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The Folding Knife (& Switchblade) Forum The materials, techniques and the designing of folding knives.

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  #1  
Old 12-27-2000, 12:22 AM
eadus
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building a folder


G'day Gents,
I am an avid reader of any folder material and I recommend the following 3 books, "How to make Folding Knives" by Ron Lake, Frank Centofante and Wayne Clay, "How to make Multi-blade Folding Knives" by Eugene Shadley and Terry Davis and "The Tactical Folding Knife" by Bob Terzuola.
I use the Ron lake method to design my folders with particular emphasis on the profile of the piece in the open position, the top and bottom profiles should flow from the handle. I've attached a design that I use, with a scale to give you some idea of the size.
I also recommend that you either purchase a surface grinder or gain access to one, it makes life that much easier. You can build folders without one but it takes a long time and the first law of folder making is "everything must be flat and straight".
Once you have your design down on paper and are happy with run off about 20 photo-copies and cut out the handle cetion of one and glue it (with contact cement) to a piece of surface ground 3/16"-1/4" O1, drill the blade pivot with a #31 drill and then ream it with a 1/8" reamer, then drill the bar pivot hole and the 2 spacer holes with a 3/32" drill. Profile the piece of O1 to the line of your drawing and then remove the drawing with either petrol or acetone. Harden the template and either leave as quenched or you can boil it in water for a hour and should finish up witha hardness of around 63-64Rc.
This is your handle template, drilling guide and set-up block.
I'll stop here for your comments, if I've gone too fast for you let me know and if you have any questions I'll deal with them now before moving on. Also attached is a photo of my template




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  #2  
Old 12-27-2000, 03:10 PM
Terry Hearn
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Keep going Neil, I'm with you so far.
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  #3  
Old 12-27-2000, 10:44 PM
eadus
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You gents will have to bear with me a while, the plan is that I'm building this folder as I go along. I buy my 416 stainless is a 3ft square by 3/16" thick sheet and cut off enough for a folder frame (2 of), bar and spacer, then I surface grind down to approx.5/32" and heat heat it to around 30Rc. This takes about a day (I've been out doing it today), so by tomorrow I hope to get into it properly.
One thing I should mention is the need to make sure that your drill press and/or mill drills at right angles to your vice. I did this by "clocking" the spindles in my mill and drill press and shimming up the stand to achieve the require result. If your holes are not at right angles your folder won't go together properly and in particular your blade won't lay straight in the closed position.
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  #4  
Old 12-29-2000, 09:26 PM
eadus
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G'day gents,
I've done a little more of the folder. After heat treating the 416 frame that I have rough sawn to shape I clean it up on the surface grinder, to make sure that the 2 pieces are nice and flat. I then drill the blade pivot with a #31 drill and ream it with a 1/8" reamer, drop in a 1/8" pin and lay it over my template. I then clamp the 2 together and drill one of the spacer holes, drop in a 3/32" pin and drill the next one, drop in a pin and drill the third one (the bar pivot hole). I save all my old 3/32" drills, snap the fluted section off and use the shank as try pins. I repeat the process for the second piece of 416 so I end up with both sides drilled. I then paint lay-out liquid on each piece and using the template as a guide scribe right around the template. Stepping up to my vertical platen I grind each half to the scribed line and having done that I put the 2 sides together and match them as a unit with 240 grit. I then witness make each piece to show the outside of the left and right sides.
Fig1 shows the 2 sides finished to this stage.

Fig1

From a photocopy I cut out the blade and glue it (with contact cement) to my blade steel, in this case a piece of ladder pattern stainless damascus from Stamascus Knife Works. The steel has been wash ground to .130" and whilst it is flat and even the finish is not to my liking. however I will clean it up later.
The next step is to drill the blade pivot hole. I use a 3/16" bronze bearing, which are available from the major suppliers, and they mike out at .189" exactly the same as a #12 drill, so I drill the hole first with a 1/8" drill, then with a #13 drill and finally with a #12 drill. The reason I do it like this is because I don't have a reamer that measures .189". I then cut out the blade on my band saw. When doing this make sure you leave plenty of meat on the bottom of the tang otherwise you won't be able to fit the piece up properly (the pointer in fig3 show where)
Figure2 and 3 show these results.

fig2


fig3

The next step is to file and polish the blade notch. Place the blade in the filing blocks (I made these out of scrap D3 and they have been hardened to around 65Rc}. Using your drawing as a guide file and polish the front of the notch to 1200 grit and when your finished check that the front of the notch is at right angles to the top of the blade (It will lock up better this way). Tip: I put a little piece of offcut at each end of my filing block to make sure that the 2 halves tighten down evenly.
I then file and polish the rear of the notch. Again using your drawing as a guide place the blade in the blocks however drop the tip of the blade down 1-3 degrees off the vertical, this gives a slight taper to the notch and will accomodate and future wear. File and polish to 1200 grit.
That's the blade notch finished. Figure 4 shows what I mean about dropping the tip a bit.

fig4


fig5

Figures 6 and 7 show my jig for gring the tang which should be a circle. The jig is nothing more than a 1/4" piece of mild steel that has been surface ground, a hole drill with a #31 drill and reamer to 1/8" aprox. 1/4" from one edge. A pice of 1/8" pin is dropped into the hole and the blade and bearing is placed on the pin so the whole thing rotates around the pin. Stepping up to my vertical pattern I grind this circle making sure that I keep the blade rotating otherwise you will grind a flat spot. I start with a 240 grit belt and go up to 1200 grit, I then hand polish with 2000 grit on a flat block.

fig6


fig7

In the next installment I will fit the bar and hopefully the spacer.

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  #5  
Old 12-29-2000, 09:40 PM
eadus
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I hope you guys can follow what I'm doing, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to sing out. I forgot to mention that when I've ground and polished the tang there is still plenty of meat left on the bottom of the tang, you can just see it in figure 7.

Thanks Pat for editing my previous post, I hope I got this one right, it took me a couple of goes.

Regards from Australia.
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  #6  
Old 12-29-2000, 09:53 PM
CKDadmin
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Neil ...

This looks like it's going to be one hell of a detailed project post!

This is really cool ... I'll put the word out in the Newsletter that the class is just beginning!

Nice Job

Alex
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  #7  
Old 12-29-2000, 11:23 PM
eadus
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Thanks Alex,
I also forgot to mention, that you'll notice that I've left my blade a bit longer than the drawing. I do this because I like the blade to take up as much handle space as possible, and if you leave it a bit long all you do is grind it back to fit.

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  #8  
Old 12-31-2000, 06:11 PM
eadus
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Before we move on to the lock-bar, there's one procedure that I go through, that is bringing the bearing to the correct size. I like to run my bearing .002"-.003" larger than the blade. First off I remove the draeing from the blade and then surface grind it .0005" at a time to give me a nice finish, in this case the blade finished up at .1235".

I have made this neat little tool (I dreamt it up all on my ownsome) that is simple and easy to use. I looked out a piece of scrap tool steel that has been surface ground, in my case D3 but O1 or similar will do, approx. 3" long 1/14" wide and 3/8" thick, the length and width are not important but it should around 3/8"-1/2" thick, next drill a hole with your #12 drill and then harden the piece, my runs out at 66Rc. Using a piece on 3'4" brass rod turn a length down to .189" making sure it is longer than the hardened pice of tool steel is thick, part off the 3/4" rod to leave a "cap" on the .189" leg, rather like a one legged stool. Place the leg in the piece of tool steel and using wet and dry on a flat surface sand the "leg" down flush with the tool steel surface. The main reason I used brass was because it is easy to sand down.
Cut a piece of .002" shim steel the size of the "cap" and drill a hole in the centre with the #12 drill, place the shim "washer" on the "leg" on the brass stool.
All you do then to bring your bearing down to size is put the blade on the brass stool and place in the hole, drop your bearing in the other side and sand it down flush on a flat surface. If you want your bearing bigger simply change the shim. Figure 8 explains it a little better perhaps.

I will be missing for a couple of days, have to undergo some tests in hospital, so I will move on to the bar when these are finished.

Regards from Australia

fig8
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  #9  
Old 12-31-2000, 07:57 PM
Bob Warner
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Neil,

You did not state what type of test you are having done. Hopefully they are minor. Good luck and thanks for the folder tutorial. Looking forward to your return (with good news) after the tests.

Bob
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  #10  
Old 12-31-2000, 08:26 PM
eadus
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This has got nothing to do about folders. I've had a chest infection for 4 months now ( a result of 40 years of smoking} and the specialist I'm seeing wants to find out why. I had a CT scan just before Christmas and these are additional tests he wants to do. I'm off the smakes at present ( for 7 days) and am doing it tough but a day at a time I'll get there.
Thank you all for your concern and I hope you all have a happy New Year.

Regards from Australia.


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  #11  
Old 12-31-2000, 08:30 PM
Don Cowles
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Best wishes to you, Neil. Hope the reports are good ones!
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  #12  
Old 01-02-2001, 05:16 PM
eadus
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Well gents I'm back on deck, the doctor wants me to have some more tests at the end of the month just to clear up a few things, but everything looks OK, other than a cronic shortness of breath due to a lifetime of smoking (I'm off them at the moment). I'm in the process of booking a table at the 2001 Blade Show in Atlanta and if things weren't good I wouldn't be doing that.
Anyway I'm now grinding down some 416 for the bar and spacer, the bar will run .121" 2 thou thinner than the blade and the spacer will be the same thickness, .1235".
Bear with me as I do this and I'll get some photos up in my next post.
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  #13  
Old 01-02-2001, 06:46 PM
Don Cowles
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Good news! See you at the Blade Show, Neil!
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  #14  
Old 01-02-2001, 09:20 PM
Terry Hearn
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Glad to hear everything is going good Neil,
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  #15  
Old 01-03-2001, 08:11 PM
Bob Warner
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Glad to hear that you are doing OK. I smoked forever and quit 11 years ago. I was easy for me and hopefully will be for you.

Looking forward to your next post and will probably be asking you some questions soon.

Does everyone know that some knives were stolen from Gene Osborn?
Go here:
www.centercross.com/BobSky/stolen.htm
to see them. Some %$^&@$** broke into his shop and stole them when he was out of town. Hate to see this happen to such a stand up family. Hopefully someone will spot the knives, beat the tar out of whomever has them and then give Gene a call.
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