Time - for Posting?

"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want."  - Bill Watterson

Ahh, time. It's so valuable to me that I feel I should allow it to be sold on the stock market. Folks could purchase a share of my time and as they stay invested in my time longer, the returns on the amount of shares they purchased would increase in value. Time to me is so sweet that I can almost taste it. I don't mind wasting my own time even if it's to do nothing. But I truly despise losing time trying to "catch up" with things, especially if it's something I just have to do. Take for example the situation I find myself at the school where I teach. In September, I mentioned in my article the challenging start of the school year where many factors had just increased my work load preventing me from really focusing a lot of time on my knifemaking. I mentioned that the program I teach (machine shop) had lost a very valuable part-time instructor to a full-time teaching position at a different community college. This has greatly increased my teaching load for the spring 2013 semester, which is where our part-time instructor earned a lot more hours due to the increased number of courses. If I were only teaching, it would be challenging - but mainly just a lot more hassle to prepare for classes. But because I'm also the dept. head of the program, this puts a great deal of stress on me and reduces the amount of time I can use to manage the program, advise students, participate in recruitment activities, manage the shops (and there are two to manage), and keep up with administration for the school. Because another dept. at our college lost an instructor for the rest of the spring semester due to health, one of our part-time instructors has had to alter his schedule to help make up the lost course load, which means I've had to take on even more courses. As a result, I was teaching nearly twice the number of hours I usually do in the spring. This meant that the already limited free time I had was reduced even further - basically stopping all activity in my shop. So, for the entire first half of the spring semester I've basically done nothing in the shop. I've simply not had the time to hit any projects or if I managed to get a little free time, then I've usually just not had the energy to get back to it. 


I suppose this is one of those times in life when I should be thankful that I have a job considering the current state of the economy and that it's much better to be too busy rather than not busy enough. But I just don't feel that way. Perhaps I'm just selfish with my time. But all too often I've seen some of my colleagues burnout or devote so much of their life to this profession that he/she had the hardest time adjusting to retirement or even worse, continue to teach well past retirement age where their health degrades to the point that they have no choice but to stop working. I'm not suggesting that I don't care about my work, or our students. Obviously I do care. But I also have a life that I know can be cut way short. I've already had plenty of brushes with death, especially in the military. I've had family members and friends die slowly from cancer or die suddenly from a heart attack. I'm not about to be that guy that just wants to keep working "so I can stay useful." I realize that there are no guarantees. There's nothing that says definitively that I will reach the average life expectancy of a typical North American white male. There are odds/factors already stacked against me for that. So, if I make it to my retirement with most of my health intact and hopefully somewhat financially secure, I plan to be highly active in my golden years. And I damn sure don't mean work.


Having said that, and having had to nearly bite my own tongue off to prevent me from strangling someone, this plus all the stress from my current predicament drove me to sneak a little time into more learning when I could. Over the spring break I signed up for a jewelry making course that I took at the Virginia Institute of Blacksmithing. The course was offered through Piedmont Virginia Community College along with other courses in blacksmithing and jewelry making. The course was taught by Karen Friedlander who has made jewelry or been making creative arts for a number of years. It was cold-forming only which means no soldering but I had a lot of fun. We experimented with different methods of creating a patina and we learned different methods of texturing the materials. We mostly worked with just copper (not sure which type) but we also did a bit of Stirling silver and had access to other materials like brass and bronze. I made two sets of earrings and a brooch. Actually the brooch became more of an item for a necklace because it didn't turn out quite as I had expected but still, two out of three successful finished projects for my first try at jewelry making isn't so bad. I had a great time learning basic jewelry making and I can definitely say that I'll keep pursuing that along with blacksmithing and knifemaking.

Materials that I was allowed access to in the jewelry making class. Mostly copper and bronze and a bit of silver.

Use of chemicals or temperature to produce a patina. The one in the center I believe was made with amonia.

 

Texturing examples

This and the next photo were done with a roll press and different pieces of textured wallpaper. The effect it has on the very formable copper is quite nice.

 

This texturing was done with simple hand tools and a hammer.

 

My first set of earrings. I used a bit of the blue patina copper for the "dangling" parts and simple textured copper for the main sections.

These pieces were given a patina then heated up with the small torch to make the copper more ductile. This allowed me to create a peapod shape where I could put some beads in for embellishment. I'm very pleased with the result.

This was originally planned as a brooch or a tie-pin with a layered section having a stylized capital "S" cut out. It became more of a necklace due to its size.

Later during the semester, I took a glass-blowing course. At the time I knew very little about glass-blowing but I learned that it is definitely an art form. The instructor is an actual glass-blower. That's his job as an artist. He works only in glass. To make a little extra money he offers people a chance to learn his art or use his studio. He has several stations setup for working with glass but he keeps his classes small (about 4 or 5 per class). This gives him the opportunity to do a bit of work in the studio while students are working on their projects. I enjoyed the class and for once it wasn't so far for me to have to drive that I needed a motel room to stay at while taking the class. Glass is in my opinion quite finicky. It doesn't take very long for it to reach its critical temperature where it can be worked. However, the window of opportunity to actual work the glass is very short compared to metals. Metals like steels do not have good thermal conductivity so they're slow to heat up but also slow to dissipate heat. This gives steel a lot more time available to shape it while hot. It was a fun class but I learned one very important thing. Glass-blowing is an art form that I will not pursue.


So, what else did I manage to squeeze a bit of time in to learn? Well I took another blacksmithing course. I've had courses in the past at other institutions but this was taken at the Virginia Institute of Blacksmithing again. Previous courses I've taken in blacksmithing were fairly open-ended. Not much was done to prepare the students to learn basics, or to have materials ready. But this time was much different. I have to say that the instructor, Dale Morse was very good, patient, and well-organized. Materials were already prepared and awaiting the students. Dale gave very good demonstrations and worked closely with students that were obviously challenged at learning the content (most likely myself included.) His partner, David Tucciarone was also equally helpful and has a great sense of humor. This shop is setup to run coal forges. They're actually quite clever in their design because each forge is a piece of a larger forge that can hold 4 stations. Each station has its own blower for air. And to help manage temperature of the forge metal, there is a water cooler that runs beneath the forge. My project (at least the completed one) was a wall-mounted coat rack. 

These pieces were supposed to be assembled into a candle holder but I ran out of time and couldn't complete the project. It was still fun to work with these pieces.

This material is quite thick and challenging to heat to a temperature high enough to work it.

I'm also really pleased with the texture.

The completed wall-mounted coat and hat rack.

One of my first rivets.

I worked with 1/4" steel round bar stock and 3/8" steel flat stock or plate. To get the effects of the twist in my "J hooks" I squared a section of the rod by hitting it with a hammer at the anvil and then rotating the stock 90 degrees and repeating. Then I heated up that squared section to its working temperature and put the work piece in a vise and used a large wrench on the "J" part and simply twisted the end. Since the end mounted in the vise can't move the hook twisted up quite nicely. 

Fairly asymetrical in its appearance but that's okay.

I learned a great deal more at this course than at previous courses. One important detail I learned was that coal forges are damned dirty. The dust literally gets into anything and everything you can possibly think of and even into a few things you might not realize. At the end of the day, even if you cleaned yourself thoroughly at the sink or in the shower, there is still coal somewhere on you no matter what. So for future reference, say if I were thinking about the possibilities of building a shop for myself, I'll most likely use a gas forge to provide any long-term open heat source. It's probably more expensive to setup and build a gas forge and I'd imagine that maintaining fuel for it costs more than coal. But the shop environment will be so much cleaner. Plus, coal fires require constant attention. Once my work piece had reached the critical temperature to allow me to work it, I would take it to the anvil, hit it with a hammer (which is quite therapeutic) and shape what I can while it's still hot, then as soon as I took the piece back to the coal forge to reheat, I'd have to tend the coals. I think that it'll just be much easier and cleaner to maintain a gas forge than a coal forge. Which is why I signed up for a basic welding techniques course in continuing education at my school this summer. Now I've actually already had some basic welding experience mostly Mig (Metal Inert Gas) and a small amount of Oxy-Acetelyne. But that was nearly 18 years ago so I'm  a bit rusty. But the instructor Luke Guthrie is a former student and graduate of the Welding program at my school and he's very good at what he does. I learned and remembered a lot. No major projects at this time with it. I took it mainly to refamiliarize myself with Mig welding techniques and to learn a few that I didn't know. But already I can see an application for this in my knifemaking. One of which is obviously the gas forge. But, that'll be awhile yet before I'm comfortable at building it. 



Now that we (might) have an actual additional full-time instructor in my program starting this fall, I might even get the opportunity to (gasp!) study more knifemaking. I've already signed up for 3 knifemaking courses for this fall, two I've taken before. Not only that, but I have signed up for a basic silversmithing course (weekend only) in Greenville, South Carolina July 20th and 21st. And I might get a chance to squeeze in one more blacksmithing or jewelry making course before I'm expected back in August. And to top that off, I'll actually have a chance to get back into the shop and finish up some projects! I've got a knife grinding fixture that's ready for me to try out for creating flat grinds. 

The fixture isn't completed yet but if it works then I'll have a cool knifegrinding fixture that I can duplicate and use repeatedly.

Also, I've purchased a lightboard for drawing/designing my own custom folder knives which I'll put together and show a bit of design process in a future article. And guess what? The fun doesn't stop there! Because I came upon some old pocket knifes buried in a flea market that look like they would make an excellent restoration project! And in my spare time...

 

The Amateur Crafter: Project 3.0 - Chillin' & Drillin'

One of the goals about this project, and the purpose of equipping the shop, was to learn about the processes into making a knife. By that I mean a custom knife. Learning about these processes allows a deeper understanding towards manufacturing the product and gives insight into areas that need improvement, in particular processes that produces 'hit-and-miss' results. The process where I am (or rather was) at in my knives is one of those steps that didn't produce the expected result. I'll explain.

To lighten the weight of my knives I intended to drill out some holes along the handle. This is a common practice by all professional knifemakers. I knew that removing material from the blade when I grind it would make the knife heavier in the handle. I want these knives to be balanced more at the choil, just behind the back of the blade. 

To do this I first laid out the template and put four 3/8 inch holes along the handle area. While I was at it, I went ahead and drilled out the holes for the 1/8 inch handle pins. Since the template was thin material (1084 steel I think) this was pretty easy to do. Also, I did this at the shop at work on a large vertical knee mill. This provides a considerable amount of rigidity. However, my knives are 5/32 inch thick and made of 1095 steel. And I'm trying to do this process almost entirely in my shop. This means I'll drill out the 3/8 holes on my little bench-top drill press. First I marked the location of each hole.

Next I center punched each location with my automatic punch. Then I simply lined up each punch mark with the tip of my drill on my drill press. 

This also gave me an opportunity to test out my drill press clamps (sometimes called "toe clamps").

Despite the blade having a secure, rigid mount the holes didn't come out good at all. Compared to a large milling machine, my Central Machinery drill press just doesn't have the same structural stability - which means that the holes turned out to be more of a Reuleaux Triangle in shape rather than a hole. Note this diagram retrieved from Tanya Khovanova’s Math Blog. 

From the image, the right shape shows a "rounded" triangle. This is the type of hole that was produced on my drill press albeit more exaggerated in the image. Note the photo.

It may not be as visible but the holes are not round much at all, plus the walls of the holes are very rough. This might seem trivial especially since the holes are along the handle which will be covered by scales anyway. And it's true, along the handle those 3/8 holes won't matter much at all. However, the holes for the brass handle pins might not work with the brass rod. Also, as I am wanting to work towards the creation of my own custom folder knives, I will need to resolve this problem if I want the pieces to fit together properly on future folders. This means that I need accuracy through rigidity. 

Since my drill press can't really provide me with much, I needed to improvise. This is something I try to teach my students as much as possible - learn to improvise. To complete a job, one may not always have access to high end stout machines and high quality tools, yet the job must still get done. Being able to improvise and work around the limitations of a shop is one of the best skills any technician could develop. I decided to try additional tools. 

Enter the center drill, sometimes called a combination drill/countersink. Note the following image from Harvey Tools.

Note also the type of hole a tool like that will leave. The cross section shows a beveled hole (countersink) leading into a small cylindrical hole. Doing this first before drilling out the 3/8 holes will provide a better "center" for the drill to start on. Additionally, I decided to purchase a "screw machine" drill rather than continue to use my jobber length drill. A screw machine drill is much shorter and less likely to "walk" during use. Also center drilling first then immediately drilling out the hole afterwards, without moving the work piece, will improve my accuracy.

Because I didn't have these tools available, I had to purchase them online. 

This is a #2 x 4 inch center drill.

Here one can see the screw machine drill next to the jobber length drill. The shorter length gives greater rigidity.

Once I got the tools in I started back on my process. Last time I drilled these I had them marked with just a permanent marker. That didn't hold up to normal wear so I decided on something stronger.

The steel dye (called Dykem) can provide a durable coating on the work pieces that'll withstand oil, coolant, and water. This also allows me to scribe the location of the holes.

This allowed me to simply line up my center drill in the middle of each scribed circle. No center punch needed.

I also added an extra drilling operation before I drilled the final size. This is known as pilot drilling. Using a smaller sized drill than 3/8 I drilled out the hole, which puts let burden on the larger drill bit due to less material removal. On larger machines, this is not an issue. But my small drill press doesn't have the same horsepower as the larger machines so my larger drill bit has to work harder to remove material. Putting a smaller hole there first means that the drill doesn't have to work as hard now to produce a hole.

A good result. Note the "cushions" I used on the table clamps to protect the blade from scratches by the "toes" of each clamp.

The final result. The steel dye is still visible on 4 of the blades

The blades are now tip heavy and will probably balance back at the choil once the grind has been completed. Speaking of knife grinding, the following photo shows the angle iron stock I plan on using to make my grinding fixture for my knives. I've taken the time to file, sand, and scotch-brite each side to a good flat surface.

This is how I plan to mount the blade onto the fixture. I'll need a bit of planning to work it out. That'll come in the next article. 

Despite this particularly long delay happening, it was not only expected but needed. I had to figure out if my drill press would be capable of producing the result I needed it to. I do plan to purchase a larger bench top drill press, possibly even a floor model if necessary. But I wanted to wait until tax time to do it because that'll be a substantial purchase like the Grizzly. At least, if I purchase one with any structural integrity I'll have to pay much more than just the price of a cheap-ee Harbor Freight model.  Thankfully, the tooling worked out just fine. This method does add more to the time to produce it. Because I'm concerned with accuracy, I must center drill, then remove the combination drill/countersink, then mount the pilot drill, drill out the pilot hole, then remove the pilot drill, then mount the 3/8 inch screw machine drill, drill out the 3/8 hole, then finally unclamp the work piece to move to the next hole and repeat the steps. I cannot center drill each hole on every work piece while the tool is mounted and then remove it for the next tool, not if I wish to maintain any degree of accuracy. To get an idea of this, imagine center drilling, then drilling, then drilling again 4 holes for 5 separate knives and each time you drill or center drill once, you must stop what you are doing and then switch tools for the next operation. It really adds up to a lot of time. Fortunately, the result is exactly what I wanted. After grinding all that's left to do is heat treat and put the edge to each blade and start working on the final product which will be mounting some material on each side of the handle for the scales. I can now see a final result in sight!

Up next, creating the grinding fixture!

The Amateur Crafter: Get A Grip!

Been a bit under the weather lately, most likely from either the recent flu shot or from some of the students showing up sick at school. So, not much shop work going on this week except for just drilling some holes.

But it occurred to me from posting my last article that it might be a good idea to inform readers of the materials, terms, etc. I’m using in my knife making particularly if some of the readers don’t have any experience with knife making or collecting. So I thought that I’d write a basic article on that. 

Micarta. Micarta is actually a brand name that’s now being used as a term to describe layered epoxy resin block. The layering comes from laying materials such as paper, canvas, linen, or even denim in strips with a coating of epoxy resin in between each layer. The material used really isn’t too important, and it can be quite flimsy. 

But what matters is that the material with the epoxy in between is pressed together and allowed to stay like that while the resin is hardening. This creates a very strong but easily worked block suitable for handle (scale) material. Check out some of the photos retrieved from various knife maker supply websites or other knife maker web galleries. 

The following micarta photos were retrieved from canmanstan.com.

 
 
 
 Black Paper Micarta
 
 

 

Black Linen Micarta

Various Canvas Micarta. Retrieved from fowlweathercustomcalls.com.

Denim Micarta. Photo retrieved from fendleyknives.com.

From the photos, one can see the various textures and patterns left from grinding away the micarta. The micarta is what I’ve used so far on my knives, simply because it was provided for me as part of the knife making courses. Micarta can be made at home, but the process is fairly messy and unless one is purchasing materials in bulk, not very cost effective either. It’s simply cheaper and easier to purchase micarta rather than to make it. But I’ve seen a lot of hobbyist/amateur videos online to know that some people just want to make their own, which I can understand. I’ve no plans to try this out, but who knows? Other types of handle material include bone, G10, wood, or plastics such as synthetic shell material. 

G10 is a fiberglass laminate similar in construction to micarta. Each fiberglass layer has a resin layer and the entire material is compressed and baked, thus hardening the material so it can be quite a burden on cutting tools. But like micarta, it is very lightweight and durable. This is usually ideal for more tactical purpose tools and G10 can be “textured” to provide more gripping surfaces. Photo retrieved from usaknifemaker.com.

When working with either G10 or micarta (and maybe carbon fiber as well) it’s important that a dust mask is used to help prevent the dust and fibers from entering the lungs. This can cause serious health risks both short and long term. And the dust filters must be for particulates, not vapors.

Of all of the synthetic handle materials available, one type that will add a bit more appeal to a blade is carbon fiber. It’s made of small strands of carbon weaved tightly together to form a pattern. The main appeal to this material is its ability to reflect light, making the pattern more visible. Making carbon fiber is a labor-intensive process and usually costs more to purchase, adding more costs to a blade. Retrieved from canmanstan.com

Bone handle photo retrieved from knives.net.

Bone can turn nearly any blade into a gentlemen’s knife, an antique-looking skinner, or even a work of art. I’ve not worked with bone before but from what I can tell most types of bone can either polish well or remain in a natural state. 

Wood handled stone inlay knife retrieved from macsindianjewelry.com.

Wood is a readily available source for scale materials but it’s important to make sure that the scales are stabilized. And further embellishment such as this stone inlay can add much more appeal to the knife.

And of course another major appeal to a knife with wooden scales are the burl scales. A burl is a section of a tree where the grain pattern has grown in an irregular shape. This can be caused by an injury earlier in the tree’s life, a virus or fungus, or an insect infestation. The burl is very dense and resistant to splitting. The result is often highly prized by artists, woodworkers, furniture makers, and knife makers. This adds a considerable cost to the knife as acquiring burl material isn’t easy. Burls (large enough to work with) can be difficult to harvest and its uncommon appearance adds more expense to gathering it. 

Photo retrieved from summersknives.com.

And finally a huge “ooohhh” and “aaahhh” effect one can create for a knife would be a bit of scrimshaw. Technically, this is just bone but I listed this as a separate category because it's bone (or ivory) that's been engraved and had the engraving darkened with pigment. In my opinion very little can outshine a good set of scrimshaw scales, except perhaps polished stone. Check out this knife with a bit of scrimshaw on the handle!

Retrieved from katherineplumer.com,



I would very much love to learn how to create knives with burl scales or embellish them with a bit of stone work or scrimshaw. But I'll have to set aside time to learn how to do that. For now, I think that once my first sets of blades return from heat treat that I’ll stick to G10 or micarta. The material is quick and easy and readily available at a good price.