lip.
Or, about one and one half Sunwayman P-25C's
The Sunwayman is about as much as you want to clip to your pocket, too. Here it is, next to one of those Zebra pens.
The lid is the standard black plastic screw-top type that we're all used to. It's got seals at the top and bottom, which is nice. The handle seems reasonably sturdy, but the reality is that this thing is too bulky and heavy (when filled with delicious beverage), for you to want to lug it around all day: it's going to stay with your vehicle, or it's going to live in a pocket on your backpack.
I didn't want one of those fancy pushbutton pop-top things, because Gatorade is hella sugary, and it would eventually get goobered up. I would have to take it apart, one of the springs would disappear, or some other plastic thing in there would snap.
I didn't want to spend on a Stanley, or a Yeti. This is something which is going to bounce around on the skiing seat of my truck, it's going to get dirty, and I didn't want to have to treat it like something precious.
Ten dollars at the local outpost of Sam Walton's little shop of horrors. Normally, I don't like to give the Walton family my money, but when it comes to stuff that I take to work, the rules are a little different.
The Good
34 ounces isn't quite big enough to get me through a whole shift, but one of the constraints is that it had to fit in my cooler for entering and leaving the plant. I didn't want some giant-ass 64-oz Growler, because there's enough junk in my truck, as it is.
It keeps things plenty cold. I leave it propped on the middle bench of my truck, and the outside is warm to the touch, but whatever I'm drinking is the same as when I poured it in there.
The top seals tight, with no BS. I bring it home, rinse it clean, and it's ready for more. I imagine it would get nasty in a hurry if I let it sit, but I don't intend to do that. Even if that happens, it's easy to wash, which was one of my top priorities.
The Bad
It's not ever gonna fit in your pocket! Obviously, this is a large flask. I need that, because it can easily be 110 degrees in some of the places I have to work in. But if you're out for a day hike, or escorting the kids through an amusement park, get something smaller.
Same way, it's heavy. If you're determined to carry it around with you, find space on your pack, or get a dedicated carry sling (yes, they make 'em). Trying to carry this thing in your hand is just awkward.
The Ugly
This little bastard right here:
Or rather, Wal-Mart's own-brand's shitty QC.
They evacuate the air from the space between the inner and outer walls, then the bottom gets compression fitted. There is an internal seal as a result of the compression fitting, but it leaves this gap. I had a $40 Stanley thermos lose it's vacuum seal on me, so I knew what could happen.
The one in these pictures is actually the second one I brought home: the first one started bubbling around that gap, while I was washing it under warm (not hot, warm water). Total ownership time, about 30 minutes.
Those bubbles mean the seal has failed, and air is getting into the interstitial space. After the vacuum is fully compromised, have you a really fancy fucking drinking glass, which isn't worth shit as an insulating vessel. I took it back, swapped it for another one, and gave it the same warm water wash. It failed to fail, so I kept it.
I've had this one about a week, and it's become my favorite drinking glass, here around the house. When the seal finally does fail, maybe I'll treat myself to a Yeti, or hope that something mid-tier comes out to compete with them.
Is it worth the price? Hell yes. IMO, it's probably worth twice as much, if you get a good one.
Is it a good value? Well, no. You're rolling the dice on whether or not you get a good one, in the first place. Then, there's no guarantee of how long it will last. The outside is thermal cycling on a regular basis, but the inside is staying at a steady temperature, for a long period. So, you have two pieces of metal, which are expanding and contracting at different rates. That is not a good place to be, for any kind of airtight seal, and I think it's a matter of "when" it fails, not "if". If you're not worried about getting long life out of it, or if you just need something that's cheap because it's going to get dented and dirty, then this may be the way to go. But be warned that some day, you're going to reach for a cold beverage, and you're going to be missing the "cold" part.
Last Edit: Jul 7, 2018 16:32:16 GMT -8 by Shorttime
At 6" OAL, with a 3" blade, it rapidly became the fixed blade for everyday carry.
So, it made sense for the Randall Adventure Team to try and work out a folding version.
A small batch were built and distributed to the most hardcore of fans on ESEE's forum for testing, which revealed that the pivot pin was either poorly located, or not physically strong enough.
The design was tweaked, and re-revealed at either SHOT or Blade, in '15 or '16.
Since then, we've heard occasional news about RAT needing to expand their machine shop, troubles with heat treating, and although there was a pre-order list on BladeHQ, most people have given up on the Izula folder. Even some on ESEE Forum chuckle about it when it's brought up.
So, along comes Expat. He's a die-hard ESEE guy, and he decided to do a little knife-making, himself. Jeff and the boys were impressed with his work, and put some of his designs into production in their facility.
Since then, Expat has decided he's going to do something really wild:
The "Medellin" folder, announced at SHOT, and scheduled to come out in 2018. No, wait. I've just heard that they're changing the pocket clip a little, so maybe 2019. You get the idea.
I wanted the Izula folder for a long, long time. So when I heard rumors of a folding version of the ESEE 3, I thought "Finally! It's what we've been waiting for!" Maybe not a true Izula folder, but as close as we're probably ever going to see.
I checked Youtube and Knifenews twice a day, all week, looking for pictures. And when I finally found a picture, I realized something marvelous: I wouldn't have to buy a Medellin!
Because I already have a Kershaw Cyclone.
Here's Expat's knife, again.
Yes, you're right, they don't match perfectly. But they're going to feel almost identical. And the Cyclone's tip is down lower, for easier starts in flat cutting.
Full Flat Grind (like the Medellin's blade) is a deal-breaker for me. Based on the fact that the Cyclone is so similar, but better (IMO) in several ways, I just don't want the new one, because the old one works for me.
I've been seeing this, more and more. One of the lessons is that if you get too well-informed on a subject, you start to lose interest. I'm not advocating ignorance, I'm just observing that it takes something damn special to get my attention, and with the story behind the Medellin, I was hoping for something different.
Last Edit: Feb 5, 2018 20:17:09 GMT -8 by Shorttime
#1 can also refer to what is called a "hidden tang" knife.
Some folders have a smaller steel "liner" in them, with a plastic or rubber shell. Like this Lionsteel:
This is another one of those weight/strength tradeoffs. Most people like lighter weight, and some reduction in tang strength doesn't affect the real-world durability of the knife.
I'm going to guess we're talking about Buck and Benchmade, here....?