Forest Fury Blade
Taking inspiration from his dad and always have wanted to create a knife, Joey chose, modeled, and sculpted his own handheld knife that he can now use for everyday use. Joey admires adventuring down trails and recently lost his previous knife running down a trail on Berry College's campus. With this said, he looked forward to sharpening his skills and designing his first knife.
(Above): An in-hand gripping demonstration of the bushcraft knife
The above shot shows the knife after 120-grit sharpening using a knife-mounting jig to work with the belt grinder. The jig was set to a 10-degree angle and the knife made several passes against the belt of the grinder on the right and left side of the blade, sharpening the sides down to the centerline he carved with the 1/8" drill bit.
(Above): The knife pattern that he chose to base his custom knife off
The templates for knife patterns that Joey derived his bushcraft one from can be found at this link: https://dcknives.blogspot.com/p/knife-profiles.html
After choosing a knife pattern, he then imported it into a design software known as Inkscape, where he then adjusted the handle to his own liking, removed the embedded text after tracing the bitmap of the tool (object --> trace bitmap), and created actual holes using the circular tool and object to path (path --> object to path). He then combined the whole knife, collectively, and exported multiple files to use on the laser and water jet cutters (DXFs and SVGs) (Steel knife body, R fiber handle, L fiber handle).
(Above): A laser cut plywood model of his desired knife that he designed
(Above): Testing out the rivets in the handle of the knife with the rivet screws
Testing out the rivet screws with the plywood model helps Joey see if the rivet holes correspond properly to the size of the rivet screws before cutting out the waterjet model.
(Above): The uploaded design file of the steel knife body to the water jet cutting software
The software used for water jet cutting is WazerCam, but software is subject to differ depending on your specific water jet being used.
(Above): The WazerCam water jet cutting the steel knife body
(Above): The aftermath of the water jet cutting of the steel knife body (left-side angle)
A belt grinder was used to remove any rust or discoloration on the steel body following the water jet cutting, both 40 and 120-grit sanding belts were used on the outermost edges and on both sides of the knife body.
Following this, Joey was ready for one of the most critical parts of the knife-building process, which is sharpening. To begin, he "scored" or carved out a groove in the bottom-middle flat of the knife using a 1/8" drill bit. He set the knife steel body on a flat surface and carved his centerline. The centerline guides where the right and left edges of the body must meet while sharpening up to a point at the front of the knife.
While sharpening his knife, Joey made sure to frequently soak his in-jig knife in water to help prevent the formation of discolorations. This occurs when heat builds up from the friction of the sanding belt and knife steel. IT IS HIGHLY SUGGESTED THAT THE KNIFE BE COOLED WHILE SHARPENING.
(Above): The 1000/6000 grit sharpening brick that is used to sharpen the knife
This sharpening brick was soaked in water for 10 minutes to allow for simultaneous cooling of the knife blade while sharpening it, then the blade made several back-and-forth 20-degree scrapes down the brick for 5 minutes on the 1000-grit layer. Upon completing this sharpening interval for the knife blade, he then flipped the brick to the 6000-grit layer and scraped for 1 minute back-and-forth.
(Above): The Forest Fury Blade after sharpening
Joey had some discoloration after sharpening his knife on the belt grinder with the 120-grit sanding, so he removed his carbon fiber handles and re-sanded the discolored side in a gentle manner to remove the spots.
Joey's knife, the Forest Fury Blade, can be seen completed above and advertised below.
