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Bolts, Pins and Fasteners

October 22, 2020 by Matt Selfe

There are many ways of securing the handle of your knife to the blade itself. Some like Corby pins provide a mechanical fit, others rely on the strength of the glue used to bond the handle to the tang of the knife with the pin providing anchor points. Some are plain, others go bling! Let us take a look at what options you have when choosing a custom knife.

Loveless Bolts

These bolts were designed and used by Bob Loveless on his knives and have proven to be a very popular choice with makers all over the world. These bolts give a mechanical fit by the bolt passing through the handle and then being screwed up tight.

A step drill is used when drilling the handle with the bolt passing through the small hole created in the handle and tang, and then the larger circular nut sitting in the larger step created.

Loveless bolts with a step drill

This means that when screwed together it pulls the handle securely to the tang of the knife. Used alongside a good quality epoxy glue this makes for a very secure handle.

Some makers and collectors however do not like using loveless fasteners due to the bird’s eye effect created when you sand the bolt flat. This is created when you expose a small area of thread between the nut and bolt which leaves a small semicircle on the pin.

Loveless bolt in a bushcraft knife handle

Loveless bolts are often used on Bushcraft knives and come in three different materials. Stainless steel, copper and brass. You can mix and match materials to give a different look such as a stainless steel bolt with a brass nut.

Loveless Bolts in different metals

Corby Pins

Corby pins, also known as Corby bolts or Bull bolts provide a mechanical fit in the same way as Loveless bolts, securely pulling your knife scales together. This time you have a male and a female bolt that screw together. Each side has a slot so you can tighten it with a screwdriver.

Corby bolts

Like loveless bolts, a step drill is used when drilling the handle materials.

Corby pin step drill

This time when sanding your knife scales the slot that you used to tighten is removed leaving what looks like a solid pin but has the benefits of the mechanical fit.

I favour Corby pins for all my kitchen knives for the solid construction they give, and the smart polished look they create when sanded flat.

Solid Pins

Solid pins do not provide a mechanical fit due to them being a uniform size, so when using them it is important to key them with sandpaper to create additional surface area for the glue to bond with. The benefit of solid pin stock is the sheer choice you have available. From the standard stainless steel, brass and copper you also have carbon fibre, micarta and resin pins. These can be made in a multitude of different colours and even made to glow in the dark!!

Different types of solid pin material

Mosaic Pins

Again this is a solid pin, so no mechanical fit. It starts as a tube, and different combinations of smaller pins are carefully placed within the tube. Once the desired pattern is achieved the tube is filled with a resin to create a solid pin. The resin is often dyed a nice bright colour.

A brass mosaic pin with blue infill

These pins add to the aesthetics of the knife if done well. As a maker check the placement when glueing up to ensure that all pins are sitting in the same orientation, rotating the pins to ensure that they all match. Pins that are set at different angles to me looks horrible. As a buyer, make sure that the maker has taken the time to do this as it shows good attention to detail.

Want something else to read? Why not check out the 5 cheap workshop tools I wouldn’t be without!

Filed Under: How to make knives Tagged With: knife hardware

5 Simple Workshop Tools I wouldn’t be without

October 20, 2020 by Matt Selfe

This is a brief guide to the top 5 simple tools used in my knife making workshop.

Digital Calipers

I cannot count how many times a day I use these. From checking the thickness of pin stock and drill bits. You do not want to drill your holes too big or small for your desired pin material. I check and re-check again before drilling any holes

Digital calipers

I also use them to check the thickness of blade stock. It isn’t always quite the same thickness as listed on the packaging!

I use them to check handle material. When glueing up my G10 liners I have to make sure that the scale material is flat. However, you also need to ensure that it is level to ensure straight holes when drilling. This isn’t normally a problem with man-made materials such as micarta and G10, but when you have ripped a set of scales off of a gnarly piece of wood you need to ensure that it is flat and level, so out come the callipers.

Using calipers to check the thickness of a wood block

Height Scribe

Does what it says on the tin. I always scribe guidelines on what will be the cutting edge of my blades. This gives me something to aim for when removing the steel and creating the bevels. The scribe I use is made by a great UK maker called Mike Palmer. He makes all manner of useful things for the knife maker, a real asset to the UK knife maker community, and makes a variety of workshop tools.

Centre scribe tool

Thin Tip Permanent Marker

Such a useful tool in the workshop. I draw around my blade on the scale material so I know where I can cut off the excess. I mark how I want the front of the scales to look.

When making friction folders I can mark the small area where I need to remove tiny amounts of steel to ensure that the blade opens and closes in the correct position.

I use it to draw a guide as to where I want to place my makers mark logo on the blade.

I also use it to write what steel each blade is after cutting out and after heat treatment. This way I always know what steel I am using for each build. Also, any steel that is leftover and goes back onto the shelf gets its name written on it.

Knife blanks with their steel type written on them

Clamps

No matter how many clamps I have, it is never enough. I have over 20 spring hand clamps that I use for gluing G10 liners to handle materials. They are also used in the final glue up of the handles to the knives.

Clamps used for knife making

I have screw G clamps that I use to clamp knives in the glue up. They are also used to secure my portaband metal band saw to my workbench.

Portaband saw clamped to workbench

I use speed clamps for my Kydex press. When making Kydex sheaths you need to clamp your press quickly whilst the Kydex is still hot and malleable. These pump clamps have proven to be invaluable as a custom Kydex sheath maker.

Cotton Buds

Can cotton buds be classed as workshop tools? Well in the way I use them I think they are. They are great for cleaning up the front of the scales when you glue the knife up.

Using a cotton bud to clean up glue on a knife

They are also great for cleaning up lanyard tubes from the dust and detritus that gets stuck in them.

They are also used for electro etching my logo. I made myself an electro etcher for saltwater etching blades, and it is the cotton bud that I dip into the saltwater when etching.

Using a cotton bud to etch my makers mark

See just how useful they are, I always have a tub of them in the workshop.

Want to have a go at making your own knife? Why not read this blog post?

Filed Under: How to make knives Tagged With: workshop tools

What is a Friction Folder?

October 8, 2020 by Matt Selfe

Are you asking yourself what is a friction folder knife? Or how does a friction folder knife work? Then you have come to the right place.

A friction folder is a non-locking folding knife that is held open or closed by friction alone. This is the reason that UK friction folders are so popular due to our restrictive knife laws. In the UK you can only carry without reason a knife that has a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less. This blade must also be non-locking making the friction folder an ideal candidate for a UK legal pocket knife.

The other knife you may like to consider would be a slip joint. These knives use a compression back spring to hold the blade in the open and closed position but never locks, so again as long as the blade is 3″ or less in length this makes it EDC (Everyday Carry) friendly.

A friction folder has an exposed tang when closed. It is this tang that provides friction against the handle when the blade is in the open position. Many friction folders have longer tangs to aid security when the blade is in the open position. Some even have a bottle opener built into the tang, but I don’t think you should be opening a beer with a knife, I think you should be opening it with a bottle opener.

My standard friction folder

This is my standard model friction folder with the blade partially open showing the tang of the knife.

Goliath Friction Folder

This large friction folder is my Goliath model. A chunky design, but still with an EDC legal blade

The spine of a Goliath friction folder showing the bright back spacer

And this shot shows the tang secured in the handle when the blade is in the open position.

The friction folder mechanism consists of a pivot on which the blade rotates upon. Next to this is a stop pin. The blade is then carefully shaped to stop the blade in exactly the correct position in both the open and closed position

This isn’t a heavy-duty or heavy use knife. They excel at light cutting duties. They are the perfect pocket knife making light work of opening boxes, cutting string and packaging materials or prepping your lunch on a picnic. They won’t excel at batoning wood or any jobs where you want a secure blade with the knife only being held open or closed due to friction.

What is quite amazing though is that the first-ever folding knife was a Roman Friction Folder made around 500 BC!

I love making these knives. Not only are they fun to make they allow everyday people to legally carry a knife for the day to day tasks needed without worry. With the vast range of handle material at my disposal, I have made some truly beautiful and unique knives.

I often have a friction folder for sale on my Available Knives page, and you can learn about the models I offer here.

If you would like a custom friction folder head over to my contact page where we can discuss your requirements.

Filed Under: Knife Information Tagged With: Friction folder

How to make your first knife Part 3

October 5, 2020 by Matt Selfe

So now to shape your handle

This for me is the really fun part, this brings your knife to life. I now use my grinder to shape my handles to more or less their final size, and hand sand them to remove all scratches ensuring both sides are even. However, in the early days, I did this with rasps, files and sandpaper. The results can be the same, it just takes longer.

To do this you are going to need to clamp the knife by its blade to something to secure it. Before you clamp it, make sure to wrap the blade in layers of masking tape to protect the blade from being scratched. Then use something soft on either side of the blade and the clamp. This could be some leather from an old belt or some rubber matting for example.

Knife blade wrapped in masking tape
knife clamped between rubber in the vice

First remove the material from all around the tang of the knife, down to the metal. Go easy as you approach the tang, and in the final stages move to sandpaper rather than a rasp or file so you don’t get any deep scratches. Once you have this shape you can begin to visualise how your knife will look. Do you want a handle that is of the same profile the whole length of the handle? Do you want the coke bottle profile? Do you want a flared butt such as that of a parang? Have this picture in your mind before you start.

Go slowly with your rasps removing material from both sides. From time to time take your knife out of the clamp and test it in your hands to see how it is beginning to feel. Once the bulk of the material has been removed move to a finer cut file to remove the deep scratches. From this move to sandpaper. Cut strips no more than an inch wide and hold each end of the strip pulling this back and forth over the length of the handle to remove the previous grit scratch pattern. I would recommend starting at 120g, then 240g, 320g and then 400g. Sticking duck tape to the back of your sandpaper sheets before cutting your strips will also stop them from tearing when you are using them.

Sand paper with gaffa tape

Once you have finished it is time to add your final edge. Do this with bench stones, sandpaper clamped to a flat board or your favourite sharpening method. And finally, apply a coat of oil to the handle. This brings out the life of the materials you have used.

Make sure you use your knife, only through use will you find out what in your design is good, and what needs to change.

Filed Under: How to make knives Tagged With: knife making

How did I start making knives

September 23, 2020 by Matt Selfe

Two main factors contributed to me starting to make knives. The first is the need to occupy my spare time, I am terrible at being bored. In the past, this had been filled with playing in a band. However, after 10 years of sharing festival stages and sticky pub floors with other amazing bands I had hung up my guitars and mandolins leaving myself with a void to fill.

The second is The Only Way Is Essex. My wife had begun to watch this drivel, and my response on sitting through about 10 minutes of it was that if she was going to watch this crap I was going to buy myself a shed. The next week it was back on our telly, and before the end of the episode, I had bought a shed.

What tools did I start with?

I was lucky enough to pick up a multitools grinder in a group buy on the long-extinct British Blades forum. This attached to a bench motor and took 2×36” belts. I had picked up a 1/4hp bench grinder at a boot fair so that was my grinder sorted.

I bought a large sheet of O1 tool steel. Too large in fact, as it made cutting out knife blanks with a hacksaw hard work. I would recommend buying bar stock as close to the height of the blades you want to make when starting as there is a lot less cutting to do. An angle grinder would have made this easier, but at the time I only had a hacksaw.

I had access to a pillar drill at my dad’s house. I did have a hand drill, but I struggled to drill straight holes through my handle material so would often drive to my dad’s to use his drill. I think he got fed up seeing me though, as he bought me a pillar drill for Christmas that year!

I built a forge to heat treat my blades. I cut off the top of an old gas bottle and used this to hold the charcoal. I then attached a hairdryer (again picked up at a boot fair) to a pipe to blow air up through the coals. This was not a great success as it made the centre of the forge very hot to the point that it melted one of the blades I put in! I found that blowing the hairdryer on top of the charcoal in a circular motion worked much better.

My home built forge

Handle materials were bought from eBay, I bought pre-cut scales as I did not have access to a band saw and knew I would not be able to cut straight enough with a hand saw. I also bought vulcanised fibre for liners, although I do not use this material anymore as it is prone to movement.

So what did I make?

At the time I was heavily into Bushcraft, so you can guess what I made. I drew influence from two Bushcraft style knives. The Nessmuk and the Woodlore. Neither were straight out copies, but I wanted to try making knives that I knew worked before I started designing my style of knives.

They were rough and full of mistakes but every one of them was a lesson that I could learn from. My bevels were not even, one side was flat and the other side convex so I had to work out what I was doing differently when grinding each side of the blade and adjust my posture to change the outcome. The pin placement and lanyard hole were not to my liking, so I was able to change this. With each knife, I learnt to shape the handle in different ways that made it more ergonomic to hold.

My first knife blades
My first completed knives

To say I was hooked would be an understatement. You don’t need much to start making knives, and we will cover that in the next article…

To see pictures of more recent knives follow me on Instagram

Filed Under: Knife News Tagged With: knife making

How to make your first knife Part 1

September 23, 2020 by Matt Selfe

Knifemaking is a great hobby and doesn’t need to be too expensive either. I have seen some fabulous knives made with only hand tools. There are a few things that will make your life easier in the early days, but rest assured that if you do get bitten by the knife making bug you will want to expand the tools in your workshop.

If you have ever questioned how to make a knife then this three-part blog will show you how to start knife making using only hand tools and elbow grease.

So if you want to make a chef knife, a bushcraft knife or a utility knife then this blog should help you get started.

So what tools do I need?

Let us start simple, with a pen and paper. When drawing out my final designs I tend to move to pen and card, or more specifically a cereal box. Having a stiff template makes transferring to steel much easier than plain paper.

I would suggest for your first knives that you don’t go too crazy with your designs. Look at the knives you enjoy using the most, both in blade style and also in the handle shape and ergonomics. Use this to form a basis for your design, but don’t just copy someone else’s pattern unless you have asked and gained permission, or they have made it freely available.

Paper template of a knife

So you are going to need some steel to transfer your design onto. I have read lots of people suggesting that you practice on mild or scrap steel when you start. How annoyed would you be though if you made a half-decent knife and couldn’t then harden it? Good steel is not that expensive, you can buy a bar of O1 tool steel or 10 series steel for only a few pounds. This way if you do make something you are happy with at least you can continue your journey rather than having to start again with some decent steel at a later date. I buy all my steel from Ground Flat Stock. They have a great range of knife making steels and would be more than happy to assist you in choosing what steel is best for your knife.

When your steel arrives you need to mark your pattern. These days I use Dykem but when starting out I used to colour in the steel with a Sharpie.

Colouring in the steel with a sharpie pen

Lay your cardboard template onto the steel, and then scribe around it. If you don’t have a scribe pen you can use a nail, a Stanley blade or anything else that will mark your outline. Buy your steel in width that best suits the size of your knife and then lay the spine or the edge of the knife along the edge of the bar to minimise what you have to cut.

Scribing around the template

For this, you will need to either have a hacksaw or an angle grinder. If you use an angle grinder please be careful, they are scary machines and must be treated with respect. It is also important that you wear suitable protective equipment, I recommend a PPE3 face mask and eye protection.

Now you need to profile your knife. If you have access to a belt sander you can move to this. If not you can do this stage with hand files. A bench vice will make this easier as you can clamp your blank between its jaws, if not find a way to secure it to your workbench. Then using the hand files remove the metal up to your scribe lines.

Filing the profile of your knife

With your knife profiled you need to work out your pin placement. It is a good idea to now revert to your paper template and draw where you want the front of your handle to start. Once you have this in place you can work out where you want to put your pins. I don’t like pins very close to the front of the handle, I think it looks ugly. You do not want them too far back either as that front pin aids in securing the handle material to the tang of your knife. Transpose your pin placement to your knife blank and mark where you want to drill with a centre punch.

Working out pin placement

Here a set of callipers comes in handy to check the diameter of your pins and your drill bits. After you have drilled your holes make sure that the pins fit snugly, if you cannot get them through before hardening the blade you will struggle afterwards.

To drill your holes it is really useful to have a pillar drill as this will enable you to drill straight holes. If you only have a hand drill go slowly and try to maintain the drill in an upright position.

Next, countersink your pinholes. By this, you are chamfering the hole which will greatly reduce stress on the blade when it is hardened. You can do this with a dedicated chamfer, or a much larger drill bit. You just need to remove a really small portion of steel, to break the edge.

Countersinking your holes

So now you need to start adding your bevels. However, before we start moving steel we need to set ourselves some guidelines to work against. We shall start on what will become the edge. Grab that sharpie you had earlier and colour the edge in. A good rule of thumb when removing steel before hardening the blade is to leave at least 1mm of thickness at the edge of the blade. So we need to mark lines along the edge that allow us to work towards that edge. An easy way to do this is with a drill bit. If your steel is 4mm thick you want to remove 3mm of steel (1.5mm on each side) to leave that final 1mm thick edge. Se we want to mark a line 1.5mm up each side. To do this get a 3mm drill bit, the point of this drill be will be central to the drill at a height of 1.5mm. Now lay your blade on a flat surface. A granite chopping board is great for this, and then with the drill bit also flat on the plate scribe along the blade. Do this a few times, flip the blade over and scribe again. You will now have 2 lines to aim for that will leave you with a 1mm thick edge.

Using a drill bit to scribe lines
Centre lines scribed

Now you need to begin removing steel again, this time in the shape of your bevels. If you have a belt sander you can use this, but again it can be done with hand files. There are some wonderful hand filing jigs people have made if you fancy going this route or you can go slow and steady yourself. Maintain a set angle and work towards your scribed lines. Work on each side, and keep examining to keep each side as symmetrical as possible.

Filing the bevels on the knife

When you have got your bevels looking good on each side of the blade, and down to that 1mm line you want to look at tidying up the flats. I swear by Rhynowet sandpaper to remove scratches from steel. You want to get it nice and tidy before hardening, as any deep scratches are much easier to remove when the steel is in its annealed state. I would recommend sanding the flats to a minimum of 220g before hardening and making sure that you have removed all scratches.

When it comes to blade hardening, instructions on how to do this will be available from your steel supplier. For O1 tool steel, you need to be able to get your steel to 800oC, or non-magnetic. You can do this by digging a pit in the garden, filling it with lump wood charcoal and blowing air into it from a hairdryer. You can also send your knife off to someone to harden and temper it for you. Shing, maker of wonderful folding knives offers this service.

So when the blade has been hardened and tempered you will need to take that edge thickness down to your final geometry. You will find that the hand files that you used earlier now don’t bite into the steel they instead skate over it. You will now need to use either abrasive stones or lower grit sandpaper. Again for the paper, I would recommend Rhynowet which you can then wrap around your file, or a flat piece of steel to begin removing the material. Be prepared for many hours of work, it is a slow process removing hardened steel but it will be worth it.

Again, pay attention to the flats of the steel, and before you put that final edge on it make sure you have sanded the flats up to 400g.

Read Part 2 Here

Filed Under: How to make knives Tagged With: knife making

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