Yesterday I got to make a special birthday present for my brother, check it out! This is the coolest set of custom scales I've made yet!
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Project updates
I posted a video about some of the work I've been up to lately. Knifemaking Tuesday week 02 went great but I didn't get any shop time unfortunately, but I did get to spend the day on my computer designing my first knife! I got it fully designed, next tuesday I'll start cutting it out.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Eastwood tumbler wins again
These blades have spent the past 41 hours in my Eastwood Tumbler getting deburred and polished, and I finally got a good picture of them! The tumbler really finished them off nice. The blade pictured upper right with the funky edge, I gave that a quick once over on my small 1x42 belt grinder with a 240 grit belt before tumbling, that took off the milling marks and left a really nice looking grind. The Anso blade bottom right I put a quick edge on it, the front edge looks nice and manly. Ignore the terrible jimping on that one, I used a long 1/16" drill bit and it kept going off center when drilling the holes, they should be spot drilled first. But for the one on the bottom left I didn't grind it at all, that's right off the machine and into the tumbler, great finish! All it really needs is a quick buzz on a scotchbrite wheel before tumbling then I'll be super happy with it. (note to self, buy scotchbrite wheel)
What do you guys think?
What do you guys think?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Knifemaking Tuesdays - Week 01
A few days ago I was chatting with my wife about how I never seem to have enough free time to spend working on my new custom knives. I've got 100 ideas bouncing around my head but never any time to try them out. So she suggested that I take one day a week to guilt-free design and practice making my knives! Awesome! Now we have Knifemaking Tuesdays.
Today's project was to figure out how to fully machine a knife blade so that it doesn't have to spend any time on a belt grinder. I made 4 different designs and after a lot of practice I finally figured out how to render a blade profile in Solidworks, now that I have that skill I can design pretty much any shape! Once I had the code written I spent a few hours with my cnc mill cutting out the first batch, surprisingly everything went very smoothly. I got to try different parameters for each one to see what I could get away with, the one pictured lower left turned out soooo wonderful. I've got all 4 blades broken apart now and they're currently in my tumbler where I'll leave them all night and probably most of tomorrow.
Check out this video describing the whole process of the day.
Today's project was to figure out how to fully machine a knife blade so that it doesn't have to spend any time on a belt grinder. I made 4 different designs and after a lot of practice I finally figured out how to render a blade profile in Solidworks, now that I have that skill I can design pretty much any shape! Once I had the code written I spent a few hours with my cnc mill cutting out the first batch, surprisingly everything went very smoothly. I got to try different parameters for each one to see what I could get away with, the one pictured lower left turned out soooo wonderful. I've got all 4 blades broken apart now and they're currently in my tumbler where I'll leave them all night and probably most of tomorrow.
Check out this video describing the whole process of the day.
It's been a while, but I sure have been busy!
It's been a month and a half since I last posted, I find that it's much easier to make youtube videos with updates than it is to keep the blog updated, so to keep track of all the new cool stuff I'm working on it's best to subscribe to my youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/JohnGrimsmo
The past month I've spent a lot of time trying to perfect my Paramilitary 2 handles, I've made 3 sets so far and they're all wrong, the nested liners don't line up with the clip and pivot holes in the scales so it just doesn't work at all. It will simply be a matter of trial and error until I get them perfect, once that happens then they will be very repeatable and every one will be exact.. Ahh the joys of CNC machining! I just got a big sheet of lightning strike carbon fiber in the mail today, this is the perfect thickness for Para2 handles.
Last week I got to play with a lot of titanium. Norman from NukoTools contacted me and asked if I could do some engraving for him. He makes titanium knuckels (like brass knuckles but obviously in Ti), and he needed 160 of them engraved with his logo. It was really fun to finally get to work with titanium. I used a 1/16" carbide ballmill, 0.005" depth of cut, 4500rpm, and feedrate was 2.7ipm (thank you Gwizard for suggesting these feeds/speeds!). Here are a few videos describing the process, and also how we anodized a bunch of them for fun.
The past month I've spent a lot of time trying to perfect my Paramilitary 2 handles, I've made 3 sets so far and they're all wrong, the nested liners don't line up with the clip and pivot holes in the scales so it just doesn't work at all. It will simply be a matter of trial and error until I get them perfect, once that happens then they will be very repeatable and every one will be exact.. Ahh the joys of CNC machining! I just got a big sheet of lightning strike carbon fiber in the mail today, this is the perfect thickness for Para2 handles.
Last week I got to play with a lot of titanium. Norman from NukoTools contacted me and asked if I could do some engraving for him. He makes titanium knuckels (like brass knuckles but obviously in Ti), and he needed 160 of them engraved with his logo. It was really fun to finally get to work with titanium. I used a 1/16" carbide ballmill, 0.005" depth of cut, 4500rpm, and feedrate was 2.7ipm (thank you Gwizard for suggesting these feeds/speeds!). Here are a few videos describing the process, and also how we anodized a bunch of them for fun.
I also got to finally try a new pattern on my Spydero Manix 2 handles, Dragon Scales! I'm working with a local artist who is amazing he hand drew the pattern for the scales and then I copied it into the CAD program. Check out these pictures and videos!
Friday, September 23, 2011
Engraving
I've been doing some cool engraving lately, it takes a long time (hours) to render the engraving and produce the code, but the actual engraving part only takes 10 minutes or so.
This is an AG Russel Acies knife that belongs to my buddy Shaun, together we anodized it to 45v which produced a light green almost yellow color, then I engraved it with this celtic cross that he provided. Engraving Ti let me get super duper fine detail, and it turned out amazing!
This is one of my toxic green manix handles that I engraved with CustomSpyderco.com's logo, he's going to start carrying my scales in his store which will give me some good exposure in that part of Europe!
Tomorrow I'm going to a Toronto area USN knife meet, and we were asked to provide a giveaway prize. Shaun offered this survival container and did the foam pad with biohazard logo, and I did the engraving today. Considering that the lid is stamped aluminum and nowhere near flat, I think the engraving came out pretty well. It's really deep, but in a way that makes it look even cooler.
This is an AG Russel Acies knife that belongs to my buddy Shaun, together we anodized it to 45v which produced a light green almost yellow color, then I engraved it with this celtic cross that he provided. Engraving Ti let me get super duper fine detail, and it turned out amazing!
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