TM Hunt Pen Pal Apprenticeship. A Knife WIP!

Looks great man, nice work.
 
Looking good! :thumbup: I agree about the phenolic. It looks great and is tough as nails.
 
It looks great buddy.

I still think we should do a noob knife makers passaround.

Maybe we could inspire more noobs like us!

Keep up the great work!

Jeremy
 
Looks great man, nice work.

Thanks man!

Looking good! :thumbup: I agree about the phenolic. It looks great and is tough as nails.

Thank you! And yes I am in love with this stuff. Been an absolute pleasure to work with, looks and feels great.

It looks great buddy.

I still think we should do a noob knife makers passaround.

Maybe we could inspire more noobs like us!

Keep up the great work!

Jeremy

Thanks! I was thinking about that the other day actually! I think some sort of passaround with a knife making skill aspect might be neat.



I am excited to see this thing through. Realized the other day its been about a year in the making since initial conception to where it is now. Holy crap right? Anyways I did some more work last night and I'll have to snag some pics today. I think I am getting real close, just all of the little final details now.
 
As promised I have a quick little update for you. My finishing work on this knife is coming to an end! Probably another night in the garage and it'll be ready to head off to Todd again!

Here is the knife handle after last night. I did a little bit more shaping and took it through 320 to 500 grit to get out all of the gouge marks in the phenolic and pins. It has a smooth, soft, and grippy feel to it at this grit as I discovered when shaping the top of the scales. Took the picture the same so you can see the progress from yesterday. Its subtle but a little more shaping made a big difference.


Now on to some old business... Now part of showing successes is also showing your failures and I had a nice little screw up during glue up that I was not aware of until everything came out of tape. As shown previously I took great care in making sure the blade was absolutely clean, dry, prepped, before glue up to protect the beautiful finish Todd had put on the knife. Everything was great, glue up went seamlessly, no epoxy on the blade, no epoxy on the front of the scales, etc etc. BUT once I pulled it out of tape 24+ hours later I had a nice nasty surprise waiting on me. Somehow some condensation had made its way under the completely dry and prepped blade/tape and when I pulled the tape off I had quite a few rust spots show up :eek: Well it was not only rust, it was PITTING!!! I tried just buffing it out to now avail and realized the only way I was going to be able to fix it was to wet sand the blade. Last night I accomplished that too, but still have a ways to go. I rectified the rusting and pitting, but need to get the finish a little more consistent IMO.
Here is a picture of the pitting, I had knocked out the red active rust with a bit of cleaning compound for evident reasons...


Yuck right? Well after carefully wet sanding with oil up to 1200 grit you cannot even tell it ever happened. So here is my pic of the knife so far. Still have some more work to do finishing everything up good but this is the closest to finished its ever been :D But still have a couple more little here and there things left to do!


Thanks to everyone for looking! Be back soon hopefully!
 
Looks awesome. :thumbup:
 
Apologies if I missed it, but how did you get the IWHF letters in there?

Great project BTW!
Ah! Well when I sent it off to heat treat Todd stamped those in for what I am assuming was to mark it so it didn't get mixed up with his knives. They probably could have been easily filed out, but I saved them! I think they are kinda neat and add some character. I am pretty sure he probably just used metal stamps.
 
Great job man. I am glad to see that pitting was able to be sanded out.

I love the look of that handle.

Jeremy
 
:thumbup: That look great IWHF! very nice looking knife you got there!
 
Great job man. I am glad to see that pitting was able to be sanded out.

I love the look of that handle.

Jeremy

Thanks! Yah, I am glad it was fixed pretty easily. It honestly could have been a lot worse so I am pretty fortunate it was just a little bit. Gotta learn from mistakes though!

And I really like the handle too lol. Not to toot my own horn but I am really pleased with how things have turned out.
 
Last night I took the evening (into the wee morning hours :D ) to work on our knife some more. Doing a closer inspection of the blade I noticed a couple little vertical scratches around the plunge (probably remnants of profiling) SSSOOO I knew it was just going to keep bothering me until I at least tried to make it better. So I put taped up the handle, put it in the vice and restarted at 500 grit. To get the knife to sit firmly in the vice I taped in pieces of rubber to make up the space around the handle essentially squaring the handle up, and giving it come cushion to protect it. I went from 500 up to 1200 then took a piece of leather impregnated with green compound and started hand buffing away. I like how it turned out cause its not a mirror polish, but a soft, flat, almost satin, with a little bit of "reflectiveness" at certain angles. Also still has that "hand sanded" grain to it. Should be a nice surface for a patina to start forming once everything is all done. Then with thin pieces of paper I went back over the tang up to 1200 grit, then back with green compound. In the process I decided I would go ahead and give the handle a full polish and take the pins to mirror. So to the buffing wheel I went! I am pretty pleased with the results. Definitely took it up a notch. I noticed that even at a full polish the phenolic still has a bit of grip to it. If I decide I dont like the level of traction after getting to put some cutting time in with it I can easily hit it up with some sandpaper to remedy. Either way, enough blabbing I tried taking some "artsy" photos for youz guyz.







Well thanks for looking guys! I am thinking things are pretty much wrapped up here on my end. However, I am going to hang on to it for a couple more days before shipping it off just to make sure there arent any more adjustments that I want to make. Plus I need to get with Todd and work out any other final details on the edge and sheath. Yall have a good night and I will talk to you soon!

PS: I really appreciate all of the compliments and comments. If I have not directly thanked you for your kind words, I apologize and thank you so very much for taking the time to look and comment. :thumbup:
 
Well guys and gals I am pretty pleased with the way things have turned out! A huge thanks goes to Todd for his awesome guidance and help with this blade. This knife's next stop is the post office to be shipped back to Todd for the final edge and sheath. Pretty excited about that... Also have been playing around with the idea of having something etched into the blade, but I am still tossing around ideas... I thought before I got it all packed up and sent away I'd go ahead and wax the micarta, and take a couple of pics for yall out in the sunlight. Also wanted to show yall something that I really like about this blade and that is the fairly aggressive distal taper on the blade.



Absolutely love that taper. Needless to say though this knife is still a chunk. With the thicker slabs and full width tang its to be expected but I feel pretty confident this knife will take about any task asked of it. Feels real solid in the hand... Pretty excited to put it through it paces, hopefully throw together a video or some pics for yall to show it cutting some stuff.

Speaking of cutting some stuff here is a down the edge pic to kinda show how thin the grind is. Soon this thing will be sharp sharp sharp.



Feels great IMO but I am kinda biased. lol



Ok well next time you see this thing it'll be wearing pants and have some teeth. Thank you all for your kind words and for looking! See yah soon ;)
 
Absolutely love that taper. Needless to say though this knife is still a chunk. With the thicker slabs and full width tang its to be expected but I feel pretty confident this knife will take about any task asked of it. Feels real solid in the hand... Pretty excited to put it through it paces, hopefully throw together a video or some pics for yall to show it cutting some stuff.

Speaking of cutting some stuff here is a down the edge pic to kinda show how thin the grind is. Soon this thing will be sharp sharp sharp.


Looks kinda like it could cut the space-time continuum. Great work!
 
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