The making of a custom round knife

[Brian Avila]

I've never made one a round knife, but from sanding/grinding rounded objects, I would suggest some sort of jig that you can put on a tool rest that allows you to pivot at the desired radius. If you have a tool rest to achieve the angle you need, the jig could be as simple as a board you screw the knife tang to from a whole towards the rear of the tang. You may even need to affix the blade to something longer to get the desired radius, but it should allow one to make a symmetric grind.

I am pretty sure I can grind it free hand. By holding onto it with a magnet.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

I've never made one a round knife, but from sanding/grinding rounded objects, I would suggest some sort of jig that you can put on a tool rest that allows you to pivot at the desired radius. If you have a tool rest to achieve the angle you need, the jig could be as simple as a board you screw the knife tang to from a whole towards the rear of the tang. You may even need to affix the blade to something longer to get the desired radius, but it should allow one to make a symmetric grind.

Sounds like a filing Jig. Lots of plans for them here and on YouTube. Aaron Gough has instructions for a nice one. Works sort of like a beefed up Edge Pro sharpener. Basically a board with an eye bolt screwed into one end and a rod that you zip tie a file to. I'll probably need to make one for a head knife.

 

[Salolan]

Is that Osage orange? Gorgeous work! Do you make them to sell?

This has really got me wanting to try my hand at one of these. I'm not super talented with steel, but I have patience on my side.

Where can I buy a small piece of steel in the correct size? I have bars of various steels, but nothing like what I'd need to make a round knife.

Edit- just remembered AKS and NJSB were mentioned. I'll give Chuck a call soon.

Thanks Anthony for the compliment and yes, it is Osage Orange with copper pins. I had intended on making a matching ulu but it didn't survive heat treat. As for your other question that is above my permissions but no, I have not. As previously mentioned this one is too thick to be a proper head knife and as such I haven't been using it as I had hoped. Hoping to change that with the next one though.

As far as getting a piece of steel, I would recommend AKS over NJSB on this as you can get it in shorter lengths. I doubt you'll want 48" of 4" wide stock, I may be wrong.

Dave, would you recommend grinding before or after heat treat since it is so thin(looking at .052" stock)? Or should I bump it up to the .07"?

Chris

 

[Brian Avila]

I guess I would like to point something out. But take it as a grain of salt because I haven't used a round knife yet:

I can't disagree that a thin k ice would work optimally. However, I can use a piece of 0.07" thick steel. And get the same angle as a 0.052" or even a 0.042" thick blade by having the bevel travel up the knife further than what you would get with a thinner stock and a shorter bevel.

I have been told that the old Osborne knives where thin 0.042" thick stock and that they had a bevel that went up 3/8".

I can get the same angle on thicker stock by having the bevel ground higher into the blade.

So that is my intended plan for using thicker stock 0.07" thick.

 

[Salolan]

Agreed Brian. I guess I should have stated that the one I had previously was .125 and I didn't take the grinds nearly high enough to counteract the thickness.

Chris

 

[Brian Avila]

Agreed Brian. I guess I should have stated that the one I had previously was .125 and I didn't take the grinds nearly high enough to counteract the thickness.

Chris

Not a problem!!!

I just wanted to make sure I got it out there. It has been brought to my attention by a couple of people, so I figured I should say what I thought.

I will add in more info and pics as I go along, but everyone please feel free to contribute and have discussion.

-Brian-

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Thanks Anthony for the compliment and yes, it is Osage Orange with copper pins. I had intended on making a matching ulu but it didn't survive heat treat. As for your other question that is above my permissions but no, I have not. As previously mentioned this one is too thick to be a proper head knife and as such I haven't been using it as I had hoped. Hoping to change that with the next one though.

As far as getting a piece of steel, I would recommend AKS over NJSB on this as you can get it in shorter lengths. I doubt you'll want 48" of 4" wide stock, I may be wrong.

Dave, would you recommend grinding before or after heat treat since it is so thin(looking at .052" stock)? Or should I bump it up to the .07"?

Chris

Sorry about that Chris. I often forget about the membership because you can't see them on tapatalk.

You're right, the smaller pieces at AKS make way more sense for me.

Brian, one of the things that bothers me about my knife is that the thin (square) spine digs into my hand sometimes. I think it may be when I'm concentrating too hard and may use too much pressure. I'm considering rounding it, but the stock is so thin, it may not help much. A tad thicker would help in that regard. I'd plan on rounding (or at least knocking off the corners) for comfort.

If I do try to make one I'll probably use very thin stock because it's already above my pay grade without having a very tall bevel to negotiate. I'll leave the fancy work to you knife makers.

The question about grinding after ht is something I wondered about too. I figure on grinding after because of the thinness, but I'm curious how others do it.

 

[Brian Avila]

Holy .... the forum must have just been upgraded.... because the quick reply isn't showing for me anymore.

When it comes to heat treating before or after, it really depends on what you are doing. Because of the thin stock, I am going to grind after heat treat. Reduces warp.

 

[Horsewright]

Chris I've done quite a bit of grinding prior to ht. Brian is right you are flirting with warp and AEB-L or its clone like I used are notorious warpers. However I had no problems again one of the advantages of Peters. They come back straight. I've had them do many hundreds of blades and I only ever had one that had a slight amount of warp to it. One tempering cycle at 400 and was able to straighten that one out quickly and easily. It was 52100 not AEB-L.

I like the thinner stock. With out mic ing em I think they are all in the .05 range. I use my roundknives harder than most (20 pancake sheaths are on the kitchen counter down from where I'm typing that got thier fronts and backs cut out yesterday, I did stop for the second half of the game and then back at it, they are waiting for tooling while I finish cutting the rest out today). Eventually resharpening walks that edge back up that bevel. I've had roundknives that I kept using until they were no longer looked like round knives, they were glob knives. Literally I have used them until the edges were 2-3" above the original bevel. Thats a lot of sharpening. So the thinner stock gives you more life out of the tool and makes that resharpening easier. Also it seems use makes those real nice bevels turn into convex grinds anyway.

I know what you are talking about Strig about the edge of the tang biting your finger. That seems to be an Osborne feature and I suffered along with it too when I used their knives. I still have one out in the drawer. The length of thier handle makes that happen. To fix it I shortened my handles.

 

[Brian Avila]

An advantage of the hidden tang knife is that you don't get any of the corners or metal or steps between the metal and the scales. It is nice and even and if done right comfy.

 

[Horsewright]

I think he's talking aobut the tang after it leaves the handle. When you chooke up on the blade t.hose Osbornes can rub you

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Dave's right, sorry if I didn't make that clear. I mean the spine horizontal to the handle.

Cutting the handle down? It mentioned that in the instruction book, but I wasn't sure if it was necessary and didn't want to mess it up. I'll look into it further. It's a big ask, but if you get a chance, would you mind holding your knife and taking a pic? That would help a lot.

 

[Brian Avila]

Sorry, my misunderstanding.

 

[S.Alexander]

I really could've used a round knife yesterday and today. It sure is a pain in the ass to cut leather with a utility knife. I'd try my hand at one if I had the right size stock.

I'll be watching this thread with interest.

 

[Salolan]

Thanks Dave. I'll go thin then and likely grind after heat treat. Any chance for some photos of your non symmetrical round knife pattern?(and maybe the skiving knife pattern as well?)

Thank you,
Chris

 

[Horsewright]

Here are a couple of pics:

Two of my non symetrical knifes and the pattern for the skivving knife. The rosewood handled roundknife on the right is always on the bench.

I use the short end for 90 percent of the cutting and the long thin end for specific things like straight roll cuts etc.

How I hold the round knife. Here trimming welt material flush.

 

[Salolan]

Thank you Dave. When you said non symmetrical, it seems you mean barely so according to the eye. What I had envisioned was more along the lines of this.

Expecting my AEB-L from AKS either today or tomorrow. You said you went 63 HRC on the round knife, did you specify the skiving knife that hard as well, or did you back it off a few points?

Thanks again Dave. As always your experience and insight is paramount.
Chris

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks Chris and you are welcome. I asked for 63 again on the skivving knife too. Talked with Brad there and he said it was doable. I had the stock cause I had to make two mirror image hoof knives for a our local vet, a left and a right handed one. I'd called Brad cause after I made em I was concerned as I'd ground em pretty thin and then forged the curve into them as well as the little pig tail at the end. I wasn't sure what was gonn a happen in ht but he siad not too worry.

 

[Brian Avila]

This is where I get to start showing how I am doing things I guess.

I got a piece of 4.5" wide x 12" long x 0.07" thick piece of AEB-L. Now I realized that if I tweaked things a tad that I could get more than one or two knives out of this piece of steel.

So I will be able to get 2 original size round knives that are about 4" from tip to tip. One off set knife and a smaller round knife, just because.

So this is how I do things...

I sketch out the knife that I want. Scan it into the computer, so I have recored of it, and then print the pattern out onto card stock.

I use dykem on the steel and then attach the pattern to the steel and trace it out.

I plan on cutting these out this weekend, drilling the holes in the tang, and maybe even heat treat them.

Brian

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Really cool. I think a small(er than 4") will be a good addition to your kit.

Any reason you use red dykem over blue? Just curious.