Making a Pioneer knife Part 1 - designing and milling blanks

This is a first episode of making my first ever, series of four knives made with use of CNC milling machine. What is more important, knives are made with help of my brother Kamil, who will program the milling monster and work on: 'how to do things'. We have never done such a thing and hope that it will end with a success :) If it will be cool enough, I will make it my first knife model - ready to made on request. That is way, I called it "Pionieer".

The knives are half-finished now. I am showing first step of the story. Step that we made over a month ago.

Of course it started from a designing. I wanted it to be a tough, compact, multi purpose, field knife. Similar to the one I made about 5 years ago LINK. The blade has a lenght of 9,5cm and it is 21cm overal. I decided to use 4mm D2 steel.

From a couple of my sketches I made a CAD drawing. While my brother was programming the machine, I prepared the steel for milling. After a couple of hours we were ready to cut.W made four blanks, one after another. 3mm diameter carbide cutter was used. I made a short video of the milling process.

In the next episode, I will show how we managed to make rough grinds without a grinder... with use of bull nose cutter instead.

Titanium PRYBARS for Maciej

About three weekes ago I've got a very interesting request from my customer - Maciej. The order refered to make two almost identical prybars, big enough so it can be used as cubotans. I knew immediately that it will be perfect task for my milling machine. We have decided that 4mm Ti-6Al-4V titanium will do the job... The lenght of the prybars is about 12cm so it will fit perfectly to the hand.

Here are also some pictures from making proces. I got a sketch from Maciej. Then I make a digital version of the drawing and add some modifications to the project, so the prybars can now be also used for M6 hex nuts and as a 1/4'' bit wrench. I used my CNC milling machine to cut it out from a titanium bar. Then it was grinded, hand finished and stonewashed (with use of stonewashing machine that I have built with my brother last weekend). After stonewashing process I have polished one of the prybars with diamont paste and made anodization with a burner, so this is the only difference between them. It was really fun to make them and I  have just started to make some more prybars, but this time smaller, door key sized ones ;)

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Making clamps for homemade CNC milling machine

   I want to start a new series on the blog. I called it How it's made. I personally love to watch how things are made and I will show you how me and my brother do things in our workshop in short videos and photo stories. We make things not only related to knives and knifemaking. We are making also other thing, like tools, machines, gadgets, jewelry, electrical, metal, wooden stuff, furnitures... There will also be a chance to learn some tips & tricks from that "photo stories".

First episode is about making clamps for our CNC machine with use of CNC plasma cutter made by my brother. The origins of that made from scrap-metal, plasma cutting monster is another story... Today take a look at how we made that very useful simple metal thing. We made the clamps a week ago and since that time we have been using them hundreds of times during our knifemaking projects.  Link Clamps for a milling machine is located in the right column of the blog. Hope you like it!

Victorinox Swiss Army Knife scales 1

   A couple of years ago I made a series of custom scales for Victorinox Swiss Army Knives 91mm and 84mm. As I am going to make some more scales with the CNC, I want to show you some of my old works as an intruduction. Of course all of them was made 100% handmade. As you can see on the pictures I was using all kinds of materials: G10, micarta, wood and carbon fiber (last one not shown on the pictures). It was a great way to practice different kinds of finish on G10 and micarta. If I remember well, it was the first time when I use beadblasting for a final finish of G10 and I am still using that method for every piece of G10 I made.

I am still working on a tutorial: How to make scales for Victorinox SAK. I hope to finish it soon so stay tuned :)

Another sheath for a TLIM knife

It looks like I am more a sheathmaker than a knifemaker lately ;). I made another sheth for a TLIM knife - 'Obozowiec'. It was designed for a vertical and horizontal carry. This time it is 4mm vegatable- tanned leather sheath with kydex firerstarter holder. I wanted it to be all leather, but kydex is just a better material for a holders like this. There is also a shock cord to pull away a strap from the knife edge so it looks a little bit 'tactical'. I used Fiebing's Dark Brown Professional Oil and SNO SEAL for protection. All parts are detachable if needed, as I like.

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Tactical Fish Bottle Opener PROTOTYPE

About three weeks ago I have finished a bottle opener I showed here. This is my first titanium tool made with use of CNC. It is hand finished, beadblasted and heat anodized. The material is 1.5 mm-thick Ti-6Al-4V titanium, so the opener is be very light and can be carry with a keys or on the neck as a pendant. I think, that I will make more openers like this do that one can be considered as a prototype :)

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Knives on The Stump VII

I almost totaly forgot about The Beans series I started last year. Foud them "at the bottom of the drawer" last weekend. The series was almost ready for heat treatment so I decided to finish it and send for a heat treatment. Two pieces in G10, two in micarta and two in wood: ironwood and thuja. Looks like this right now.

I also decided to work a little bit with another neck knife. This one I showed two weeks ago - the first knife cut with our CNC machine. Because of skeleton handle made with the cutter it is extremely light. Think I will add a orange G10 an titanium tubes for this one.

 

Kydex-leather combo sheath for a bushcraft knife

   Sometimes people ask me to make a sheath for their knives. I usually told them that I don't make a classical leather or kydex sheats because there are many great sheatmakers even in Poland who do that for a living and many of them are far way better than me. I also told them that there is one kind of sheath that I would like to do... my favourite leather-kydex combo. No everyone likes that combination of materials but I have just found a person who agreed to my kydex-leather proposition :)

   The sheat and a firestarter is made for a very popular in Poland bushcraft knife made by Mariusz "TLIM" Przybyłowski. This is a first sheath where I used Fiebing's Professional Oil Dye. It is saddle tan color. I also use for the first time a famous SNO SEAL leather protection to make it waterproof. Seeing results, I think that I will use Fiebings Professional Oil Dye and SNO SEAL as a standard in my sheats. It looks clean and proffesional, and what is more important - leather is well protected. Can't wait to make another one :) 

 

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Going CNC!

I have a very important announcement today :)

On the beginning of 2014 my brother and I decided to make CNC machine to be use in our knifemaking and other projects. The main reason for this was to be able to do knives without a workshop. I can visit my workshop only one, two times in a month but with the CNC machine, located near my house I will finally be able to go further with my knifemaking projects.
 My brother was a general constructor in the project as he has experience in building a CNC and is unstoppable when it comes to the construction of machines ;). As he suggested for a base element for it we have used a manual mill/drill machine. It was improved by addition of 3 stepper motors and an automatic numeric control which consists of controller for motors and PC with a freeware operating system Linux CNC. What is more we have made many many improvements like cooling system or dust suction. Of course it is easier to say than done but now, after half a year, the machine is ready for work!

The machine weights over 100kg and with a base we build for it it weights over 200kg and is strong enought to mill steel and titanium. We are steel making test and buy more and more equipoment for it but I can already show some results of our work. I hope to show more CNC creations in the near future.

   

Making a Victorinox SAK scales was one of the first task for the machine. We have used micarta and titanium. I have done a lot of custom SAK scales in the past and really like making them. Now with the CNC, results are much better than when I make it only by hand. Also it reminded me that years ago I made a tutorial "how to make scales for SAK" in polish language. I have to translate it and put on the blog as well as some pictures of the scales I made. Maybe it will inspire someone to make his own customized Swiss Army Knife.

   

We have made many tests in milling titanium as it is one of mine and my brother favourite materials. It is also a very difficult to mill.. A lot of coolant is needed to prevent titaniuym and cutter from 'burning''. We cut a bottle opener and a couple of two-finger neck knives from the drawings I made. Of course still a lot of work has to be done by hand to finish them, but the most time-consuming part of the job was done.

   

Our first knife! It was cut with the mill and we also use the machine to make a rough grind. We are really proud of it and it is a proof that the machine we have constructed, will be able to help us during the most important stages in making a knife. A huge success!