What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

I just finished prototyping my "Switch Blade" modular utility knife. You can switch out blades and other parts...

As far as my time goes all I have been doing for many weeks is profiling and deburring knives. I am finally sending about 1000 knives off for heat treat next week!

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2 mm RWL-34 game & fish knife. 98 grams.
Ultrex red linen micarta.
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Suggestion for the next sword or large knife:
Don't Swiss cheese the tang all the way to the ricasso. That is the highest stress point in a strike and can easily break there. If you do it at all, start about 2'-3" back. I don't recommend doing it at all.
Swiss cheesing the handle to lighten it is the opposite of what you want in a sword. You need tang and pommel weight for balance. I don't think I ever saw a sword tang with extra holes drill in it.

If using that sword for cutting hard things you can expect a likelihood of it breaking.
 
I can't tell if it's the pics or not, but it looks like the holes are down the middle of the tang and along the sides are more of a dimple, maybe to create an epoxy "pin"? The side holes don't look like they go all the way through the steel. But I would be really concerned about the first few holes especially up near the ricasso! I did a throwing knife years ago where I swiss cheesed the handle to make the blade more front heavy and it broke at the first set of holes at the ricasso. Now I drill my pin holes and fuller out the tang if I want to reduce weight.
 
T Taz Yes, centerline is holes for pins and the outside marks are dimples. If it survives the quench its going to get horse stall mat grips and flared tube pins.
S stacy This is a first attempt so I might have to do some destructive testing.
 
Working on my first hamon with my new heat treat oven and I'm loving what I'm seeing already! Just at 120 grit off the grinder in this video. I'm actually looking forward to hand sanding this one so I can start polishing this baby up!

Also, I stopped in to a local gunsmithing shop to ask about some Glock customization and noticed that they have a Rockwell hardness tester, so I asked if they'd test some blades for me and they said that would be no problem! I'm excited to take my next batch of stainless blades to them for some accurate testing. I just have Rockwell files in my own shop so it will be nice to have some accurate results to be more confident in my heat treat process.
 
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