A nice button lock folding Tactical/Hunting knife I've been working on. Sweet action and grip.

The case is "Canvas Phenolic". This is an older school material that I understand was used for control surface cable pulleys and such on WWII Aircraft. It was the first "carbon fiber" type of material. Very strong, very stable. Its is actual Canvas material saturated with Phenolic Resin. This is a moss brown in color.

Blade is high carbon Stainless Tool Steel. Untreated as yet in this photo. Photo was just a few more raw pcs. interlocked in place at this point.

Gonna be a nice light weight highly sculpted ergonomic handle.

Soon. Wanted you to see.

Plan is to let you see and think while I work. This is a mid range $ knife relative to what you have seen recently. Ill price it two ways when done. All now or split for a few more bucks.

Hard to get the whole pic here. Soon

Gary



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2014 08:43PM by barnespneumatic.

Neat looking material there Gary, no idea they made stuff like that. Looks like another fine knife is on it's way.

BTW - yours is in the shop for engraved initials. Kelly is the shop "reminder" so it's all on the way. She's been easier on me this week - that plague really took it out of me. Also left me with a lower back that keeps giving out. Thank God I'm not a horse. They'd make glue out of me tomorrow. Haha.

Check the new pics .... Minute

Gary

There is an important story here. All the evidence is shown. We have a number of machinists and shop guys. Anybody see the "Story" right off?



Gary

after heat treat - check with file to show blade hardened?

Exactly. Well Done!

Note the shiny narrow streak along the edge. Note top sacrificial file. See that the teeth on the file have been "slicked" - ruined - burnished over - now bright. The blade edge is now much harder then a new file. The molecular transformation of "hardening" has taken place. The blade is now ready to "temper". (The regimented drawing back in hardness to a specific target bracket - for the individual intended usage).

New (wider) file shown for contrast.



Gary

Another nice looking knife. With those ergonomic handles makes it look kinda tactical. Thanks for sharing your work with us.

Hunting? Did I say "hunting?" .... I met TACTICAL. Yeah .... that's it .... Tactical .... darned spellcheck!

You called it. It's sort of a Tactical Hunter belt folder.

Turning out nice. Would have been done but my tactical back has been in retreat. Hey - you think you get tired of reading about it - you should look in my mirror. Well, this morning all I could see was an inch or two of bald scalp with fuzz standing straight atop. Sort of like some demented Dr. Zuess character ....



Gary

There is a lot here.

First - it was taken with my phone laying atop a typical lighted bench magnifying glass. I think they are about 4X. Now that you know what is happening - the scratches that look huge, are really the "Crocus" mirror polish off of my 22" Leather polishing wheel. Looks pretty much like a mirror to the naked eye. Trick is to keep the grind very uniform, true, and don't cross up the lines.

You can see my iPhone, and even Me; reflected back from the depths of the blade.

I use a "differential heat treat" on my blades. That means I control the heat treat in such a way that the edge is harder then the spine. AND, the transition between the areas is very regular.

Try to focus on the "surface " of the blade region near the edge. It's like trying to look at the surface of a mirror when cleaning it. You will pick up a "cellular woodgrain pattern" there. If you can find and focus on it; you are looking at the regular cellular structure I created in the steel by controlling the degree of heat applied, the region it was applied to, and the uniform control line between the two regions.

That's not easy to do.

Gary

I see cone-head Gary!! Super blade Gary, is this one a bit larger than the ones you have been doing lately or am I seeing things?

Hello Gary,

Thanks for sharing the next knife build. The phenolic material is an interesting choice. We have machines at work that use a cotton based resin phenolic material for wear strips. Color is dark beige. How do you contour the material, filed?

Did a quick online search and uses for the material do list knife handles. Seems rather pricey for 1/2" thick, but guess you wouldn't need it that thick?

The blade looks wide in comparison with the hand files. With all the posts of knives lately I am being drawn to trying to make one Looks like fun but I know it really is a lot of work!

Pedro

Hi Pedro,

Your wear strips are probably very similar. The stuff is very hard. Wears very well. Extremely stable. Probably been around 70 plus years.

I use the same belt grinders with progressively finer belts. Takes several different contact wheel diameters. Several different contact wheel surface materials under the belts. Final buffing machine.

Enjoy!

Gary

That's another neat knife from the master!

Hello Gary,

You're correct about the control cable pulleys on aircraft, even to this day they're almost all made out of phenolic laminate. The oldest versions used paper as the laminate, but most of them are resin impregnated cloth. The stuff is light, strong, more or less immune to corrosion, and resistant to degradation by most oils and greases so it quickly became the default material for that application. When you open up the hidden spaces inside aircraft fuselages and wings for their regular inspections, there's typically dozens of these pulleys tucked away routing the steel cables back and forth from the cockpit out to the ailerons, elevator and rudder. Sometimes they also use them for flaps and landing gear, but that's mostly been taken over by hydraulic systems instead. While the metal parts are often a mess from decades of corrosion caused by salt air, pollution and weather, the pulleys themselves usually look brand-new when you clean them up.

Very neat to hear first hand confirmation.

I began using paper based phenolic. Discovered linen base (very fine weave). Like the canvas for its pattern.

All lasts forever.

Thanks Sean
Gary

Don't bother asking Jerry about his aircraft. The only cables they have these days on the ones he works with are used for computers to chat with each other.