More Manix 2 videos!

This video I'm pretty proud of, while making a set of scales I set the camera on the tripod and shot 10 seconds of footage with every tool change, so that you get a good sense for what it takes to make these things.  The video is incredibly shorter than the actual process, which makes it great for shorter attention spans. 

This video shows some pockets that I made to the back of the handles to reduce the weight a bit, this actually takes 25% of the weight off of each handle!  And it brings the weight exactly even with G10, which is pretty awesome.  Later in the vid I strength test them, because the leftover area is pretty thin, so I jab it with a screwdriver trying to dent it:

Here I'm engraving a wicked biohazard logo onto the toxic green anodized Manix scales.  Using a 1/16" ballmill and around 4500rpm, it does a good job.  Normally I would flood this with coolant, but for the clarity of the video I left it dry.  I'm only cutting down 0.003", which is about the thickness of a human hair.

Benchmade Griptillian scales?

At the USN show a nice chap named Tom Jones came up to me, no not the famous singer, a friendly guy from England.  He loved my manix 2 scales but didn't have one, nor did he really want one, but he had a whole list of other knives he wished I made handles for.  One of which was a Benchmade Griptillian.  He let me borrow his so that I could digitize it and make some scales for it, so that's on the list of projects right after the Para2.

Paramilitary 2's galore!

For my 28th birthday a few weeks ago my father was awesome enough to buy me a Spyderco Paramilitary 2 knife, I love it!  It's such an amazing folder, a tiny bit big for EDC use but I still carry it.  It flicks open like no other and came wicked sharp right from the factory.  The first thing I cut with it was a huge rack of ribs when we went out for a birthday dinner. 

The grey one is a sprint run Para2 in CTS-20CP steel, a pretty wicked and rare find, I traded for it at the USN show last weekend.  Love this knife too, it's even sharper than the black one.

So, obviously, now that I have TWO paramilitary 2's, one or both of them need custom scales, and so do you.  Here's a vid just going over these knives and a few others:

Yesterday I tore the black one apart to see how difficult it will be to make scales for it, and although it does require milling on the inside, it shouldn't be a big deal at all for me to tackle.  First step is to digitize the handles inside and out, then onto designing them in CAD.  This vid shows my first tear down of this knife:

Went to Vegas!

Last weekend I was able to fly out to the USN Knife Gathering in Las Vegas, it was an incredible experience!  I took a bunch of video while there and have edited it all together, check it out!

Pics here:

Borrowed Doug Ritter  Griptillian on the left, and Doug Ritters personal EDC knife on the right, he was a really great guy to chat with!

Neptune from Neptuneknives.com, he's a big youtuber and bought 4 sets of handles from me.

 

Parmilitary 2?

So I'm trying to figure out the next knife to make custom handles for and the Spyderco Paramilitary 2 has me interested.  Stock it's got really nice G10 handles, but man, how sweet would that knife be with anodized aluminum handles?  Maybe with some cool texturing on the front?  I want them to weigh about the same as the stock handles, so if I have to mill some pockets on the backside to lighten them up then I'll definitely do that.  G10 seems to be about 75% the weight of aluminum, so it shouldn't need too many pockets to get it light enough. 

I can't make glow scales for this knife because it doesn't use liners, it's just straight up G10 with small nested liners for the compression lock.  It relies on the structural integrity and robustness of the G10, glow unfortunately isn't nearly as tough.  However aluminum should do the job nicely! 

Here is spyderco's official picture of the Paramilitary 2:

Videos for the Manix scales

Here are some vids that I posted about the aluminum manix scales.  Next time I make some I will be sure to get some video of the CNC mill in action! 

Lots of new projects

Since making the Rat 1 scales I've been working on scales for the Spyderco Manix 2 knife.  Since my glow material is so expensive I made the first set out of aluminum, which is relatively cheap and I can purchase as much as I want from the metal store 5 minutes away.  Once the stock handle is digitally profiles and put into my CAD program, I then have to figure out what tools I need to make it, and how I'm going to hold the material while cutting it.  Then I have to tell the CAM program how to do all of those operations and it will spit out a rough "G-code" file, it's a text file which tells the machine where and when to move, in an XYZ coordinate system.  I often find myself heavily editing this file as I make the first few prototypes to make the job run smoother.  

Here is the first set of handles that I made for the knife.  Nearly perfect, with a few tweaks to do next time.  I machined that wicked striped pattern into the top, it really reflects the light in cool ways.  As is, they don't offer much grip, so I think I'll work on incorporating some grooves for traction, or maybe a completely sculpted face.

Here is what the knife looks like partly disassembled.

 

The first 18 pair finished, glowing in my dark shop.

 This is what my milling machine looks like when I turn out the lights at night!

 

Here you can see how I've made a much needed improvement to the stock knife.  Normally the end of the scale is pressed onto that lanyard tube very firmly, and it uses that friction as the sole attachment point for the back half.  So instead of requiring a press fit I made my lanyard holes a little oversized, then include 2 phillips screws that are countersunk into the middle clip hole.  If you're using a clip, you only need one screw, but I'm including two with every kit, in case you want to run without a clip, or if you lose one.

 First round of boxing and shipping getting underway!  Exciting.

 Here I finally got around to anodizing these aluminum handles, I chose my Toxic Green color because it looks wicked.  The ones on the left have been beadblasted, the right ones are just the machined finish.  I like machined finish best, but hey that's just me.