Archive | April, 2017

Detail knife handle

After reading a request by a customer for information on how to fit these blades I remembered that I haven’t ever shown how to fit small straight blades so put this together today. As it was spur of the moment thing whilst waiting for some Twca Cams to anneal I didn’t have my camera with me or a finished detail blade but used my phone and found a blank that had been used for hardness testing after heat treat- hence the small impressions on one face.

I used some birch for this handle, it wasn’t fully dry but had been in the workshop for a few weeks in a 1″x 2″ section which is turned out well, dry enough so that it will take a good finish but still enough moisture that it didn’t crack and will tighten onto the tang as it dries later. Ash is also good as is elm, harder woods such as yew seem to be prone to splitting.

I took the pictures for this sequence as I did it, it was all by eye, not marked out on a table. This really can a very quick process. If when you get the handle on it doesn’t line up well split it off and have another go,  you may only be 10 minutes in.

As I general rule I make a handle one finger width wider than my palm. So I cut the birch to length and shaped one end, leaving the other end largely untouched. Then lined up where I wanted the blade to be.

I then marked where I wanted to drill the hole for the tang.

 

Rather than drill immediately I then used a bradawl to start the hole to be certain the drill wouldn’t wander. I chose a drill bit to give a hole slightly undersize.

 

The hole was drilled in a press but you could do it freehand, main thing is to be certain that the orientation is good left to right, up and down there is more leeway for error in this blank.  Make sure you drill the slightly deeper that the length of the tang. I then put the drill bit in the hole and used this as a guide to see how well it all lined up. As I have done it this many times is was fine, but if it wasn’t the idea is that you have left enough excess wood in the butt end of the handle to bring everything back into line.

 

If you are using a cordless drill after drilling you can put it in a vice, put the handle back onto the drill bit and spin the handle slowly whilst holding a marker to the other end, it should scribe a circle with the middle being your centre. This trick works well for lots of instances where you need to drill dead central. As it was all I needed to do was mark the centre on the butt and draw on the rough outline of the handle.

 

I shaped the handle, including cutting the face that the tang was going into, I left the butt unfinished. The blade was then put in the vice protected by a wrap of cardboard and then it was tapped gently into place.

 

When I was happy with that is had gone in OK I cleaned up the Butt, no point getting it perfect then marring it by  hammering on it.

 

Finally I gave the handle a coat of oil and as I wanted to use it for something ground the point to a pyramid to make a bradawl.

 

 

Froes

When I made my hazel gate a few weeks back I was reminded that I didn’t have a small froe anymore. As often happens I must have sold it when running low on stock. I find it quite amusing that when  I offer to sell a customer one of my personal tools their eyes light up thinking that these are in some way special.

In a way they are. If I forge a tool and some fault become apparent  that means it won’t be fit for purpose then it will be scrapped, I won’t spend time finishing such a tool. However sometimes when I make a batch of tools something may come to light that means it won’t be sold on this site, sometimes it is just a matter of sizing. I make a bath of 80mm blades and one measures up at 75. These will be sold at shows, that way a customer can be sure of what they are buying.

Other times though an issue will come to light that makes me question a tools strength. It may be forged too thin, I do like my tools to not carry excess bulk but there are limits. I often handle these tools myself and try them out, to see if I can find these limits. I actually have yet to break one, which is pleasing. Other issues include de-laminations in a forge welded tool. I prefer not to sell these, if I do it will only be face to face so I can point out any issues. Regardless everything is guaranteed.

So, back to the Froes. For me there is no doubt that the most efficient way to make a froe is to weld a laser cut blank to a piece of tapered tube. But, this is not a way I prefer to work and wanted to forge myself one in a traditional style, mainly to see if I could. One issue that can effect all froes is the eye join. In machine welded ones they can break, in forge welded ones they can split where the eye is wrapped and the two sides meet, wrought iron resists this splitting a lot better but not completely  and is not a material I work in so the weld was potentially more vulnerable.

I have wanted to forge a blade with a socketed eye for quite some time, but I wanted to avoid the likelihood of the eye opening so tried a new (to me anyway) weld, it was tricky partly due to the shape, but also because when I did decorative work I used to forge weld everyday, now it is very uncommon for me. But I did fairly well I think. Made a pair, then had another go and did another couple.

I will as ever keep the one with the dodgiest weld and sell the others. They won’t be on the site as it is not worth listing something I am unlikely to make again- I can’t see me being able to forge these at a rate that would make them viable. I could arc weld and grind some up that would look very similar and function the same much quicker. Still it was fun to try something new.

 

First two forged in the end they went a lot easier than I expected.

 

 

Final forms for them; I was talking to Alex Yerks about these and sagely proclaimed that a froe should be sharp enough to bite into a log but not cut you.

 

I decided to put handles on, and in the process cut myself deeper than I have in a long time!  I used  hazel in the round and stained it; this is a favourite for me, lots of variables but if you get it right the results are really good. They ended up looking very much like the tool I envisaged, rough forged and handled but with a bit of delicacy.

 

Years back I used to help out at a forest school, children learning cleaving used to work in pairs, one holding the froe the other the maul, even with gloves it was dicey at times.  I tend now to either forge the eye slightly offset, or if I am still not happy fit a curved handle to give a little bit more clearance on very short froes.

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