Making a Drop Point Hunting knife, without the use of a belt grinder

foreign [Music] [Music] this video is aimed to those of you who want to get started with knife making but only have access to more commonly available tools that you can purchase from your local hardware store the point that I'm trying to bring across is that you do not need an expensive belt grinder to make yourself a functional carry knife having said that a belt grinder is definitely worth the investment and will speed things up but is that always a viable option for someone who will be making a one-soft knife for themselves it may not be the prettiest knife but it will definitely do what it was made to do let's get started I'm using three and a half millimeter 1070 steel for this build Mark the template onto the steel and cut it out using a disc grinder or a hacksaw I will include a link to download a template in the description for my disc grinder I prefer the thinner cutting blades for cutting and then a grinding disc to remove as much excess material as possible to ease up the hand filing process switching over to hand files to clean up the profile I have a variety of files in different sizes usually in bastard and second cut configuration use a big flat file to clean up the straights and a half round file to work on those finger trials and deeper curves draw file the edges to make sure that it's all squared off nicely Mark and punch the areas where you want your pinholes and land your tube to sit a normal machinist punch with a hammer will do the job just fine the size of the holes must match the size of the opening material in my case my steel pins have a diameter of 3.2 millimeters so I will drill 3.2 millimeter holes adjust yours to suit your needs as for my lanyard tube I know the tube has a six millimeter diameter so the hole will follow the same size [Applause] I prefer to drill two larger eight millimeter diameter holes into the tank to allow for the epoxy to form a bonding pillar on the scales later during the glue up stage [Applause] thank you foreign use a permanent marker to color in the blade and mark the plunge lines and bevel areas a veneer caliper works best here but you can use a drill bit the same diameter as your blade thickness describe the center line for your Cutting Edge okay foreign next I'll mark my plunge line area you can go about plunge lines in two different ways you will notice that I make two marks on my plunge line marking we will get to the reason behind that in a second I prefer to size my bevels about two-thirds of the total height of the blade once again there are various tools you can use to do this but I constructed a simple scribe tool by hammering two Nails into a small piece of wood simply space the nails the same width you want your bevels to be foreign as I mentioned earlier there are two ways you can approach your plunge lines we have two marks on our blade currently if you file your plunge line to the top marking you will end up with a sharp corner at the top where your plunge line merges into the bevel if you file your plunge line to the bottom mark and you file your bevel past the mark up to where you marked your bevel lines you will end up with a slight radius where the plunge line transitions into the bevel area I prefer the radius as it flows better with the design but that is personal preference and you can choose either way I am using a piece of straight offcut steel as a file guide to make sure my plunge lines are filed evenly on both sides file in the plunge lines using a five millimeter chainsaw sharpening file if you are using a thicker stock like a five to six millimeter steel I would suggest using a larger diameter 10 millimeter round file remember I want a round radius where my plunge line merges into the bevel so I'm only filing up to the first mark the aim here is to get the plunge lines as symmetrical as you possibly can take your time and work slowly [Music] set the file on your filing jig to a steep angle ensuring the file lines up with your plunge line and clamp the blade down use a piece of lever or wood to protect the blade from picking up unnecessary scratches from the clamp start filing the bevels until you reach the marked Center Line on Your Cutting Edge foreign if the plunge lines were filed correctly to the center line the initial bevel should stop in line with the deepest point of the plunge line the initial bevel is now set drop the angle on the file guide and mark the bevels with a marker to monitor the filing process start filing away until you reach the center of the cut line again try not to file too much on the cut line as the cut line can be thinned out too much resulting in a loss of overall width of the blade as you try to file the cut line down to get some thickness back into it again [Music] repeat the process until you reach your bevel line keep marking and filing and don't be afraid to adjust your file guide up and down to reach specific areas on the blade I find that trying to keep everything at one position does not always work as the various angles on your blade react differently to the angle of the file so adjust the file accordingly to get the bevels as evenly as possible [Music] thank you [Music] once the bevel line is reached draw file the bevels to ensure an even flat surface at this stage I like to do a rough cleanup with 150 grit sandpaper this gives me a good idea of where there are areas that needs a bit of attention I noticed that my plunge line is slightly rounded where it transitions into the ricasso area so I use my chainsaw file to carefully touch up the plunge lines to give me a crisp clear line marking the area is a good indicator of where to file foreign file in a sharpening choil with a chainsaw file steel pins and tubing can be found at knife making suppliers and hobby shops but if you do not have access to these for some reason an easy source for pinning material is welding rods grab one of your choice of thickness in my case I'm matching my 3.2 millimeter pinning holes remove the outer flux coating and sand the inner metal rod clean okay foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] make sure the metal rod fits comfortably within the pinning holes [Music] okay measure out about 30 millimeters per pin and cut three pins using a hacksaw clean up the ends using a hand file and bevel the edges slightly laughs this will stop the pins from hollowing out the pinholes on your wooden scales caused by assembling and disassembling during the fitting stage [Applause] for the scales I will be using a piece of Rhodesian teak cut to size and mark the areas where you need to drill the pin holes using a drop of super glue will ensure nothing moves while Drilling and is easy enough to break loose without damaging the wooden scales [Music] drilling a straight hole with a hand drill can be challenging a simple method to help guide your drilling angle is by using a piece of angle iron offcut that is felt straight at both ends the angle iron shoots it flush against your profile and create a clean 90 degree angle between your drill bit and the angle iron align the angle of your drill bit up to the angle iron and better your chances of drilling a straight 90 degree hole getting pins and scales to a lineup at the glua process can be frustrating if the pinholes don't match up foreign [Applause] use a rasp to start rough shaping the scales we need to take off as much wood as possible but not all of them would ride up against the blade this will be done with a final file later on be careful with the wooden rasp though it can be aggressive towards the wood and Chip the edges laughs [Laughter] I only have a small half round rasp so the hacksaw will need to do the job of removing the larger amount of excess wood from the finger choil area hahaha foreign use the hexel and the rasp to shape the front of the handle scale before moving over to a file to draw file the front part to ensure that both sides look symmetrical [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] The Next Step would be to file a 45 degree angle into the front part of the scales then using 150 grit sandpaper to round the front part off to a nice radius [Laughter] before we move over to the glue up I'm cleaning up the rough edges with hand files I'm still leaving a few millimeters of handle material that will be filed up after the epoxy is cured oh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] roughly shape the scales to your desired fit and feel there are various ways you can do this but I'll stick to a simple half round shape for this knife it's easy to achieve feels good in the hand and looks clean and simple on any knife we will finalize the shape after the epoxy is cured the blade still needs to be heat treated and tempered 1070 is a fairly easy steel to heat treat without specialized equipment like forges and Kilns which is why I chose it for this project we can use a very simple charcoal and hair dryer set up to achieve good results granted it might not be Optimum results but it will still be a decent knife that can hold an edge I would encourage you to do your research when using other Steels to make sure that you understand the heat treatment process for each of those Steels as not all Steels are straightforward to heat treat foreign [Applause] the hairdryer allows for sufficient airflow to the charcoal creating enough heat to heat up the blade to critical temperature I find it best to bury the blade beneath the hot coals but do check it regularly as charcoal can get hot enough to ruin or even melt your blade [Applause] okay foreign oil first you can do this by heating up any scrap piece of Steel and quench it in the oil ideally you want to use an oil specifically formulated for heat treatment but you'll get away with any sort of vegetable oil in this case knit the blade up to critical temperature you can test for critical temperature on a magnet once the blade is hot enough do not stick to a magnet anymore you have reached critical temperature and are ready to quench the blade in the oil again don't overheat the blade as this can cause damage to the molecular structure of the steel test it regularly and as soon as you reach critical temperature quench it to test the blade to see if it hardened run a file over the edge if it skates off the blade and you hear that high pitched metal scraping sound your blade hardened another aspect of the hardening process you need to be aware of is the chances of warping my blade developed a slight warp but this is small enough to correct in the tempering process we need to clean off the scale first before tempering the blade to see the color of the blade better after the tempering process this will give us an indication of whether we reach the correct tempering temperature foreign to correct the warp you need a piece of flat steel either flat bar or Square Tubing a large bolt and two clamps find the center area of the warp place the bolt on that spot between the blade and steel and clamp the front and back part of the blade to the steel and carefully tighten the clamps to slightly bend the blade into the opposite direction of the warp remember your blade is hardened and can snap so do this carefully and take care not to bend it too much place the entire setup in your oven and temper twice at 180 degrees Celsius for 2 hours per cycle I recommend using an external thermometer in your oven as the temperature ranges in ovens may not always be accurate after the two cycles are completed and the blade cool down to room temperature remove the clamps and check the blade looks like my tempering process was successful and the blade is straight the blade should have a golden straw color once finished the gold color shows us that we maintained the 180 degree range throughout the tempering process avoid moving into the purples and blue colors as this is too hot and may ruin your heat treatment next up is the hand sanding process I start on a 150 grit sandpaper and work my way up you can decide how far you want to go which depends on how shiny you want your blade but I prefer a satin finish on my blade so I will go up to 600 grit to achieve a proper finish you need to remove all the scratches from the one grit to the next As you move up to a finer sandpaper to do this effectively start by sanding in a 45 degree angle once the blade is clean sand in a 180 degree angle until you remove all the 45 degree angle sanding marks I use a little handmade sanding block which is a piece of five millimeter mild steel with a piece of lever glued to one side I use the metal side for the initial hard sanding and then the soft lever side to create the finished satin look on my blades also use some form of oil while sanding this will help to remove the dust and metal particles away as you sand and give you a cleaner result foreign check your blade regularly for deep scratches from the previous grit and repeat the whole process if it looks clean move on to the next Grit my grid sequence would be 150 220 400 600 and then 800 onwards if need be finish off each grit by using the lever side of the sanding block and sanding in a single direction from the ricasso area moving towards the tip of the blade the soft lever allows the Sandpaper to conform to the shape of the bevel and remove any irregular sanding marks from the blade to create a uniform brushed steel look switch back to the flat metal surface on the sanding block and perform the same single Direction sanding to the flat surfaces on the blade above the bevel be careful of using the lever side on your sanding block too much as it tends to round off crisp lines if overused my scales are still on the bulky side so using the rasp I'll trim it down a bit [Music] thank you make sure the scales are flat by placing a sheet of sandpaper on a granite or glass surface and sand the flats of the scales until it fits flush against the Tang of your blade I'm using six millimeter carbon fiber tube for the lanyard hole again you will find this at knife making suppliers or hobby shops but for those of you who are into archery old carbon fiber arrows also work well for those purposes tape up the blade to avoid getting it scratched clean all the parts thoroughly with acetone mix the epoxy according to the manufacturer's instructions and glue up the scales to the blade clamp it up evenly and leave to cure overnight tape up the clamping ends of the clamps to prevent it from damaging the wood when pressure is applied foreign foreign acetone to remove the excess epoxy that seeped out in those hard to reach areas use a file to trim the excess of the pins you only need about the same amount as the thickness of the pins to stick out in other words my pins are 3.2 millimeters thick so I'll leave about three millimeters of fins sticking out to pin over the lanyard hole won't be pinned as it's carbon fiber so that can be filed flush with the scale straight away [Music] pin the pins and file it flush with the scales [Music] foreign from here we can shape the scales using a hand file round off all the sharp edges on the scales until you end up with a neatly rounded scale then repeat on the other side proceed to clean up all the edges around the blade switch over to a half round file to work on the inside curve and finger choil of your blade oh foreign finish the handle with sandpaper paying attention at both sides of the handle is symmetrical work it up to 800 grit to bring out the best the wood can offer the little boiled linseed oil will really bring the wood to life and reveal the beautiful grain structure foreign paper wrapped around a thick wooden dowel stick works great to clean out those finger choils and then I'm using a commercially available sharpening system to sharpen the blade you can use whatever method you prefer once you have an edge on the blade strap it on a lever belt to hone The Edge I rub some buffing Compound on the lever to help with the polishing of The Cutting Edge foreign and that concludes our build for today thank you for taking the time to watch this video I really hope this helps those of you who want to get into knife making and that you find the content useful please like share and subscribe until the next build happy knife making and goodbye foreign [Music]

Channel: Zeeman Knives

Views: 63,206

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Id: Ke3joiwm_wk

Length: 45min 35sec (2735 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 02 2023