Shop updates

[taz575]

Been a slow winter. OT at work, stupid cold temps and then the Norovirus hitting put me behind a good bit!

Started to clean out the shop to get it ready for the Mister setup and got some stuff made!

Upgraded the Dremel Mill, makes nice straight clean slots in synthetic material. I can use this to slot guards and ferrules now!

Dry Ice Slurry trough:

Speed Rail that they use for bar service makes a nice tray! Had to line it with like 6 layers of aluminum foil to make it water tight, but I was able to put around 8# of dry ice into the tray and a gallon of denatured alcohol, which should hit around -108 F! Good enough for a sub zero quench, especially out of the plate quench with a minute or two delay between removing from the plates/foil pouch and into the slurry mix. Insulated it with some foam board and pink insulation to keep it colder for longer. The dry ice lasted a few hours in here! I can also use it for liquid nitrogen pour outs, but it will be much pricier to do! I want to get it sealed up better, so I will be trying to weld it up water tight so I don't need to mess with the foil, or have an inner tray made to fit into it or to use stand alone.

[taz575]

And my plate quench set up!

2 Doyle Carpenter Vise mounted to 2x6 in a vice. These are my 30" long, 1" thick and 4" wide quench plates and I have another set around half the length as well. Once I remove the blade from the oven in the foil pouch, it gets smooshed in here to quench and flatten the blade. Then it goes into the liquid nitrogen or dry ice/DNA slurry for the sub zero step. I used this setup to heat treat, quench and sub zero 6 Shechita blades in 1/16" Magnacut this weekend!

[taz575]

Got the big Shechita shipped and delivered!

Used the small cut offs from the handle shape for a new knife model! I call it the SKS or Shop Knife Scapel:

~2.75" Reverse tanto blade shape, 1/16" thick Magnacut, hidden tang with frame handles. The one without the TJ on it is mine and weighs in at a whopping 2.2 oz! 3.6oz with the sheath! These are light, slim and super slicey, but definitely not made for prying or chopping!

And making a batch of strops! 2" wide ones are in Maple, Cherry and Walnut. 1.5" wide ones are in Red Oak from Home Depot...I wanted to make a smaller, lower cost version. I gotta start adding the compound to these. I am going to a Sportsman Tag Sale in early April, so I wanted to make some of these up to bring with me as well as knives!

I did up a strop with a 40 micron side and 1 micron side and it does pretty good! Only a few strops are needed on the 40 side to remove the burr and even off the 40 micron (around 400 grit), it's much smoother than a 400 grit water stone! The 40 to 1 micron jump leaves a bitey edge that will shave arm hair. I still like the 14/3 combo strop, but its nice to know I can use other coarse grits and jump to very fine grits to get a nice edge! I have diamond compounds in 40, 20, 14, 3, 2, 1 and 1/2 micron now for leather strops.

[taz575]

And I finished these on my 2 days off this week!

Just over 3" cutting edge Nitro V, green/black linen micarta handles and toxic green pins, stainless lanyard tube:

Just over 3" Nitro V, Blue/Tiffany Blue Fingerprint G10 handle, copper pins and lanyard tube:

Magnacut FBBO RT, 3" cutting edge, 7.5" long, 3/32" 64 HRC Magnacut, handle is Almond Cream Linen Micarta with black micarta pins and lanyard tube and red G10 liners:

I have 4 more of the SKS rough ground out, one is getting either Amboyna or Afzelia Burl handle, another may be getting pink/red/white G10 camo handles and the other 2 are undecided at the moment!

[Kekoa]

Hey Taz, what thickness of leather do you use on your strops? I have some pieces of leather lying around that I was considering making a strop with, but I am not sure what thickness actually makes sense for a strop. In my head I'm thinking that if I am backing it with wood, then any thickness will probably work, but a thicker piece I assume might have some more give than a thinner piece. I suppose the ammount of give might just be preference, but I am curious what you use. Also, what kind of glue do you use to attach the leather to the paddle?

[taz575]

7-9 oz to 10-12oz for the leather. I got a Cullatta piece from Tandy leather a while back and got some straps from Amazon to use. The Tandy stuff is nicer, but the pre cut straps make it quicker to assemble.

The Red Oak strops got contact cement for the glue. The strap pieces weren't flat or fully straight, so the rubber cement allowed me to work with them easier with less waste cutting out larger pieces and then trimming them down. Other times, I used Quick and Thick TiteBond. The regular wood glues will work, but had more squeeze out. I think the rubber cement is the faster way to go.

I put a bunch of the wood pieces on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and taped off the handle side with painters tape so I got a nice clean glue line. I applied the rubber cement to all of the wood pieces on one side and then move the cookie sheet to the side.

I had another cookie sheet with all the leather straps cut and laid out and then I coated all them with the rubber cement. By the time I was done with that, I was able to Bond the leather strap to the paddles and work my way down the batch.

When I had 6 done, I'd then clamp them up between two large f clamps and some pieces of wood to apply more even pressure. Clamp for an hour or so and then were done. I let the cement fully set up overnight, and then trimmed off any excess and then finished shaping the sides of the wood blocks on the belt sander to clean up any excess epoxy and smooth them out.

Here is a batch of the 12 Red Oak Strops 1.5" wide and 4 of the nicer wood 2" wide ones after applying the 14 and 3 micron diamond compounds to each side. I worked in batches and did 8, where I coated all 8 with one compound, then melted it in, then did the other compound on all 8, melted it in. Took about 90 minutes to apply compound to the 16 strops.

[taz575]

Got this one finished up! 2.6" Magnacut blade, 7.25" overall length. Handle is Pink/White/Red G10 Burl for the handle and guard, frame is ivory paper micarta.

I am heading up to a Sportsman Tag Sale this weekend, so I am bringing up 15 knives for sale, some other personal ones as samples and over a dozen strops. Hopefully I can sell some stuff!

And then I can get back to grinding. I have a Magnacut gyuto sitting on my bench since last year I want to get fully ground!

[Kekoa]

Good luck at the event!

[taz575]

Thanks!! If I have a good day, I am hoping to pick up a desktop CNC Machine and laser engraver/cutter module afterwards!

[taz575]

Picture of my table from the show. It was a Sportsman Tag Sale, so I brought some left over fishing lure, archery arrow shafts left over from my fishing days, as well as the knives. I didn't have any kitchen knives for sale, so I brought a couple S grind gyuto, fillet knife, boning knife and paring knife with me. Most of the tables there were older freshwater fishing jigs, reels, etc, many older than I am! LOL. It wasn't a knife show, and people were mostly looking for some odd ball fishing jigs, lures, etc. There was some hunting stuff, but not much.

Only sold 1 strop, so I just covered the table costs. But for the future, I have the table cover, table display cards and other stuff figured out. I want to get some display stands so the knives are more vertical and above the table slightly so they are more visible to people walking by and get some stuff on the table to catch people's eye. I am thinking of making one of those triangular racks that holds the knives horizontally, or having a magnetic rack where the knives are held vertically so they are more visible.

I gave out a bunch of business cards, so hopefully I went get some orders from those!

[Kekoa]

Had I been there I would have glossed over all the fishing lures and spent the whole time slowly looking over each of your knives and talking about them.

[taz575]

Thanks! I had one customer stop by to by a strop from me. He got one of my Nitro V fillet knives a couple years ago and still hasn't sharpened it!

Had a few interesting comments. One guy said I worked with too many steels! I had some Damascus, Nitro V, S90V, CPM CruWear, Magnacut, 52100, 80CRV2, Elmax blades on the table. I guess people still think you need to focus on 1 or 2 steels to "master" them? With mostly stock removal, steel grinds pretty close to each other and the heat treat info is found online, so I don't think that is a case anymore.

Another guy was impressed that I had different steels available. It's not like I am stocking all of the steels in every size. I do have some extra bars I picked up with the Crucible uncertainty and tariffs to get me through for a bit, but for me, it makes sense to buy multiple bars and have them on hand. Shipping is $15-20 for 1 bar or 5 or 6, so I often pick up a bar or two of the steel I have an order for so I have some on hand for the next time, or to make other knives to sell. If I find a steel on sale for a good price, I try to snag it. Got some Elmax for a stupidly good prices years ago when S45VN came out and I picked up some thicker 50100B (Cold Steel Carbon V) for like $15 for a 3' x3.5" wide x .145" thick bar. $30 for 6' of 3.5" wide barstock is a no brainer; it's like 1095 with around .55% Chromium. I have some thinner 2.75" wide bars of it that will make nice gyuto or tall Nakiri, too.

So I have Magnacut, CPM CruWear, CPM 3V, 52100, 80CRV2, 50100B, W2, 8670, Apex Ultra, AEB-L and Silver Steel (similar to 80CRV2, not Japanese Silver Steel) and some Wolfram Special on hand currently. Magnacut, 52100, 50100B and W2 are also in wider/thinner stock for kitchen knives. Still haven't gotten to play with hamon's on W2 yet, but it's on the list! I should be good steel wise for a while!