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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 12-30-2014, 10:45 AM
odv odv is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Dominican Republic
Posts: 9
new little project

so i've been trying to design a little frame lock for quite some time. have all the measurements and all the hardware lying around my plant's shop BUT haven't decided which materials I want to use for it. but there's a problem, our shop, well, it cant be called a shop. its got a Bridgeport without any end mills right now (we just got it), a band saw, and a tiny 1/3 hp belt grinder. so yeah, i will be having to go to another shop for surface grinding and counter boring.

also, i live in a region where you ask for "steel" and they'll hand out construction grade steel, ask for stainless and they only know one (and don't ask for the actual type, all they know is that its stainless) and so on... this means i'm going to buy materials from aks or mcmaster.

all this being said, it narrows down to grinding, drilling, reaming and sawing from my end, everything else i'll just go to a nearby shop and have them mill out for me.

for the blade i'm still choosing between O1 and S30V... it all depends on how easy it is to grind and work with them. hardening and tempering will be done on a shop in the US. the back spacer and 2 small inlays that act as over travel are to be of this same material (like how it looks) i haven't found a way to post the picture of the 3d model i made, but as soon as i do ill post it.

for the handle i want to go with titanium, either cp or 6al-4v, aluminum, and a tool maker friend suggested steel (since i don't really care much about the weight... i do care, its not like i want to carry around 3 pounds in my pocket, but i'm going more for the functional side).

i've read and seen (an ultrasonic welder broke a horn and its quite hard to cut) titanium being quite hardcore to grind and machine which sort of leads you to shift towards aluminum... but i've never seen a spring or lock made of it. what do you guys think?
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  #2  
Old 12-30-2014, 11:31 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Wow. Where to begin. Do I understand correctly that this will be your first folder build? You are facing a mountain of problems if that is the case. Not saying that you can't overcome the difficulties but you might want to change your approach a little bit.

I understand you're going to farm out the steps that you can't do in your own shop and that's good up to a point. Even so, the chances of making a properly working liner lock (or frame lock) the first time out are almost zero. For that reason, I would strongly suggest that you save a bunch of money by making some aluminum prototypes first.

Every time I design a new liner lock folder the first thing I do is build a prototype out of aluminum. For this knife I use steel for the blade (mild steel is OK), aluminum slabs for the handles, and aluminum or some steel sheet metal for the lock. I can build one of these in about 4 hours and that allows me to know how the knife will feel in my hand, and more importantly, it tells me if the lock geometry will work correctly. If I need to change anything then all I lost was a few dollars and 4 hours of my time. But, if everything is perfect then I can take the aluminum knife apart and use it as a pattern.

Most people have to build at least 10 or 12 liner locks (or frame locks) before their knives really start to look like what they had in their imagination. Titanium is the only metal I would use for a real knife but the price and the challenge of working with it means you don't want to waste it. Titanium isn't really that hard to work if you are willing to spend the money for enough fresh ceramic belts, sharp drills, and fresh saw blades. Any dull tools and life will get much more difficult very quickly.

Same for blade steel. No point in buying high priced steel like S30V until you learn to grind a blade and until you can get it heat treated properly. Maybe you already can do this, you didn't say.

I have already written all this in much more detail in a tutorial for building liner locks at : http://www.rayrogers.com/ftutorial.htm Check it out, it might help....


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  #3  
Old 12-30-2014, 12:12 PM
odv odv is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Dominican Republic
Posts: 9
yes, this is my first flipper folder, but not my first knife nor build of any kind. i've made some fixed blades for friends and some coworkers out of O1 but i've spent days just shaping the blade itself and they've mostly been flat grinds (disc grinder then filing then sanding), small switchblade (not proud of it) and a tiny friction folder.
not much experience but i'm alright with shaping and making certain parts (just need to work on my precision machining)

when you mention aluminum or steel sheets for the lock you mean making a liner, right?

i can go ahead and make it out of aluminum just to get a feel for how everything should fit together but hows that going to help me with the lock geometry? its not like i can bend the aluminum and it'll let me spring it back.

thanks,

PS, i really like your tutorial, i've used it to sort of guide a friend on changes to where he should place the pins and how you don't need milling on the blade. this one i want it to be a little more compact so i'll have to use milling.

Last edited by odv; 12-30-2014 at 12:14 PM.
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  #4  
Old 12-30-2014, 12:47 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Yes, I mean sheet for the liner lock but you can bend the aluminum for a frame lock exactly as you would titanium. If you were using 1/8" titanium, for example, you (hopefully) don't expect to bend the lock bar without first thinning it in the bend area until it is the same thickness as sheet metal would be. You can do that for aluminum too. The necessity for having to thin the bar on a frame lock is why I don't bother to build many of them. There's not much advantage to a frame lock over a liner lock and they never feel as good in my hand but that's a personal preference.

Aluminum will make a decent spring for the prototype knife and the knife can function just as well as a titanium knife. The aluminum is too soft to hold up to a lot of use, of course, but this is a prototype and doesn't need to function perfectly for years of use.

As for how that helps with the lock geometry, if you get the prototype working smoothly with a nice tight lockup, the blade aligns properly with the handle when the knife is open and stops in the right spot when the blade is closed (without touching the back spacer) then you know the geometry is right and you have a perfect pattern to use. If, on the other hand, you find that your lock engages when the blade is 90 degrees open (as has happened to me) or if the blade has free play up and down after it should be locked open (been there) then you can take that as a hint that your lock geometry needs work and that is a major bummer after you have built and finished a beautifully ground blade and an expensive titanium handle - at least one of which will be on the scrap pile now.

BTW, if you do get into that situation it is almost always cheaper and easier to just start over rather than try to make a new blade to fit the handle or a new handle to fit the blade. Sometimes its worth doing but getting a frame lock or liner lock to work correctly is much more difficult when you try to do the steps out of sequence. It can be done, but most of the time it just isn't worth the time and aggravation ...


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Last edited by Ray Rogers; 12-30-2014 at 12:50 PM.
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  #5  
Old 12-30-2014, 01:09 PM
odv odv is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Dominican Republic
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yes, bending anything without thinning it down is quite hard. my thing with liners is looks... if im already wanting the metal handle, there's sort of no point of switching materials just cause of a liner. i know a .05 liner will work and might be easier to deal with than a 1/8 chunk touching the lock (at least seems that way).

i'll recheck the template but since it has a flipper tab i doubt it'll fall in before fully opening... blade wobble however, will be quite the task to defeat.
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  #6  
Old 12-30-2014, 01:39 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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QUOTE: yes, bending anything without thinning it down is quite hard

True enough, but the real trouble that would come from not thinning it is that most normal people couldn't unlock the blade once it was open.

QUOTE: blade wobble however, will be quite the task to defeat

True again BUT it is much less of a problem if you do the build steps in the correct sequence. That is the real value of my tutorial: if you follow those steps in sequence as they are presented you automatically avoid making the most common mistakes and your chances of getting a lock that works the first time are greatly improved....


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  #7  
Old 12-30-2014, 01:56 PM
odv odv is offline
 
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will do. ill give aluminum a try and report back.

thank you very much
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  #8  
Old 02-09-2015, 08:27 PM
odv odv is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Dominican Republic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Rogers View Post
QUOTE: yes, bending anything without thinning it down is quite hard

True enough, but the real trouble that would come from not thinning it is that most normal people couldn't unlock the blade once it was open.

QUOTE: blade wobble however, will be quite the task to defeat

True again BUT it is much less of a problem if you do the build steps in the correct sequence. That is the real value of my tutorial: if you follow those steps in sequence as they are presented you automatically avoid making the most common mistakes and your chances of getting a lock that works the first time are greatly improved....
Been long since i last posted, work had me a little held up. So ive completed the prototype and before placing the detent and bending the lock bar a bit, the knife flipped good enough. Now its become super rough to flip open! Im not using bearings, but it used to be very tight and itd still flip good without the detent.

As of now the detent is finger breaking once i bend the lockbar in... So i dont know what to do next. The way i set it was i drilled a hole around 3/64 and since its aluminum i pressed in the 1/16 ball in. Drilled the detent hole at the same spot with that same drill bit.

My guess, 1. The lock bar cutout is not deep enough and its having to overcome too much force and the hardened ball is chewing up on that mild steel and its not letting it flip good.

Any help would be appreciated!

Last edited by odv; 02-10-2015 at 04:33 PM.
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  #9  
Old 02-09-2015, 09:24 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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QUOTE: before placing the detent and bending the lock bar a bit, its become super rough to flip open!

Do I understand you to say that you have not yet installed the detent ball and you have not bent the lock bar but the knife no longer flips open like it did before? If that is the case and you haven't installed the detent ball or bent the lock bar then what did you do? Something changed.

Or, if you mean that you did install the ball and bend the lock bar and now the blade is much harder to flip open then, yes, that happens a lot. That's one of the reasons I suggest aluminum models first because its cheaper to scrap than titanium and easier to work with too so you can make more of them faster to fix mistakes. In this case, the mistake could be in the detent or it could be in the strength of the locking bar...or a bit of both.

If you can't flip it open because the detent is holding too hard then we need to look at how the detent was set up. But, if the blade is much harder to move even after the detent has released then we need to look at the lock bar. Before the lock bar was bent the area where the bend was made must be thinned out. The bent area has to be somewhere around .060 or it just becomes ridiculously hard to handle and presses on the blade much too hard. This will throw the blade out of line no matter how closely you fit the blade and pivot and that will make the knife hard to open.

So, I'm just guessing here. You need to be very clear about exactly what you have done (or haven't done). Maybe a picture or two if possible ...


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Old 02-10-2015, 04:36 PM
odv odv is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Dominican Republic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Rogers View Post
QUOTE: before placing the detent and bending the lock bar a bit, its become super rough to flip open!

Do I understand you to say that you have not yet installed the detent ball and you have not bent the lock bar but the knife no longer flips open like it did before? If that is the case and you haven't installed the detent ball or bent the lock bar then what did you do? Something changed.

Or, if you mean that you did install the ball and bend the lock bar and now the blade is much harder to flip open then, yes, that happens a lot. That's one of the reasons I suggest aluminum models first because its cheaper to scrap than titanium and easier to work with too so you can make more of them faster to fix mistakes. In this case, the mistake could be in the detent or it could be in the strength of the locking bar...or a bit of both.

If you can't flip it open because the detent is holding too hard then we need to look at how the detent was set up. But, if the blade is much harder to move even after the detent has released then we need to look at the lock bar. Before the lock bar was bent the area where the bend was made must be thinned out. The bent area has to be somewhere around .060 or it just becomes ridiculously hard to handle and presses on the blade much too hard. This will throw the blade out of line no matter how closely you fit the blade and pivot and that will make the knife hard to open.

So, I'm just guessing here. You need to be very clear about exactly what you have done (or haven't done). Maybe a picture or two if possible ...
Sorry, i wrote it down wrong. Fixed the previous post.
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  #11  
Old 02-10-2015, 05:23 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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The soft materials are a problem for detents so I usually don't bother to put them in the prototypes. Still, the problems you are having shouldn't be as bad as they are.

I think you are probably right about the lock bar putting too much pressure on the blade. Remember, this is only aluminum, the titanium will be even stronger! So, reduce the bent area of the locking bar down to .060 over a significant distance, about an inch or so. Make sure the bent area falls in that inch. When you bend the lock bar bend it only as far as you have to in order for it to reach all the way across the ramp on the blade and no further.

Make sure the detent ball is sunk into the locking bar all the way to its 'equator' and a few thousandths beyond. In other words, a little more than half the ball has to be buried in the lock bar.

As for the detent itself, there is a real art to making those work correctly and the method you used is the one with the best chance of making the blade stick and be difficult to open. You definitely do not want the ball to sink straight down into the detent. You might want to review that part of my tutorial for the details....


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Old 02-10-2015, 06:59 PM
odv odv is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Rogers View Post
The soft materials are a problem for detents so I usually don't bother to put them in the prototypes. Still, the problems you are having shouldn't be as bad as they are.

I think you are probably right about the lock bar putting too much pressure on the blade. Remember, this is only aluminum, the titanium will be even stronger! So, reduce the bent area of the locking bar down to .060 over a significant distance, about an inch or so. Make sure the bent area falls in that inch. When you bend the lock bar bend it only as far as you have to in order for it to reach all the way across the ramp on the blade and no further.

Make sure the detent ball is sunk into the locking bar all the way to its 'equator' and a few thousandths beyond. In other words, a little more than half the ball has to be buried in the lock bar.

As for the detent itself, there is a real art to making those work correctly and the method you used is the one with the best chance of making the blade stick and be difficult to open. You definitely do not want the ball to sink straight down into the detent. You might want to review that part of my tutorial for the details....
Ok,
My lockbar is close to 2 inches and a half.
Ill see if i can push it in deeper so it doesnt grind on it that blade that much
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