Knife Swap Entry - Chip carving knife set.

All, I submit to you my entry for our LumberJock Knife Swap

It’s a set of chip carving knives made for LJ doubleG469

When I decided that I wanted to do chip carvers I sent a personal message to LJ member Brit (Andy). He is an amazing carver and I knew he would steer me in the right direction. Andy recommended that I check out Wayne Barton and Marty Leenhouts. He said these guys were making the finest chip carving knives on the market. Wayne makes the traditional Swiss knives – just 2, the cutting knife and the stab knife. Marty added a third that he calls a “modified” knife, which is a bit steeper. I took a few queues from each of these guys and also did a bit of my own thing.

Okay – to the construction.

The steel is 1/16” O1 tool steel. The scales are Claro Walnut that I received years ago from a very talented hand saw maker named and fellow LJer, Erik Florip. Pins are brass. It’s all glued up with System Three 88 structural epoxy. The finish is Gloss Arm-R- Seal Gloss and Howards Feed-N- Wax.

These are my first knives (other than a marking knife I made for another swap). I watched a lot of Walter Sorrels YouTube videos on how to make knives. That guy is awesome and very informative.

I made a total of six knives, 2 of each. I kept the lesser. I started off by making paper templates that I glued to the steel.

Using an angle grinder and Dremel cut off wheel to cut out the rough blanks. Then used the bench grinder and belt sander to clean up.

Once they were close to the same shape I ganged them up and drilled the pin holes. At which point I could place the brass pins through all of them and filed them down together to their final shape.

From there I did the majority of the blades’ tapers – this was mostly down with files.
I used my coffee can forge to harden and the kitchen oven to anneal.

After the heat treating I needed to slightly reflatten them with sandpaper on a layout block.

I knew sharpening was going to be the biggest hurdle for me on this project and boy was it ever. I tried my makeshiftwannabe WorkSharp, I tried a modified Lansky system, I tried freehanding. I just couldn’t get it right. I got it close, but not good enough. In the end, Allen (LJ Bobasaurus) came to my rescue with his blacksmithing knife sharpening system on a bench grinder. It’s awesome, and now those puppies are sharp and should be easy to touch up in the future.

The Cutting and Modified knives have about a 10-degree bevel on each side for a 20-degree edge, and the Stab has a 30ish degree on each side for a 60-degree edge.

With the metalworking out of the way, wood was traced and cut out slightly oversized on the bandsaw. Then it was epoxied and pinned. Once that was cured I used files and rasps to shape. Sanded to 220, and started the finishing. There are about 5 coats of Arm-R- Seal. Last coat was wet buffed up to 3200 grit and then waxed with Feed-N- Wax.

Lastly, I made a little pouch. I know myself and the poor job I do of storing blades, and since these will likely not be used daily I wanted to protect their edges. The thick leather was left over Veg Tan from the leather mallets I made for a previous swap, and the main body is Suede. This was my first real venture into leathercraft too, so we both got a pouch out of it, as my first try had more than a few trial and error moments. Dying the veg tan and stamping the sir name were the hardest parts.

Anyway – That’s the project. I enjoyed it.

-- I came - I sawed - I over-built